To continue writing as much as I have until now, I ask for your support. Even tweeting about it helps.
Become my Patron on Pa treon dot com/Kuugenthefox
There are perks and you might even get me to continue writing a discontinued fic!
Disclaimer: You donate for me to have time, not directly for fanfics but I use my time for fanfics.
Dissonance
Event XXIV
Fancy Business
Ellen was a nervous wreck when she was released from exile, stuttering inane and ineligible things. Setsuna had been there when she came out, having waited for hours. The blue Cure reacted to her presence with nothing but immense fright and fear, backing off into a corner, yelling, screaming and crying.
But that didn't faze Setsuna at all. Grabbing her partner, hugging her until she calmed down, she then took her back to their shared room. The lingering effects were just as bad as before but, thankfully, they seemed to wear off faster now. Whether that was due to Ellen having been subject to the exile horrors once before already or not, she couldn't say.
"You're safe now, Ellen." The words had an almost magical effect on the purple haired girl. Setsuna couldn't tell if she simply recognized her voice or actually understood her, yet, the girl held on to her as tightly as she could, no longer crying or shaking. Come morning, Setsuna was sure she would recover.
The morning however, was so incredibly different from what Setsuna had expected. Entering the dinning hall, she was greeted by many a Cure that was but sitting there as civilian, wearing brand new clothing, happily chatting about her own and the clothes of others. Waking up early that morning, Ellen had felt quite a bit better thanks to Setsuna staying with her all night. Enjoying just laying there in Setsuna's arms, she was back to sleep within minutes. And Setsuna saw no reason to wake her until quite a bit later.
"Morning, Passion." Hibiki completely walked past the red Cure in an orange jump suit, completely nonchalant about it. Several Cures were in their civilian forms all of a sudden. The main issue of why everyone stuck to their Cure outfit was that their normal clothes had long since been ruined or dirtied beyond being able to walk around in them.
"Did you trade in favor for these?" Following Hibiki, who was walking straight towards Sunshine, who also wore a new jump suit, yellow with black stripes. "Did everyone just decide to get some new clothes with the new system?"
"We found a better way to get our hands on them. Erika opened up shop. She makes clothes for a living, it's cheaper for her to get the materials and turn them into clothes than for us to get them directly for favor. It feels so good to actually walk around normally. I was getting a little tired of the pink hair."
"A shop? So you pay with favor?" Setsuna didn't dislike the idea of being able to walk around normally at all. She only hoped it wouldn't be too pricey. She wasn't among those with multiple hundred favor.
"I wonder if we shouldn't call it something else. It's a bit silly to just call it that at this stage." Having reached the place where Itsuki sat, vanquishing the breakfast that Rhythm and, after much begging and whining of Rhythm's, Rouge had prepared, Hibiki bowed down and kissed her partner on the cheek. "You're gonna get fat."
"And I still won't be as heavy as you." Quickly dodging the attack of her lover by lowering her head, Itsuki laughed briefly and then turning to Setsuna. "Morning, Passion." Dodging a second attack, Itsuki shot a warning look. "Save your energy. I haven't gotten a real workout as normal human in a while. I'm gonna drive you like an animal after breakfast."
"You're on! If you can't beat me after talking like that, you're buying me a second outfit." Hibiki wasn't exactly well off, having not fought under the new system yet. Not that Itsuki was loaded but after talking big like that, she deserved some potential punishment.
"No way that'll happen. Did you forget who of us is always about to faint after sex? It surely isn't m-" Breaking off her sentence midway, she dodged another lightning fast slap from Hibiki, grabbing her arm and kissing her hand. "You still need to train some to have a chance of hitting me."
"I sure had no trouble hitting on you..." More whispering to herself than actually responding, Hibiki blushed a little. Remembering Setsuna, she turned around and found the red Cure to be missing. Looking around briefly, she found her talking to Aqua, who was wearing a light blue summer dress. "I wish I had some kind of skill I could profit from."
"No selling yourself to anyone but me. I got a long time lease on your body." Itsuki joked again and let herself purposely get hit, laughing as Hibiki started to pout.
Learning that Marine had created a small room on level two, right above the hall that connected the hallway on level one with the dinning hall and the stairs that led to the dome, Setsuna planned to pay her a visit later. Not right then because the blue Cure had just entered the room, wearing one of her favorite outfits, a white multilayer skirt and a turquoise top, a yellow ribbon printed on front.
From the looks of it, she was more than just a little tired out. Just as she sat down, she exhaled deeply and her head hit the table. Yayoi, who was still in her Cure outfit and sitting right next to Erika, was poking her cheek a few times before she got an annoyed moan out of her friend. Nao was quick to put a hold to that. "Leave her. She looks like she was up all night."
"Pin pon, correct." Erika slightly raised her head and looked at Yayoi who only now realized the big black bags under Erika's eyes. "Not having Tsubomi help me... really tires me out..."
Yayoi caught on right away, got a little closer and whispered. "Eye candy while working?"
Just showing a thumbs up to her friend, Erika grinned and put her head back on the table, just exhausted. "Gimme half an hour..."
"Why did you even come down when you're this tir-" The loud growl of Erika's stomach made abundantly clear why. Taking her own breakfast, which she had barely touched yet, and shoving it over to Erika, the mangaka stood up and headed to the kitchen to get herself a new set.
"Tsubomi... feed me..." Nagging at thin air, Erika sighed when she remembered that her partner wasn't around. Grabbing the toast with egg on it and shoving it into her mouth, all at once, Erika didn't even think about where the food had come from.
"It was a really good idea to open up a shop. I can't even imagine walking around as Cure for weeks non-stop." Nao remembered how very uncomfortable she had been in there, being as tall as she was she had towered over everyone else. And thanks to the limited space, it had been cramped as is, without there being five or six people in there at once.
Her mouth so full with food that it was hard to say if she was actually using words or just gesture noises at all, Erika blurted out a few things about her shop, oblivious that nobody in the universe excluding Tsubomi would have been able to understand her right there.
"It's a pity that the other team can't visit your shop. Reika probably has no issues being Beauty all the time but I can see Akane having some difficulties..."
Feeling a bit better, now that she had eaten, Erika leaned back into her chair, still tired out from pulling an all-night working session. The last time she had done that was when Tsubomi had fallen ill and she had been on her own all of a sudden. "I'll make clothes on demand as well, so if you want something specific, just tell me. There's nothing I can't make!" Erika was more than just confident in her abilities as a designer.
"A spacesuit!" Yayoi had returned to the table, carrying a new tray loaded with food.
"Y-Yeah! I could do even that." Hoping that nobody would ever get the insane idea of ordering one, Erika wasn't quite sure that a spacesuit still qualified as clothing to begin with.
"I think I'll focus on having at least underwear to change every day first." Nao was big on cleanliness. Even with two washing machines present now, something the team had quickly decided to buy after Erika had opened shop, she should own at least five or six sets. She couldn't throw all her favor out that quickly so she was thinking of volunteering for the battle later that day.
"I'm gonna sleep. I'll open the shop when I wake up, if anyone asks." Just closing her eyes right there on the spot, she couldn't see the confused looks of Yayoi and Nao.
"Nao, can you get her to her room?" Yayoi wasn't going to abandon her breakfast a second time. Even when she was under stress for a deadline, she never went a day without eating at least something before work.
Quickly emptying the rest of coffee in her cup, Nao grabbed her tray and stood up. "Let me put this away." Walking past Erika, she realized the girl was already sound asleep. In a chair. Right in the middle of the noisy dinning hall. "Her sleep I want to have." Nao had a light sleep, waking up every time Reika stayed over at her place and accidentally took control of the blanket, leaving her a bit cold.
The sight of Nao carrying Erika was, at the very least in Yayoi's eyes, more than hilarious. The height difference made them look like older and younger sister at best, mother and child at worst. Nao herself was quite aware of that as well, hurrying out of the room before anyone else caught on to why Yayoi was about to roll under the table from laughing too hard.
"It feels so good to be actually out of Cure form after all that." Nagisa was relaxing in her seat, feeling quite full. Three empty trays were stacked to her right, next to two more empty ones that belonged to Saki, who was sitting next to her, both of them sporting jump suits they had bought earlier that morning. "I'm sure Honoka would scold me if she knew that this is the first thing I bought."
"Doesn't anyone else feel uncomfortable that Marine just happened to have bra sizes fitting everyone?" Saki surely didn't mind having some actual underwear on for a change and being in civilian form without being butt naked was quite the comfortable treat now.
"She was pretty fixated on the sizes of everyone when I first ran into her on our first day here." Nagisa remembered that because it had been a pretty odd experience. "And to be honest, I don't mind. It's just clothes. You're so cute when you're embarrassed, Saki."
"You're creepy when you talk like that." Looking down on herself, Saki was a bit annoyed that they ended up going with a partner look. There were only three kinds of jump suits, black, orange and yellow, as if she had been forgotten.
"Are you good for getting a real work out? It's not as fun when we're Cures because... well." Nagisa didn't feel like explaining the obvious.
"You're going to die, Nagisa." Stretching her arms up in the air, Saki taunted her friend a little. "Did you forget what sort of training I've been doing prior to coming here?"
"It's been two weeks without that. And I don't lazy around as couch potato either. Honoka would have my hide if I did."
Saki's smirk grew wider and wider. "Loser buys the other one some pants and a jacket." If Nagisa was that confident, she would surely take her bet on.
Nagisa didn't like to be taken lightly. "You'll regret that. I've been eying those black pants in the corner earlier. They looked pretty expensive."
"At least this gives everyone a place to spend their money. I'll just call 'em coins from now on, because still calling it favor sounds like we're retarded." Rin had listened in on their conversation, sitting to Nagisa's left, still in Cure form. She didn't have time to get to Erika's shop due to Kanade dragging her into the kitchen to make breakfast. Admirably though, the white Cure had managed to completely focus on work, without clinging to Rin at all. It was probably something missing from her everyday life, the working with food.
"You two are the top holders of fav-" Rudely interrupted by Rin saying 'coins', Nagisa realized that it was as good a name as any. "of coins. Happy? You should have enough to get several outfits. Just don't clear out the shop." Nagisa wasn't poor either but Rouge had twice her money right now.
Kanade, who had shown amazing restraint even after preparing breakfast, leaned against the table, looking past Rin, at Nagisa. "How much did you two pay for those?"
Saki answered instead of Nagisa. "Fifteen plus ten for underwear."
A smile quickly formed on Kanade's lips. Looking up at her partner, she didn't even have to ask. "I'll come with you. I'm sick of walking around like this, too. I don't think I'll really find something I want to buy, though."
Kanade realized that she had never seen Rin as normal civilian in any way except when they slept with each other and not even always then. Thinking about that, she didn't know much about her private life or past either. Starting to feel bad, of all people Sunshine showed up next to Bloom, Hibiki right behind her.
Their eyes met for just a second before Hibiki averted her eyes and ignored her former friend. Lowering her head and just staring at the table, Kanade felt Rin pat her head. "Stop moping."
"You two are going for a run after this, right?" Noticing their attire, Itsuki had put one and one together. "I was planning to get some exercise of my own, together with Hibiki. Mind if we join you two?"
Looking to her friend, Saki saw no reason to object. "The more the merrier. Right, Nagisa?"
"You're going to be so sorry after this, Saki." Nagisa didn't know if she should bring up the bet again, now that they had four people going. But Itsuki took care of that for her.
"We had a bet going that whoever scores last buys the other one an outfit. Since we're four, how about the last two pay the first two?" Itsuki hoped that Hibiki was up to the task. Black and Bloom were their seniors in a way and at least in a fight they would have been very hard pressed to win.
"Sounds good to me. I like getting presents." Trusting in her long and harsh training, Saki was sure she would be one of the winners.
=== Dissonance ===
The morning had brought good and bad news. The good news was that Marine had opened a clothing store on the other side, raising expectations to finally get out of Cure form for a while and walk around like normal people.
The bad news was not publicly known and only shared between Komachi, Urara, Honoka and Reika. There was definitely something lurking in or just outside the base. Falling out of bed had left Komachi confused whether she had dreamed it all up or not. But coming next morning that doubt was gone. Only noticing when she had sat down to comb her hair, there was part of it that was unnaturally cut off.
"So, something is out there. I'll say this now. If I find it, I'm going to bury it alive. After breaking all limbs it may or may not have." Urara was leaned against the wall at the back of the room. They had occupied the small hall that connected the hallway to the portals.
"You're getting more cranky every day." Honoka was slightly annoyed by Lemonade's worsening attitude. Not like any of them here was at fault that Muse was on the other side.
Stepping forward and blocking Urara's view of Honoka, Komachi directed the conversation back to the topic at hand. "Urara aside, I know I didn't just imagine whatever that was. The way it was breathing down my neck and how it cut my hair... I almost want to say it's not something human."
"Several of us have weapons that can cut hair. Pine, Rose and me, to give an example." Reika wasn't happy that she was suddenly becoming a prime suspect. Being one of the new arrivals and also one of those that had access to weapons, it would make a lot of sense to accuse her. "I'm unsure if anyone can confirm that I was present in my room the entire night."
"Nobody is saying you did it. Feeling guilty?" Urara was getting a harsh glare from Mint and turned away. "I can't be bothered theorizing about this. If you find whatever it is, give me a call and I take it apart. Into tiny little pieces." Walking away with a very sullen face, Urara almost ran over Egret, who didn't say anything after seeing the expression on the yellow Cure's face.
"What is with her? She's always been a bit bad but this is ridiculous." Honoka couldn't stand it when someone acted like that.
Komachi didn't know how much she should say. It was pretty common knowledge that Muse and Urara were together so, that much, she could explain. "She's probably missing Muse. They barely left each other's sight before this."
"So?" Honoka still didn't have a lot of sympathy for her. "Nagisa is on the other side as well. So are Saki and Karen. I don't see any of us making such a fuss."
"Could the unknown entity be a remnant from the incident you explained to me when we first met?" Reika tried to get them back to thinking about the important issue.
"The mirrors were all destroyed when Moonlight's exploded. And nobody has been behaving unusual." Honoka was grateful that that was over with.
Reika felt that she was on the right track, despite that. "Is there any possibility of one of the reflections having replaced their original, concealing their identity until now? What about reflections based on my team?"
"There were no mirrors for you girls so I doubt they even existed to begin with. And... Nightmare ate all of the reflections except Eclipse. That's why all the mirrors broke when the last reflection was killed." The more Reika questioned the events, the more Honoka started to doubt that her logic was really as absolute as she thought. Could there be a chance that a reflection had survived by taking the originals place? But which? Moonlight? According to Berry, she could not have attacked Blossom because she never left her sight. "The more I think about this the more I don't like it. If it's not a reflection, where did it come from?"
"Honoka, I just remembered something. Didn't we use the favor system a while ago to ask about things such as being able to evade the exile? It's a long shot but should we try to ask it about this?" Solving this issue was important. Komachi wouldn't admit it to anyone but Karen, but she was having trouble sleeping while something potentially dangerous was out there.
"It's worth a try." Materializing her bag, Honoka simply focused for a moment. There was no noticeable decrease in size but the sound of coins moving was briefly heard. "Is there a reflection remaining?"
The answer came in the form of small letters made of smoke, raising from Honoka's fingertips. The first answer was unsatisfactory. 'Yes and No'. "I'll rephrase. Does a reflection beside Eclipse have any remains in this space?" The next answer was much more helpful. 'No'. "It's kind of limiting that it only answers with yes or not."
"Try to ask for the identity of the entity that has been attacking Cures." Reika suggested a quick and easy solution to their problem. Following Reika's advice, Honoka got a most useless answer. 'Everyone'.
"Considering we are doing battle every day, this is true but... that is not what I wanted to know. What is the identity of the entity that is assaulting Cures outside of the scheduled battle parts?" The last question, as Honoka saw no reason to continue after getting yet another unsatisfactory answer, had the most confusing answer of them all. 'Everyone'.
Letting the bag vanish, Honoka sighed. "This is getting us nowhere. The system is too alien to properly answer questions like that. For all we know it could be seeing arguments and related things as assault. We'll be bankrupt before we find out this way." Twenty favor come and gone.
"There are several simple options to try and lure out the entity is causing this, but all of them might result in simply wasting our time. I have an idea that will help me discern the identity of the assailant, however, it will take some time to prepare." Reika didn't like that plan very much and she kept the details a secret on purpose, as everyone else would like it even less.
Honoka sighed again, "Fine," just before turning around and looking out into the hallway. "Just catch whatever is doing it. If its some kind of monster, we'll let Lemonade loose on it." Honoka didn't enjoy the thought of virtually executing some kind of being that might only be attacking them because of territorial instincts.
Their conference was rudely interrupted when Miyuki burst into the hall, looking for someone. "She's not here either... Reika, have you seen Nozomi?" Realizing just after she had asked that Reika likely didn't know their real names yet, she decided to clear that up. "I mean Cu-"
"I haven't seen Dream today yet." Reika had excellent memory. It was easy for her to memorize a few names.
Honoka simply shook her head when the pink Cure looked at her. Komachi was polite enough to give a response. "I haven't seen her either."
"That's odd... I searched the entire base, garden to dome and asked everyone. Nobody has seen her." Miyuki did not realize that her words rang a dozen alarm bells for the three other Cures in the room. "She is not in her room either. I wonder where she has gone?" Walking off with a disappointed face, Miyuki was met by Akane, who was assisting her in searching for Nozomi.
The question had become something else for the others. Not where had she gone. But what had taken her. They didn't need to say it out loud. "This is bad. If this thing is strong enough to abduct Dream then it's strong enough to take any of us." Komachi got unusually serious. Nozomi was still very strong, if not one of the strongest Cures even, so that left everyone on the base vulnerable.
"We should not jump to conclusions and make the assumption that she has been taken. The possibility that she went out into the labyrinth without anyone knowing exists as well. As well as the possibility that she is in the garden, hidden from Miyuki." Reika didn't like to assume the worst case scenario but she couldn't dismiss it at this point.
"Who was hit after Dream?" Honoka hadn't bothered to remember the exact chain of attacks.
Komachi was the first to answer and immediately take off. "Blossom."
=== Dissonance ===
"Why... you... monsters..." Nagisa was bend over debris, her sides, chest, stomach, legs and feet a world of pain. Right next to her was Hibiki, who could not even talk anymore, just laying flat on her back, sweating enough to have streams running down her face and neck. Both of them felt like they had just traversed a hell that should not be crossed by any sane person.
Itsuki sat next to Hibiki, impressed that she was still alive. "I warned you didn't I? But you did good keeping up until the end. An untrained person would have fainted halfway in."
"We worked them pretty hard. Fifteen kilometers jogging, parcours for another five kilometers, push-ups, sit-ups. I would have liked to do swimming, too, but we can't really do that here." Saki was sweating like an animal as well, every single centimeter of her body aching from the workout. She was the only one still standing.
"I'll ask Marine to just flood a big room for us next time." Itsuki had no doubt that the short girl would agree to do that. "But I never thought I'd come across someone who is so much fitter than me. I can't walk another step."
"Nagisa knew what she was in for and still challenged me." Saki walked over to her friend, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. "You did pretty good, Nagisa. A bit more and you could have beaten Itsuki."
"You two... aren't human..." Nagisa started to cough and sat back on the ground, desperately trying to swipe the sweat off her forehead, failing terribly. It was like trying to empty an ocean with a single bucket.
Stretching, Saki looked towards the hallway that led back to the base. "I really needed this. Was a lot of fun to not do it alone. Thanks for joining up." Getting only lukewarm reactions from the two beaten girls and a satisfied grin from Itsuki, Saki helped the yellow Cure up. "I don't think those two will make the trip back. Ready for the last part of our workout?" Grabbing and putting Nagisa on her back, Saki waited for Itsuki to get her partner.
"Seeing you makes me feel lazy." Itsuki trained quite a lot because of her job and yet she didn't hold a candle to Saki. The four had grown rather familiar with each other after going through exercise hell together. "Don't pass out now Hibiki. There's a shower waiting for us."
"You shower together?" Saki knew that those two were together but she didn't know them that well. Carrying a panting and sweaty Nagisa demanded that she distracted herself with something else.
Being of the same mindset as Saki in that very moment, Itsuki welcomed the conversation. "You're partners with Egret, right? You two don't?"
"When we're pressed for time, we do. But other than that, not really." Seeing Itsuki's smirk, Saki grinned. "I prefer the bed anyway."
Letting out a disappointed sigh, Itsuki missed her old room. "I need to get into a better room. The beds in the first floor room are really bad. It would hurt more than anything trying to fit two people in one of those." Returning to a smug grin, she watched Hibiki from the corner of her eyes. "And Hibiki would wake up everyone else."
"You're not any better." Her voice hoarse, Hibiki's response was too faint to be heard by Saki.
"You're from different teams, right? How does that work out for you?" Saki wanted to get away from the sex topic for now. It was a bit uncomfortable while she was carrying around Nagisa.
That was a topic Itsuki didn't like much. "You probably know about the issues between her and Rhythm. I really don't want to go into details about that. I guess my team really has no real issues with who I date. Tsubomi used to like me this way a few years ago but she seems really happy with Erika now. And Yuri... I don't know if she and Berry got something going on or not. She really deserves to have a bit happiness in her life."
"What about the others from her team?" Taking a corner and briefly unsure which way to go, Saki remembered a debris formation and took the right road.
"Beat and Muse? They're... weird, I guess? Beat is somehow part of the thing between Peach and Passion now and Muse... I don't even know."
"So what are you gonna do when we all get out of here?" Saki disregarded the possibility that they were not going to get out at all. A certain level of optimism was necessary in a place like that.
Itsuki's mood took a bit of a dive. "I don't really know. I can't move away because of my job and all of Hibiki's friends are where she lives. Long distance relationships never go well and..."
Feeling bad for making Itsuki think about depressing stuff, Saki quickly changed the topic. "We're almost back. I can't wait to hit the showers. And to get out of those shoes." Only some of them still owned the shoes they had worn when arriving. Those who didn't had to invest into regular shoes with favor. Of those four, only Nagisa and Hibiki still had theirs.
"It's pretty expensive to get new shoes. I paid fifteen for these and it's just regular sneakers. Living here is starting to be expensive..."
Both of them were ripped straight out of their conversation when something shook the ground strong enough to make them topple. "What the hell was that?" Putting Nagisa down, Saki jumped to her feet. Before she could even guess where it had come from, a second quake almost pulsed through the ground, forcing her to hold on to the wall. Turning to Cure form immediately, Saki feared that their break from horrible danger was already over.
"Itsuki, can you tell where it's coming from?" Looking around, Bloom found it odd that there were no explosions or sounds that generally came from a fight. The third quake followed right after she had finished that line of thought and she could see the direction the shock wave traveled. It was coming from somewhere down the hallway.
Itsuki, now transformed as well, went ahead, boasting higher speed than Bloom. Leaving Hibiki behind seemed a little risky, but they would be able to at least handle escaping on their own if something really attacked. Rushing into a large hall, Itsuki felt all of the wind taken right out of her sails.
"Once more!" A cutesy voice, belonging to a short Cure, was issuing a command.
An annoyed sigh followed. "How are you not yet satisfied?" Michiru, quite unable to comprehend logically how she had ended up helping out Marine and Peace. She was getting compensated for it, yes, but still, she should have inquired about the nature of the 'help' they had asked for. "This makes twenty-seven tries." The lack of foresight was really coming back to her now. She would have liked to blame it on Kaoru trying to go off on her own but that would've been irrational and childish. If she was irritated because Kaoru was pursuing her own agenda for now, then that was solely a personal problem. Then again, that very train of thought what was posed the big problem to them. Furthermore-
"Erika, ready?" Creating her sketchbook, Yayoi waited for Erika to copy her ability. "It's great that it copies it entirely, so I don't have to re-draw it constantly. Makes testing and adjustments much simpler. Thank you so much!"
Tipping the drawn shield with her finger, Erika showed a smug grin and only noticed Itsuki, who looked alarmed to say the least, after creating the Aegis twenty-eight time. "Hey, Itsuki! What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Shouting through the hall, both Peace and Bright noticed her now as well. Neither felt the need to say something but Yayoi at least waved.
Both Itsuki and Saki watched in amazement when a massive electrical shield became corporal in the middle of the room. "That made the shock waves?" Bloom felt a bit stupid now.
"I know what you mean..." Shaking her head, Sunshine turned around and back into a civilian. "Let's go. God knows I don't want to be pulled into whatever Erika is doing." Walking down the hallway, Itsuki feared that it might end in another exploded room or similar.
"Then, try again please, Bright." Having made adjustments to the shield again, Yayoi had, with a stroke of genius that had been supplied by Erika, found a way to make her battle armaments more permanent. Instead of drawing it on a single page and summoning it, she took out the page, traced the drawing and put the trace back in her sketchbook. But for that to be useful, she only wanted to use proven creations. The shield of everlasting protecting, Aegis, was first on her list. She really needed some way to protect herself.
Taking cover behind a massive piece of debris that had come from a large pillar, Erika and Yayoi had a blast playing and developing Yayoi's ability.
Taking a step forward, raising her first and collecting energy inside until her fist resembled a red glowing sphere, Michiru unleashed her most powerful punching attack against the slightly over two meter tall and wide shield. The impact didn't just shake the ground but seemingly also the air and everything inside the room. Withstanding the enormous power for a few seconds, reflecting pieces of the attack in random directions, the shield burst after a few seconds. Bright had been thrown through the air and flown upside down into a wall above one of the exists. "Are you satisfied now?" Michiru's tone was becoming audibly annoyed.
"I almost have it! I think maybe three or four more tries!" Yayoi was completely ruthless when it came to perfecting a drawing.
Erika, upon seeing Bright's annoyed face, laughed loudly enough to let even Saki and Itsuki far down the hallway hear her. "That laugh is the sign to get away, really far and very quickly. I wish she'd use her smarts for things other than to inconvenience other people." Having reached the point where they left behind their partners, Itsuki found Hibiki and Nagisa leaned against the wall and each other, yawning and looking half-dead. "I have returned, princess."
"Ye may escort me to my dwelling." Trying to look as snobbish as possible, Hibiki earned roaring laughter in return.
"Quarters, Hibiki, not dwelling. You're not a cave troll, are you?" Itsuki could barely contain herself and started laughing even harder when Hibiki blushed furiously upon realizing her mistake, immediately pouting. "I'll take my princess home then, Saki. You and Nagisa gonna be alright?" Picking up Hibiki, not without making a quiet remark about how her arms were already so very tired that she couldn't guarantee she'd be able to bear such a heavy burden all the way home, Itsuki watched Saki and Nagisa just wave, telling the lovebirds to leave.
After, in utter futility due to her lack of strength, worn out as she was, trying to punch Itsuki in the shoulder, Hibiki calmed down a little and got quiet. It took her a few minutes of being carried around until her embarrassment reached it's peak. "How long are you gonna carry me like this?" Her face was slightly red as she said it.
"All the way home. You may have said so jokingly and while I don't have the white horse and armor, I'm your dashing knight and you're my beloved princess." Able to say those things with a straight face was one of Itsuki's good points, at least in Hibiki's eyes.
"Wh... wha..." Stuttering in response, Hibiki hid her face. "Stupid. Moron. Doofus. Blockhead."
"A real princess would call me 'imbecile'."
"Imbecile." Hibiki repeated after her partner just before resting her head against Itsuki's shoulder, her face closely resembling a tomato.
=== Dissonance ===
"I can't believe you!" Rose was shouting at Dream, who had finally been found, completely unhurt. "And you, I thought you had searched the garden?!" Directing her annoyance at Miyuki, who was making a long face.
"Buuuuut, when I got up there, I looked around and I didn't see her!" Facing the ground, she conceded on maybe not being thorough enough. "Maybe I got a little distracted by the pond. But only maybe!"
"You two..." Honoka's face closely resembled that of an unspeakable terror. "Do you know how much trouble you have caused?"
For the past hour, the entire base had been in high alert, searching for Dream and Blossom, the latter being found very quickly inside her room, reading a book. Of all people, it was Urara who found the missing Cure, sound asleep among the branches of one of the trees. The explanation she had been given was that the weather in the garden had been great and she wanted a quick nap before going for breakfast.
Miyuki and Nozomi, clinging to each other in fear of whatever punishment White might be hiding, looked apologetic and quickly lowered their head. "Yes. We're very sorry." Speaking in unison, they could still feel the cold glares from several others.
"You will volunteer for the battle, won't you?" Honoka's voice left no doubt that they would face a horrible punishment if they tried to refuse. Quickly nodding, they felt miserable now. They both disliked fighting. "Good." Honoka walked away without another word, leaving not only the two punished Cures slightly afraid.
"I don't want to get on her bad side." Akane was wondering just what kind of hell awaited the person that really made her mad.
Urara, who stood right behind the red Cure, looked at Komachi, who was following after White. "If you think that was bad, you don't want to see Mint angry. She's a demon in disguise."
"White scares me more." Nozomi had never experienced an unforgiving glare like that. She knew that White wouldn't get violent or anything like that, but the way she talked when angry was so intimidating, she didn't dare to speak up.
"This brings us back to square one on who the mysterious assailant is." Honoka couldn't believe how paranoid she had become.
Komachi had caught up with White was now walking by her side. "Do we really have no choice but to wait?" She felt irritated. Of course she didn't want Dream to be hurt, but the lingering threat of something being out there wasn't good for her sanity.
"Dream. Then Blossom and you. I can't think of anything you three would have in common that would make you all a target." Putting her index finger to her forehead, she tried hard to think of something that would help track down the perpetrator. She stopped after noticing that Komachi was no longer by her side all of a sudden. "Komachi?"
Looking around, there was no sign of her. The hallway only offered doors to the low class rooms and facilities. And they had been right in the middle of it. "Mint!" Raising her voice, Honoka got no answer. A few seconds passed and someone peeked around the corner. It was Rose.
"Why are you shouting?" She had been on her way to the kitchen after visiting the garden with Hikari.
"Have you seen Mint? She was with me a second ago and now there is no trace of her." Unlike with Dream, she now had serious cause to be alarmed.
"I've just come down from upstairs, so I haven't seen anyone but Dream and Happy, sorry. I'll tell Komachi to go find you when I see her." Looking to the side, she said something in a normal voice and Honoka couldn't hear it. "I'll see you later!"
Honoka was confused. "What..." Looking around, she had trouble comprehending what was happening. People didn't just vanish into thin air. "What is going on in this place?"
Quickly checking the two bathrooms and making sure that the doors to the lower rooms were locked, she could count out Komachi just going into one of them. A feeling she didn't like was creeping up to her. Fear. Facing the reflections had been different. It was an enemy she could fight, she could see and logically explain. Patterns and reason, to a degree, were a given when dealing with them. They wanted something. But she couldn't explain this in any way or form. That scared her. The complete unknown.
Thinking about it and gradually becoming more and more nervous, she felt something hit the back of her head hard enough to make her vision go triple and blurry. Unable to even stand up, she went down, face forward falling to the ground. Catching a glimpse of whatever hit her from the corner of her eye, she could only tell that it was someone around her own height. Then it all went dark.
=== Dissonance ===
"You saw who go into the negotiation portal?" Miki had just come across Inori, who had happened to take a walk out of sheer boredom.
Inori took a step back. "Calm down Miki. How bad can it be?" And a second and third step upon seeing Miki's horrified face. "M... Miki? You're scaring me."
"That woman... she is evil. As evil as it gets while being a Cure. Her personality is like that of a dark lord!" Raising her hands to her head, Miki foresaw her own doom. She was one of the participants for the day's battle and Lemonade of all people was now handling the negotiation? She would go through hell. Absolute hell. Guaranteed. "I'm dead. Yuri and me are so dead. It'll be some hellish trial with depths of abominable evils lurking at every corner."
"You're exaggerating, Miki." Inori suddenly wasn't comfortable being next to Miki anymore. "She still has to deal with what the rules offer. There won't be anything like that."
"She'll make the worst of it." Miki was genuinely horrified of what she would have to face. Lemonade had always been someone who wasn't very nice and quick to be upset but it had gotten worse drastically since she'd been split from Muse. Earlier, when she had found Dream, she dragged the poor girl around like some kind of spider that took away it's prey.
"You'll be fine." Inori really hoped that those words would hold true.
Miki was not the only one that was in distress over Lemonade being at the negotiation. Kaoru was tough and capable of handling just about anyone, but the hostility that was virtually oozing from Lemonade was making her uncomfortable to say the least.
"Got something to say, huh?" Urara was completely out of order. Being apart from Ako after getting so used to having her with her had been much worse than she expected, and that only further pissed her off. Realizing that worsened her mood yet again. It was a downspiral of worsening moods. At the point she was at now, she was ready to hang someone up to dry just to vent some stress. "Sit that damn ass of yours down, so I can get this over with. Why the fuck did Komachi even ask me to do this? Fuck."
She had dealt with difficult people before but this wasn't so much dealing with one as avoiding her blowing up. She had barely sat down when Lemonade flung a set of locational data at her. "Go and pick one of the damn advantages since I took care of the location. Hurry it up, the air smells like cardboard in here."
Kaoru was quite capable of dealing with anyone in a logical and rational fashion. But that was completely useless if the person was not adhering to those things. And Lemonade certainly wasn't. "We will take condition twenty-nine then, Sturdy. Our team receives only half damage from everything."
"Why are you explaining it to me? Do I look like an idiot to you? Do I?" Urara's eyes were half-closed and fixated on Kaoru's neck, giving the blue haired Cure a very bad feeling. "This is a drag. I'll just pick something at random."
Kaoru reacted before she could think about what to say. The yellow Cure's behavior was annoying her now. "That is not how the-"
"I don't care! Not my fault the others fucked up and didn't send someone who isn't in a mood to burn down fucking Troy. Now get on with it." Scrolling through the list and picking out two random items, Urara got more annoyed, mostly with herself, and the situation with each passing second. The main issue was herself. She had so totally fallen for Ako and now it had already come back to bite her. When exactly had she become so attached? Hadn't she told herself not to rely on others like that ever again? But just thinking of pulling out made her feel like complete shit. There was no way she could go on normally if she tried to cut off her relationship with Ako. And that too added to her being annoyed. Why was she so scared of being attached? Because she had gotten hurt really badly once in the past? Because there were so many problems with dating her, none of which she really wanted to face?
As the blonde slammed her fist against the energy barrier that separated the two Cures, Kaoru instinctively backed up a few centimeters. "Fuck! What happened to making up my goddamn mind?!" Standing up and kicking the wall a few times, Urara only stopped when she was out of breath and immediate rage. "You. Go pick the rest of the options. I don't care. Just get something." Sitting down on the ground and leaning against the cold wall, Urara felt she literally had to cool her head. Losing her cool like that really wasn't like her.
Debating Lemonade's choices wasn't exactly an option at that point anymore. Kaoru looked at what she had picked and thankfully it was nothing too disastrous. Number eighteen and fifty-three, Magnetic Force Pull and Chaotic Intent, both conditions that promoted the use of close combat. The combatants were March, Melody, Michiru, Muse and Sunshine. The location would severely hinder Michiru because of her lack of speed so she had to do something about that. As far as she knew, at least three of those five were quite capable in close combat situations, making Lemonade's decisions not entirely bad ones. Looking over at the yellow Cure, she could see her gently banging her head against the wall, murmuring things to herself.
Looking at the console, Kaoru noticed something that Aqua had not mentioned. In the bottom left corner was a tiny red line that read 'Maximum Options Available' and had an equally tiny five after it. So there was a restriction to the sheer number of rules picked per fight? She found it odd that Aqua hadn't mentioned that.
Between the three rules, two of which Lemonade had set, she still had two to go. It was less a negotiation as simply avoiding catastrophic results at this point. With someone like that, negotiations had broken down before they had even started.
Considering what she knew about the people participating that day, she decided to pick one of the options that most drastically changed the flow of battle. There were several, late in the rule book, options that offered a complete physical transformation. She was intrigued by the options but didn't know the full effect of it as the description had been very brief and simple. Still, given the location Lemonade had picked, it was a reasonable decision.
Picking option seventy-six, Heaven and Hell Dive, she also took sixty-four, Century Negate, essentially giving everyone twice as much time to react. It was something she chose purely to aid her sister. As soon as she picked the fifth option, the screen changed and asked for confirmation. "You need to press the confirmation button."
Getting up with an annoyed groan, Urara pressed the button and quickly turned around. "Can I get the hell out of here now?"
Kaoru was no less annoyed but hid it well. Acting up now would only worsen the issue for the girls on the other side. Not saying anything, she felt like she had pretty much lost. Not only had the location been decided without her consent but two rules had been laid down as well, none of which she could argue due to the way the light team's negotiator acted. She had ended up with just two rules of her own choosing, beyond the advantage 'granted' to her by Lemonade. She hoped Lemonade would never hold negotiations ever again.
About to leave via the portal, Kaoru felt something threatening from the other side. Had Lemonade snapped now? But it was different from the pressure she had exerted earlier. It was more of an... evil presence. She could tell that much. By the time she decided to turn around, Lemonade was nowhere to be seen.
=== Dissonance ===
"...onoka... Honoka... okay... Honoka?" She could hear someone call her name but she couldn't put whose voice it was. Opening her eyes, the light of the room seemed as blindingly bright as the sun itself. Covering her eyes, she felt a big bump on her forehead. "How do you feel?" She could put the voice now. It was Mint.
"What's going on?" The last thing she remembered was something heavy hitting her on the back of her head. So why was a bump on her forehead? And why was Komachi with her? Hadn't she vanished without a trace?
"I don't know. You just fell down all of a sudden while we were walking. When I picked you up, you already had a big bump on your forehead. I got you to my room since I couldn't get in yours. How do you feel?" Komachi was worried. Hits to the head could be very dangerous and there was no explanation what had hit her to begin with.
"Like I ran into a wall. My head is on fire." What hurt more than the physical pain was her inability to even remotely explain what was happening. "So I just keeled over all of a sudden? I remember you vanishing, seeing Rose and then getting knocked out by something." It was the obvious conclusion that Rose knocked her out but she didn't want to accuse her before she had some kind of proof it really happened.
"You must have imagined that." Shaking her head, Komachi looked up. "I saw Kurumi and Luminous coming down from the garden just as I carried you up. Kurumi couldn't have been down there."
"It only gets more and more confusing. I think its safe to say that whatever hit you, also hit me just now.." Rubbing her forehead, she hoped the bump would go away before Nagisa came over to their team. She'd make a fuss.
"You've been unconscious for three hours, Honoka. Negotiations are already done. I asked Urara to stand in for me since she was the first one I saw after picking you up." Komachi stepped away from the bed and sat down on a chair, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Not exactly your best choice. But at least someone went. What time is it now?" Slowly getting up, Honoka felt exhausted for some reason. And she felt irritated, incredibly so even.
"The exchange runs are about to start. I don't want to be late so I'm going now. Can you stand?" Extending her hand to the white Cure, Komachi was hoping to finally see Karen again, not just through the barrier in the dome.
Getting up on her own, Honoka felt fine if irritated and a bit dizzy. And hungry. "I'm going to the kitchen to grab something to eat. I hope you make it to the other side. Nagisa is going to try and get over here."
Opening her door, Komachi waited for Honoka to go first. "You talked to her through the dome?" Following after the older Cure, Komachi closed the door and watched it lock itself.
Smiling briefly, Honoka dismissed that idea with a hand wave. "I don't need to. It's what she'd do in this situation. I've been with her every day for almost seven years. I know how she thinks."
"I wish Karen and I could understand each other that well." Passing the corner to the stairway, Komachi briefly thought she saw someone go up the stairs to the garden but when she turned around not seeing anyone.
"Give it some time. Nagisa is a bit simple minded, making it easy to figure her out." Reaching level two, Honoka branched off from Komachi, walking towards her own room. "Good luck in the race. I'm going to get something from my room."
"If I lose, I'll see you later." Going down to the first level, she could already see three others lined up for the exchange. Egret, Blossom, Lemonade and Pine. She could already feel her confidence wavering, since two of them used a combat style that focused a whole lot on speed alone.
Blossom was talking to Egret while Pine was stretching in a corner by herself. "Kind of like a sports festival, isn't it?" Lemonade was leaned against a wall, her expression telling everyone else to stay away from her.
"There is no penalty for not winning after all. I like this a lot more than the way it was before." Mai wasn't against some physical activity. She preferred jogging, unlike her partner, who was more into hardcore training.
Just as Komachi wanted to get ready, the gates opened, signaling the start of the exchange. Lemonade entered ahead of everyone else, Blossom and Egret were second to enter, followed by Mint and then Pine. The second they stepped through the gate, they could feel a massive storm blowing against them. It took all of them except Komachi several seconds to have their eyes adjust to the sheer force the wind was blowing at them.
When they finally saw where they were, the wind itself was no longer a surprise. A seemingly bottomless shaft, twenty meters of a perfect square and eight Cures in completely free fall. Nagisa, Saki and Kaoru were the participants from the dark team.
Assuming that the gateways were all the way at the distant bottom of the shaft, Komachi quickly realized the rules of this race. To get down the fastest was not the way to win. To get down first and still be able to move after the inevitable impact. Falling that far and at such a high speed wasn't going to be without danger even for physically strong Cures like Bloom or Black.
But she had an enormous advantage. The seven others watched in confusion when Mint rushed past them, head first into the depths, a full nosedive. The others realized a few seconds too late that she could simply barrier her fall out before the impact.
Inori was the first to get creative with the scenario and used her body to slowly fall towards the outer wall. Once close enough, she tried to align herself with the stony surface, with mediocre success. Getting repelled by the sheer speed she had, her third attempt finally succeeded. Losing a lot of time with her plan, she was now starting to catch up, running downwards on the completely vertical wall. It was just a matter of launching herself off the surface repeatedly to gradually diminish her speed before the end.
Urara had followed Komachi's move and had taken a straight nose dive down, knowing that no matter what, she could halt herself with her chains. Seeing that they were both participating, Mai and Saki got closer, plotting which of them would aim to win. Nagisa and Tsubomi lacked the necessary abilities to profit from the situation the same way Pine, Lemonade or Mint did. Kaoru stayed close to Mai and Saki, seeing that Pine had a high likelihood of winning thus not requiring her to try hard at all.
It wasn't until almost two full minutes had passed that the stage revealed it's real challenge. Mint was the furthest along and encountered the threat first. Pillars, debris and massive stone cubes were floating in seemingly zero gravity all over the shaft now. And with that, Black, Blossom and Bloom were back in the race. Where the others had to put effort into avoiding the debris carefully to avoid ending up as pancakes on their surface, Black and Bloom simply smashed through the first few with raw power, Blossom using their wind shadow to effortlessly take the shortcut they created.
Komachi reinforced her barrier and smashed right through a massive pillar, the impact flinging her through the shaft like the ball in a pinball machine. Lemonade was more skilled about it and used her chains like a pull rope, anchoring them further downwards and pull herself in that direction. But she lost time because of it. Pine had to jump walls, losing most of her acceleration, every time one of the stone cubes was in her way, unable to slice through something that big and heavy.
Egret was side by side with Blossom, the two of them following Black and Bloom, the only ones able to take the straight part down. "Blacklight Impale!" Nagisa emitted a physical version of Honoka's energy pierce attack, hitting the solid cube right in front of her, making it burst into thousand little fragments.
Despite the early advantages it was an extremely close race. Lemonade had already overtaken Mint and Pine had landed a lucky streak of no obstacles in her path, catching up to those two. Windy, having remained in the back even behind Blossom and Egret, was now putting effort in despite her early judgment. Racing past Black and effortlessly slicing through any and all debris, she focused solely on the path Pine was in.
Noticing that Kaoru was effectively boosting her and not trying to win herself, Inori sacrificed control for speed and accelerated to her top speed, rushing past Lemonade and Mint in an instant. But there was something she had not taken into account. Just as she passed another cube that was cleanly cut in half, she instantly realized that she was out of the race. The shaft had suddenly a solid, fence-like structure in it, splitting into four tunnels in the center. There was no way she would be able to properly aim for one of those at the speed she was going. Afraid that she would break every single bone in her body if she hit a solid wall at her speed, she instinctively turned around and launched a hand blade against Kaoru, who was now aware of the situation as well. Realizing that it was an attempt to get disqualified, she let the knife hit her shoulder. Pine vanished instantly in a blinding flash of light.
Komachi took the lower left tunnel with Urara following right after her, each tunnel another perfect square but only a tenth of the bigger shaft. Saki, followed by Mai, took the upper right tunnel, Nagisa, followed by Tsubomi the upper left. Kaoru, wounded, took the tunnel nobody else had taken and found herself immediately in absolute darkness. While the shaft had been magically lit and provided clear sight even dozens of meters away, the tunnels were as dark as the night.
"Mai?!" Shouting, a necessity due to the wind, Saki tried to make sure that her partner was still behind her. If it looked like they might both win, Saki would launch a weak attack against someone else or Mai herself if necessary.
"Here!" Answering from what seemed like miles away, the white Cure had trouble not hitting the walls. There was something wrong with the gravitation of the tunnel, seemingly pulling her into random directions every second.
Komachi and Urara had little trouble with that, the former wrapped into a skin-tight protective barrier, the latter wearing her chains as armor, providing indestructible protection. Hitting the wall with bare skin at their speeds would have taken skin and tissue off all the way to the bone.
"You okay?!" Despite being rivals in the race, Nagisa was still worried about Blossom. She was younger and shorter, making Nagisa worry.
"I'm fine!" The answer came from the space directly next to Nagisa. "I'm going on ahead!" Taking her chance to get past Black and hoping that the tunnels were the last part of the race, Tsubomi took a nosedive into the unknown, paying critical attention to how the wind behaved. Finally seeing the light of the exit, Tsubomi's race was met by an untimely end. Shooting out of the tunnels and right against a large part of debris, Tsubomi vanished in a flash of light a microsecond before she hit the wall.
Witnessing that, Nagisa was at least relieved that the system would warp them out just before they suffered damage. Smashing the debris and making it through it, she saw Windy quite a distance ahead, with Lemonade and Mint shooting out of their tunnel and catching up to her rapidly.
Kaoru noticed it first, because of the way the debris was floating around. They were still falling but the tunnels had simply reversed gravity at the end. Shooting past the debris she had already destroyed, Kaoru figured that the exit was also the entrance. What a mistake to not have looked behind herself at the start!
Just as she tried to accelerate, she saw something dangerous happen right above her. One of Lemonade's chains had destroyed debris instead of acting as a hold, catapulting the yellow cure full force against her teammate, both of them disappearing in a flash of light just a blink before hitting the outer wall of the shaft at the insane speed they were going at.
Having her attention focused on those two had become a fatal mistake for Kaoru. The destroyed debris had collided with a large pillar that was now on direct collision course with her. Slashing it in two, she used too much force, the wind slicer going completely through it and hitting Black. Enveloped in blinding light, both Black and Windy vanished on the spot. With only a second delay, not enough for Mai and Saki to comprehend what had happened, those last two vanished as well.
=== Dissonance ===
"Noooo! What a failure!" Saki was walking in circle, repeatedly flinging her arms in the air and loudly complaining. In the end, she and Mai had effectively simply swapped teams due to everyone else becoming disqualified. By process of elimination, they were the only valid participants left and thus taken as victor. "Why did everyone else get disqualified? Such misfortune!" Lamenting on and on, she was the laugh of the hour.
"You two... you were always a bit too quick with deciding things. You should have cleared which one of you switches teams." Honoka was fairly amused by what had happened. A little disappointed that Nagisa was still on the other side, too.
"Honoka, it's not funny! Nagisa talked me into participating! Just in case Mai didn't win! Ah, why did I listen to her?!" Komachi's halfhearted attempts to get Saki to cool down were all but futile since she couldn't help but smile and barely manage to hold in her laughter.
Inori was a bit disappointed but couldn't help but find it funny how things ended up. After hearing that people got warped out just short of turning into pancake she had felt very bad for Kaoru and went to the dome to apologize. While Kaoru didn't mind, she felt grateful for the apology. After some talking, she hit the topic of Lemonade and Inori explained that she was even worse now. Calling Muse to the dome and subsequently getting Lemonade there had been their shared plan.
The situation on the other team was much more lively and hilarious. Nagisa kept apologizing to Mai for talking Saki into participating and Mai kept telling her it was fine only to look slightly sullen right after, starting the cycle anew. The chaotic duo, Erika and Yayoi, had both started to roll on the floor, laughing so hard that they had to be carried off by Itsuki and Nao respectively. Hibiki, who stayed behind, had a very hard time not laughing as well.
"I'm really, really, really sorry!" Nagisa kept going on and on about it, unconsciously rubbing it further and further in Mai's face that the situation was even worse than before now. The very situation brought back the uncomfortable memories of that one-night switch they had involuntarily done. Nagisa felt double the guilt because of that.
"Okay, okay, give it a rest. It was funny for the first twenty minutes but it's seriously starting to be annoying." Rin had watched the scene with shrinking interest. She was lucky that Kanade had ended up on the same team right away or else she might be in the same boat as all those that essentially lost their chance for nothing.
"After today's battle, rooms will be shuffled, right?" Setsuna was sitting on the table together with Ellen, who was almost back to normal. Asking Setsuna with a bright red face to not let her go that night was the last thing that stuck with her from the exile. And Setsuna was happy to oblige. She was hoping that either of them would get a level three room so they could more easily sleep together.
"Last chance to rack up some coins. Not that I'd need it." Rin was pretty sure that she would make it into the top four. And that was all she needed. "I'll just get some more tomorrow. Gotta stay at the top."
Karen was quick to put a damper on Rin's ego. "Don't be so condescending, Rin. If the conditions are right, it's possible to score over two-hundred in one go. Don't whine if you end up with a middle class room." Sitting two seats down from Setsuna, Karen was enjoying a cup of tea.
"Yes, yes. Let me brag while I can, I worked for it. I got my ass busted pretty hard by Beauty for it." Rin got up and, to her surprise, Kanade did not follow her and continued to munch away on some cookies she had baked earlier. Rin was impressed she was able to focus on something else by now. Walking past Ellen, she stopped briefly. "If she asks, I'm in the garden. Just in case." Getting a quick nod from Ellen was all she needed.
"These are super good! Do you bake a lot, Rhythm?" Erika had popped up from below the table, having escaped Itsuki. Her shop was closed for the day but she saw some business opportunities with Bloom being around now.
"It's going to be my job. My parents own a bakery. I used to specialize in cupcakes but I branched out after I felt I had really done all I could with it for the time being." Kanade was happy that someone was talking to her despite the way she kept acting around Rin. It had cost her all of the restraint she could muster to let Rin walk away.
"Hibiki used to steal your cupcakes all the time, right?" Ellen hoped that some fond memories of Hibiki would help Kanade to cheer up.
"I'm amazed she didn't get fat." Looking at Hibiki from the corner of her eyes, Kanade showed a tiny smile. She always got so angry when Hibiki secretly stole freshly made cupcakes before she was finished with them. And it happened all the time, too!
Hibiki just turned her head away and was immediately hit on the head by Itsuki who had gotten back just in time to see Hibiki act like an ass. Leaning down and whispering to her partner, Itsuki was still in civilian form. "Don't be an idiot. I know she messed up but that's no way to act."
"I couldn't help it!" Getting slightly loud, Hibiki looked at Kanade. Itsuki was ready to punch her if she made a scene. "Always tempting me with the sweet and delicious stuff, I trained like mad to avoid getting round like a balloon!" Itsuki relaxed when she realized the first part had been directed at Kanade. Throwing herself on the table, Hibiki sighed. "Now I want a cupcake... ah, sod..."
Grabbing the dish with cookies on them, getting up and walking over to Hibiki, Kanade was nervous enough to collapse into herself any second. "It's not a cupcake but..."
Itsuki wanted them to make up. Not because she wanted Hibiki to regain any interest she may have had in Kanade romantically but because it was sad to see two long time friends become strangers like that. Watching Hibiki eye the dish and sigh again, she hoped for the best.
"There goes my plan of losing some weight by training with Itsuki." Grabbing the whole dish and virtually annihilating the contents, Hibiki leaned back and showed a satisfied grin the moment she was finished.
"This explains why you're so heavy." Teasing the girl right away, Itsuki had no idea what she was kicking loose.
Hibiki, ready to defend herself, opened her mouth in protest only to let out a loud burp. Covering her mouth with both hands and blushing fiercely, she looked at the rest of the table. It only took a few seconds before they all started laughing. "Itsuki, you idiot!" Running off with a head as red as a tomato, Hibiki would surely find a way to return the favor.
Karen had left her seat and was now standing next to Kanade. "Don't let you two end up like Komachi and me. Time lost can never gotten back." Even though Karen didn't regret dating Kurumi, she did regret having extremely little contact with Komachi, who had been her best friend even before her days as a Cure. Seeing a similar situation with Melody and Rhythm, she wanted to at least warn them about it.
"You like her." Erika stated the, for some of the girls present, obvious with such a smug grin that Kanade couldn't help but blush. "What about Rouge then? You have a thing for delinquents?"
"Don't call her that." Karen shot a scolding glare at Erika who immediately stood up and saluted.
"Yes, Ma'am!" Watching Karen react with rolling eyes, Erika snickered and returned to her civilian form, wearing a blue dress and black skirt, both of which she had remade from memory, some of her favorites. "Feels so much more relaxing like this. You bought a lot Rhythm, so why are you still sitting around like that?"
Getting back to her seat, Kanade looked a bit embarrassed. "I haven't changed yet. My stuff is still just on my bed." It reminded her that she needed to at least get a dresser eventually if she kept buying clothes.
Leaning back on her chair, Erika shrugged. "That's too bad. I haven't heard the conditions for the battle today yet. Anyone know?" She wasn't going to be in it, but she liked to be up to date on these things. "And Egret, if you want you can stop by at my shop while the others are duking it out."
Finally having shaken Nagisa off, Mai was well on her way to the kitchen to brew herself some coffee or tea, whatever was available. Maybe sit down in the garden as well and try to relax a little. The race had been quite thrilling. "You've opened a clothing shop, right? I'll see if I find you later."
"You're such a shrewd business woman, Marine." Kanade was slightly impressed. "I didn't catch all of it but I know at least the location rules for today's battle. Guts of the earth, raging fire and earthquakes. Sounds really dangerous."
"Sounds hot." Erika's instant response was met with an instant groan from almost everyone else. "Eh, what?" She completely feigned ignorance of making an awful pun.
Kanade saw Ako come into the room. Back home, it wasn't often that she saw Ako in her adult form simply because it could really end up complicated if the town's people recognized her. She often switched for when they were training their Cure powers though.
"Hey, Muse!" Erika found a new target.
Hearing Marine call out to her, Ako sighed. "Spare me. I've got a bad headache. I don't need you to make it worse." Returning from the dome, after talking some sense into Urara and realizing that her own mood wasn't exactly improving on a daily basis either, Ako just wanted to have some peace and quiet before the battle. And something to eat.
"Lovers quarrel? That's it, isn't it? Got into a fight with Lemonade?" Erika's impish face turned into a pain filled one when Ako hit on the head as she walked past. "So brutal..."
"You got what you deserved. Or maybe I should just tell Blossom tell about how much you tease people?" Ako knew that that was a very valid and real threat to Marine.
Swallowing hard and turning away, a single sweat drop on her forehead, the blue haired girl tried to play tough. "J-Just go ahead. I-I don't mind."
"Okay then." Walking away without another word, Ako was shortly afterward followed by Erika, who could be heard apologizing all the way from the kitchen. Tsubomi tended to pull on her ear when she teased people too much, and that was really not something she liked to have done to her.
While the two very different Cures were in the kitchen, Nao finally returned with Yayoi, the green Cure looking slightly worn out. In an attempt to get Yayoi to stay away from Black and Egret until they had calmed down, Nao had offered to let Yayoi sketch her. She should have known better.
"The battle hasn't started yet, March. Did something happen? You look a bit tired." Setsuna was a little curious why the green Cure was making such a long face.
"Curse Yayoi and her crazy poses. I let her sketch me and she wanted me to do some weird pose from something called Star Driver? I have no idea what that is but it was so.. exhausting to keep up."
"It's about the great quest of finding your parents and saving the world by a lone boy, who in the end is betrayed by his most trusted friend and then the final boss-" Yayoi was quickly stopped by Nao, who covered the mouth of the yellow Cure with both of her hands. Yayoi flailed a few times before she accepted her fate and stopped trying to explain the plot of Star Driver to a total anime newbie.
Most of the others laughed watching the scene unfold. "Marine and Peace are really of the same mold." Ellen smiled wide saying that, most of the others at the table giving approving nods.
=== Dissonance ===
"Where is Lemonade? And why haven't we been told anything?" Miki was more than just upset about the complete lack of information. "The battle is about to start!"
"Going in there unprepared would be the smaller evil, believe me." Inori was present despite not being one of the fighters. "I talked to Kaoru earlier. Lemonade is on the verge of going critical so it's best we leave her alone. The conditions of the fight are pretty bad." Giving them a quick run down of the rules applied to the battle, she earned groaning. Happy and Dream were both looking at each other awkwardly, not surprising.
"Try to avoid sticking together and avoid long range attacks whenever possible. It there is nobody around, you can go crazy wild, Rose." Yuri knew that beside herself, Rose was the one that would likely bring the greatest damage to the field. "I can't even begin to guess how this Dive thing will affect us."
"Good luck. Bring the win home." Inori took a step back, thinking that the gateway would open momentarily.
"Now that it's come to this..." Nozomi didn't find it easy to jump over her shadow. The incident with Nightmare was still gnawing at her but it was true that so far, she had only caused one catastrophe after another by trying to break them out or stop the fighting. The more she fought the system, the worse the result got. She was starting to see why the others accepted the situation as seemingly easily as they had. "Miyuki, you're good at locking down people, right?"
Nodding, Miyuki didn't quite know if that would really be all that useful. "Try to lock them in places where the rest of us can attack them. If you work with Rose or Moonlight, you should be able to get through this."
"Acting like a real leader for once." Kurumi grinned at Nozomi. "It's good to see you be more like back then again."
A quick sigh escaped Nozomi. "I still hate this situation we're in. But I don't want to be a burden to everyone." She conveniently kept it a secret that she had caused the reflection catastrophe. It wouldn't help anyone to start a blame game.
"Reminiscing is over, it's starting." Miki cracked with her knuckles, ready to blow off some steam for the first time in a while. The new battles were supposedly quite different from before and she was looking forward to the competition.
Miki and Yuri were the first to enter the room as soon as the gate opened. What awaited them on the other side was nothing short but the very picture of what they imagined hell would look like if it really existed. An enormous cavern system with magma streams spewing from walls and the ceiling, converging into a massive pool at the bottom, flowing into a waterfall that sunk into a hole of unfathomable depths.
Large parts of the cavern were naturally on fire. Flame carpets and walls. And just a few seconds in, the ground shook violently enough to make Miki topple over, large fragments of rock falling from the distant ceiling and plunging into the magma stream. The heat and the heavy air, filled with natural gases, made the environment much more toxic than anything they had ever seen.
Miki instinctively took a step back when a quake caused a several meters high magma eruption. "I'm so going to kick Lemonade's ass to kingdom come after this." Miki was pissed. And the rules had not affected her yet.
"Separate!" Yuri took charge immediately after snapping out of it. Jumping to the back, she felt her body react much slower than she was used to. It was as if everything ran in slow motion. The heat, the particles of the magma that flew through the air, the command her brain issued that her legs propel her backwards. That had to be the Century Negate rule Pine mentioned. It was a lot more intrusive than she had expected it to be. And the enemy assault was already starting. From above.
It was easy to recognize her and yet... large dark leather wings growing out of her back, powerful enough to enable free flight, her hands deformed to make way for long claws growing out of the ends of her fingers, a single large horn growing out of her forehead like that of a black unicorn. "Planet..."
Yuri was under direct assault by Bright, who had assumed a demonic form. And instinctively, she knew how to do that as well. A flash of heat ran through her body, adrenaline pumping through all her veins, she felt a sharp pain in her back and hands. Unable to back up any further because of a magma stream, Moonlight escaped into the air, assuming a similar demonic form, hers without any horns but two additional wings.
"...Smasher!" Bright's attack smashed the ground to pieces, much more forceful than Yuri had expected it to be. Magma swallowed up the pieces of stone she had just stood on, creating a deadly hole in an otherwise massive platform. She had to focus completely on getting away from Bright, the pull towards her being tremendous.
"Lock!" Miyuki was keeping altitude far over Bright, having assumed an angelic form with four silvery white wings sprouting from her back and a wide halo floating over her head. "And then there were none!" Increasing the number of binds, Bright had each limb's movement limited by six energy binds. "Moonlight, watch out!"
Several compressed wind bullets completely shattered a rock formation and continued on, flying towards Moonlight. In the distance, a green winged angel was floating and taking aim for the second volley of shots.
But just as the shots approached Moonlight, they started to get thrown off their vector and home in on Bright instead. "Bright!" Nao didn't count on Chaotic Intent being that malicious in it's execution.
"Keep your eyes open." Dream shot at March out of nowhere, utilizing the same angel form as her. Because of the slowed time, Nao had just enough time to cross her arms in front of her face and block the onslaught of punches and kicks. Her body was moving at the exact same speed as Dream's, only their thoughts were much faster. "Starlight Explosion!" It didn't matter if the attack flung off to hit someone else if it was executed at point blank range.
"Tornado Lapse!" Vanishing entirely without a trace, Nao escaped the brutal energy blast that instead hit a magma stream, causing a spray of the molten rock all over the place. Despite having escaped the main hit, using her emergency escape ability put a lot of stress on her energy reserves.
Dream found herself immediately attacked by Sunshine, both of them starting an exchange of punches and kicks, Dream superior in raw power and speed, Sunshine far exceeding her technique, they were in a stalemate of the worst kind, each unable to land a clean hit because of the doubled time they had to react. Unable to get away from each other without giving the enemy plenty of chances to land a clean hit, they were completely at the mercy of outside interference to break up their stalemate.
Only a few dozen meters away, Melody was chasing Berry over a series of platforms floating in magma, shooting energy blasts at her, every other of them randomly flying off into the distance, destroying the area. "Glory Shot!" Launching yet another attack, Miki jumped into the air, used the demonic form and took the attack head on by covering herself with her wings. Getting pushed back by the impact, it gave her the opening she needed. "Spade Mark: Detonation!"
Hibiki was caught off guard when the platform she was on exploded with the force of piled up dynamite. And it wasn't just that one. More than two dozen platforms, all of which Berry had jumped on, exploded at the same time, completely removing any space she had. The sole of her boot was vaporized by the magma by the time she used the transformation. Contrary to Berry, she had the angel wings, granting her higher damage resistance. Flapping as hard as she could, she still didn't get away without half of her right leg being badly burned. Hibiki's painful outcry was heard all throughout the cavern system.
"Hibiki!" Itsuki couldn't possibly ignore what was happening. But Dream was too powerful an adversary to pardon a lapse in attention. Getting hit in the stomach by a full force kick, Itsuki was sent flying against a rock formation hanging from the ceiling.
The impact created a hole, revealing a tunnel system that was currently the place of a gruesome showdown between Rose and Muse, both of whom didn't give each other one centimeter. The increased reaction time allowed Muse to block every single one of Rose's adamant attacks with her similarly powerful barriers. Launching her counter attacks, Ako couldn't penetrate Rose's iron defense.
Moving at high speed and trying to avoid the magma streams, they were right next to each other, either forced to keep up with the speed of the other as to not give way for a clean shot. Just as they reached a dead end, Rose saw no way but to forcefully separate Muse from herself other than running straight into a magma pool. "Adamant Break!" Raising both her hands in the air, she smashed the shield Muse summoned to her defense with her full power, the repelling force catapulting her out of harms way and finally separating from the black Cure.
"Symphony of Tears!" Launching her counter attack against the purple Cure in mid-air, Ako created a complete corporal sphere of her keys. "Cry!" Sending countless keys against Rose, each regenerating as soon as the next one was fired, she unleashed an never ending assault on her enemy.
Unable to do anything but defend, she was locked in mid-air, on straight collision course with a magma stream. She had to do something quick. But she wasn't on her own in the struggle. Looking down, Happy was being chased by Bright, who was only stopped for seconds at a time by the binds. Her demonic form had run out and that was all the time advantage Miyuki needed to keep running indefinitely and staying far enough to avoid the magnetic pull. Thankfully, her binds did seemingly not classify as attacks.
Seeing that Rose was in a pinch, she decided to take the risk. Jumping from rock formation to another, she was right behind Muse, who was already expecting her. Before she could even attempt to use the verbal activator for one of her abilities, Muse landed a full power kick against her shoulder and moved the sphere Rose was in, crashing it into Happy, who was being pulled towards her.
But the direct hit on Happy came not without consequences. "Grimm's Tale!" It wasn't that Miyuki couldn't use anything other than binds. She simply didn't like or want to. Surrounded by several floating books that popped out of nowhere, Ako tried to escape, but it was too late. Energy blasts equal to all the damage she had inflicted on the enemy so far launched towards her, giving her only time enough to protect against half.
The explosion was strong enough to destroy part of the ceiling right above her, giving way for a magma stream that was going to swallow her. Focusing all her defensive capabilities into a single barrier on top of herself, Ako took the full force of Happy's attack, prioritizing her life over damage.
"Planet Crusher!" Smashing through a solid wall, Bright appeared right behind Happy, moving too fast for her eyes too follow. A single punch was all it took for the yellow Cure to send the pink Cure flying all the way through the cavern and smashing into a wall, causing a rock avalanche with the impact. And that was not the end of it. "Planet Shaker!" A kick following the punch, directed at Rose this time. But the purple Cure was not that easy to beat. Coating her arms in indestructible alloy, the impact of the kick sent her flying but did otherwise extremely little damage.
Coughing up blood, her eyes turned pure white, Happy could no longer even move a single muscle. Bright's raw physical destructive power was unmatched by any and all. "Ace of Spades!" But there was one who would try to best her anyway. Piercing the defense of the enemy Cure, Miki landed a kick at point blank range in the back of Bright, who yet was not lifted even off her feet. Taking the damage, turning around, grabbing Berry's leg and flinging her upwards towards Muse in an attempt to get the black Cure out of her disastrous situation, the blue Cure was saved by her new partner. Able to perfectly time her entrance and exit, Yuri showed up, grabbed Miki's arm and flew right past Bright, dropping her partner off at a nearby platform.
"Miki, buy me some time." Bright was by far the most dangerous element in the current battle. There was something odd about the entire team. Damage that should have taken them out was doing little more than injure them. That had to be the Sturdy condition in place. What a catastrophe for Bright and Sunshine to be one of the fighters.
Jumping at Bright, Miki knew that she would immediately lose in terms of raw power, but she excelled in technique. "Spade Injection!" Punching the ground, utterly destroying it from the inside, she made Bright fall down with her. There was only magma below them so Bright had to focus on something other than attacking her.
A miscalculation on Miki's front. Bright had just regained her demonic form but instead of flying away, she readied an attack. It was a once a battle thing because of how much strain it put on her muscles, yet, it seemed worth the risk. "Star Quake!"
Miki watched in slow motion as enormous quantities of energy compressed in both of Bright's fists as she continued to fell. Just as she was about to sink into lava, she hammered her fists against the molten rock. The effect was devastating. The magma stream exploded in furious anger, spraying all over the place, the ground beneath it breaking apart, creating an bottomless hole, the whole cavern brutally shaking from the impact.
Using the magma spray as a distraction, Bright closed in on Berry, who was caught off guard by the display of phenomenal power. But she had a trump card up her sleeve. "It's showtime!" Using her ability on just Bright would put her under her spell, no matter what.
With her mind focused solely on Berry's movements and looks, Michiru could not even maintain her altitude, quickly losing speed and starting to plummet into the hole. "Yuri!" It wouldn't hold long enough to get rid of the enemy so Miki trusted her partner to finish her off.
"Crescent God Resuscitation!" The entire battlefield, just like with Bright's Star Quake, had it's attention redirected to Moonlight for a few seconds. Creating a silvery glowing glaive that was easily twice the size of her own body, Moonlight was surrounded by a whirl of equally silvery and almost ghostly appearing energy. "Be banished beyond the dark side of the moon!" Throwing the glaive down, the blade cut through Bright's defenses like they were butter, the blade penetrating her chest whole and breaking out of her back, the shaft stuck midway through her body.
With an eye blindingly bright flash of light was the bottomless hole illuminated only to fall into darkness again a few seconds later. Under heavy strain, Yuri needed some time to recuperate after launching an attack that massive. If she was given sufficient time, she could launch a second glaive, but it was risky.
On the other side of the cavern, Dream and Sunshine were still locked into their stalemate, both of them heavily beat up by now, both having sacrificed defense to take out their adversary. They had just passed by the area where Happy was laying unconsciously on a platform that was slowly drifting towards the magma waterfall. And Rose had just recovered from Bright's attack to drag her off it.
"Kurumi!" The tiny fraction of a second she let her attention slip from her match with Sunshine led to the yellow Cure landing a powerful hit straight to her face. Retaliating with an elbow crush in Sunshine's stomach, Dream knew that she would eventually lose the battle if she did not get assistance. Her enemy was taking less damage than her and was much more skilled in martial arts. It was thanks to her superiority in power, speed and the doubled reaction time that she was able to keep up at all.
Seeing her old friend in trouble, Rose took position. Seeing that, Nozomi allowed herself to be hit several times in an attempt to get her plan going. Finally succeeding in locking down Sunshine's movements with a desperate move.
But she had not counted on Sunshine's partner. Showing up right behind Dream, Melody put both her hands on her head. "Glory Destruction!" The explosion tore a lot of skin off Nozomi's face, causing massive damage to her head. "Glory Destruction!" A second hit and Nozomi's grasp on Sunshine weakened. Rose was already moving in, ready to at least destroy Sunshine if Dream was going to be knocked out. "Glory Destruction!" And that was finally enough to damage the pink Cure beyond what she was capable of enduring. Hibiki's hands were littered with burns and blisters from using her attack at point blank range like that. But she didn't want to even take a little risk if it came to rescuing Itsuki.
Targeting the exhausted Melody, Rose appeared right in front of the pink Cure, her eyes spelling extreme danger for all her adversaries. "Adamant Impact Surge!" Hibiki watched in terror as Itsuki just barely managed to get between Rose and herself, taking the attack with no more than an improvised defense. The attack was unlike anything Itsuki had even attempted to block.
Unable to withstand the pain, Itsuki cried out in pain as the bones in her arms were virtually broken to pieces by the attack, the force traveling all through her body until it finally exited out of her back, making her spit out a gush of blood, the internal damage being too drastic to even begin to guess what was broken.
Unable to get away from Rose because of the magnetic pull, Hibiki saw no other option but to take her down before she was defeated as well. "Symphony of Glory!" It didn't matter if the attack would randomly target Rose or herself. As close together as they were, Melody created a impenetrable minefield all around them, more alike to a storm cloud of potential explosions than anything else. "Blast!"
Only a few dozen meters away was March, who had just recovered after losing a close combat kicking fight against Berry earlier, still getting out of a massive pile of rubble. She couldn't believe the skill of that blue Cure. A booming explosion not too far off caught her attention, showing her that both Rose and Melody had left the battle, the two of them dropping down to the ground, dangerously close to the magma stream. Looking around, she saw only three others still conscious. The magnetic force rule was a horrible poison for her, preventing her from using hit and run tactics.
Using her wings to get away, Ako couldn't hang on to much hope that she was going to win against both Berry and Moonlight combined. "Grand Tacet!" Creating a sphere that heavily punished any and all aggressive actions around herself, it wouldn't protect her against energy attacks.
"She's the only one left. I'll take her out with one shot. Miki, keep her busy." Yuri raised her altitude and flew higher into the air, landing on a platform just as her demonic form ran out. Taking a deep breath, Yuri focused on gathering the needed energy to use Resuscitation a second time. With just Muse, she would personally carry the glaive and hit her instead of taking the risk and making it a long range attack.
Both Miki and Yuri had not realized that March was still conscious. Still being chased by Berry, Muse descended onto the platforms floating on the biggest magma stream. Berry landed a few platforms away, both of them hitting the time limit on their demonic forms. Miki was just about to formulate a plan of attack when she noticed something rush over the actual magma itself.
Realizing too late that it was March, using her extreme speed to avoid burning her legs while running straight over the magma, Miki suffered a direct hit by the green Cure. Propelled off the platform, attacking like this was the only way for Nao to not rely on energy attacks. With just Muse around, she felt she could take the risk. The odds were in her favor. "Tempest Bullet!" Creating balls of highly compressed air, Nao fired several shots, all of which hit Berry, each impact shredding clothes and causing numerous deep cuts. She only needed one more push to finish her off. Taking a step back to start a second rush attack, her attention was diverted by Muse's shouting.
"Watch out!" Ako had used the chance and rest for a few seconds, trying to regain some stamina and energy. Despite having the advantage of only suffering half damage, the enemy was too formidable. And now, that brief moment of rest had become a fatal mistake. Moonlight had finished whatever preparation she needed, coming at March with full speed from above.
"Crescent Harken!" Unleashing a powerful and dangerously sharp energy blast with a kick, Yuri hit her mark. An fountain of blood spread from Nao's chest and stomach as they were deeply cut. Dropping down on the spot, Yuri quickly directed her attention towards Muse, who was nowhere to be seen. "Miki?!" Looking towards the direction Berry had been catapulted by March, she saw Muse right above her partner.
Aiming to take out Berry before she could recover from March's attack, Ako didn't take any risks. "Symphoniy Forza Fortississimo!" Hitting Berry's chest with both of her palms, the blue Cure's body was ruptured by energy from the inside, blood flowing from several bursting wounds in her arms and legs.
Creating a shield as soon as her attack was finished, she had just been in time. Moonlight attacked with a glaive of which the blade was shaped like a crescent moon, slicing halfway through the key barrier. Trying to jump away, Muse was held back by her lack of strength and the magnetic force. "Symphony Furia!"
Yuri was thrown away by the massive explosion that happened right in Muse's face. With a sizzling sound, the area around her started to change until she found herself back in her room. The battle was finally over. And she had a magnitude ten headache. "I'll go see Miki before I crash..."
=== Dissonance ===
"Hey, Newbie, get up." The pain of having an empty can thrown at her head woke her up alright. Feeling still cold, the girl rose like a robot, picking up the can and placing it in a plastic bag for later. "Where the hell did she come from again?"
"Apparently some place some way off Tokyo. She's got a real sob story, wanna hear?" A man standing near a mountain of cardboard boxes was talking to two more that sat on said mountain. "Not like we got anythin' else to do."
"Yo, tell. I'm always up for a laugh. Not like any of us give a shit what happened to everyone else here. That's the nature of the human trash dumpster after all." Wearing old, worn down clothes, unkempt and unwashed hair hidden under wool caps, none of the men cared about their appearance anymore just like nobody cared if they saw the light of another day.
"So she was just the average girl, handful of friends, happy family, the whole packet. Then, one day, one of her friends was robbed on her way back home after going shopping. You see, this friend was taking care of her siblings, being all goody two shoes, and when she didn't come back, the younger kids found their sister dead, raped and striped naked just down the street from their house."
"Man, that's some heavy shit. Go on." Handing a cigarette from a fresh pack to another man, something he stole last night, one of the men leaned back, clearly enjoying the misfortune of the girl in the story.
"It gets better from here on. Two of the newbie's other friends were apparently in love with the girl that died. One of them just vanished, looking for the guy who did it to the first girl and the other got so depressed that she accidentally cut herself while cooking and bled out while nobody was at home."
"Just great, they both self-destructed. What then?"
"The last one was kinda tiny and shy looking. Dunno the exact time but she was kidnapped a few weeks or something after the other three went down. They only found her months later, abused, drugged, raped and then they slit her throat. Whole package. And you know who found her?"
"Man, don't tell me! It's the newbie there, right? She found her, right?"
"Bingo man. Can you imagine her face? She was so depressed that she stopped going to school and everything. Her bad luck never ended and just a week after she stopped going to school, her father and mother died in a car crash caused by, so they found out later, the same people who kidnapped the girl!"
"Are you sure you aren't making this shit up? That's like a shitty dead end in some kind of horror novel."
"She's told the whole story to one of the women when she first showed up here, thinking they'd show her sympathy or something! Can you imagine? Sympathy? Here! In the human trash dump! Genius!" Bursting out in laughter, one of them emptied out the last stale and watered down remains of a bottle of beer. "But we ain't done yet. So she's got this one relative left, her grandma. But just as thinks she can get some comfort there, the old hag dies of a heart attack because her daughter and husband died such a tragic death. I bet her heart just broke."
"So how did she end up here? Don't they have foster parents or shit for kids?"
"Nobody wanted her. Looking at what happened to her friends, then her parents and grandma, they all thought she was cursed. So nobody wanted her and she ended up homeless. Economics or something probably."
"Fuck the economy." One of them lifted an empty bottle and threw at the newbie girl, just barely missing her head. The girl barely reacted, as if it was an every day occurrence. The story the men had just told each other for laughs was the story of how her life broke apart.
How Nao was killed, Reika vanished without a trace, Akane died and Yayoi was kidnapped and killed. How her parents died just when she needed them the most. And how her grandmother died as well, in the end. And it was all her fault. That one day... when she thought she would protect everyone but shouldering all of their bad ends. And in the end, it was her who had suffered the worst. After losing the power to become a Cure as Marchenland was destroyed, she started to lose her friends, one by one.
The one thing she wanted the most, for everyone to be happy, had turned out to be the one thing she ended up taking away from them. She couldn't save anyone. The world had turned into a dark place, where everyone was only looking out for themselves. Human trash dumpsters where the countless homeless and unemployed lived out their days, dirty, unwanted and without any kindness littered the landscapes of the world now.
And all because she wasn't strong enough. Even among the human trash dumpsters was she not welcome, always bringing bad luck to everyone around her. How many times had she thought about killing herself? How many times had she wished, begged, prayed and hoped that her curse would one day end.
But it never did. It never would. It was her cross to bear. Her guilt. Her bad end. And an ending never passed. She would be alone, hated and unwanted, shunned and guilt ridden, for the rest of the miserable life she endured every day.
She could not feel anything anymore. She could not cry anymore. Her world had long ended. "Hey newbie." Looking up, she saw one of the countless homeless men that lived in this area. "Do your thing."
"Dude, she can't anymore. Don't you know some douche cut her vocal cords a week ago or so?"
It had been the last thing she had held onto. 'Ultra Happy', something she recited to herself countless times every day to remind herself of better times. And now even that had been taken from her. There was nothing left of the girl that had once been Hoshizora Miyuki. All that remained was an empty shell of someone who had lost everything.
=== Dissonance ===
"You lost? With those members? Who was on the other team?" Erika was giving Itsuki a funny look. "Weren't the conditions pretty good for you?"
"Yuri, Berry, Rose, Dream.. the other side brought in all of their heavy weights for this." Itsuki was leaned back on her chair, a cooling back on her head. Hibiki was right next to her, laying halfway on the table, holding on to Itsuki's hand, 'recharging'.
"Isn't Dream the one that never wants to fight?" Erika nibbled on some cookies that Rhythm had left for the others. "The pink one?"
"She packs one hell of a punch. I mean, I knew she was strong when she went all deux es machina on Nightmare, but she's pretty damn strong even without that. Ouch.. Hibiki, get a grip." Trying to wrestle her arm free from her partners grip only made it worse. Now, Hibiki was clinging to her, head rested against shoulder, and Itsuki gave up. She didn't have the energy left to fight.
A completely drained and exhausted looking March almost fell over her own feet as she entered the dinning hall, sat down in the first free chair and let her head hit the table. "That. Was. Hell."
"How long did you last? I didn't see you a lot during the whole thing." Itsuki took off the cooling pack and gave it Erika who simply turned into a Cure for a brief moment, cooled it down with her powers, turned back into a civilian and handed it Itsuki. "Thanks. Your powers are so convenient."
"Berry kept me busy the whole time. I was almost out of the count and couldn't go on so I faked unconsciousness to get her to back off." Not lifting her head because it was absolutely impossible for her to do so, Nao just hoped that she wouldn't end up in a trash room again. "When are the rooms getting reassigned?"
"Nobody knows. First time after all. I'm so excited about who is going to be my next roommate!" Erika looked forward to the new room distribution a lot. It was a nice change to switch rooms every now and then. "Where are Muse and Bright by the way? Still out of it?"
"Muse was there all the way at the end, fighting against Berry and Moonlight. I tried my best to take out Berry, and Moonlight decided to run me through crunch time instead. I wanna go into hibernation..." She kinda wished that Akane was there to cheer her up.
"So she literally crunched you? That's why your costume is full of wrinkles!" Nobody laughed at Erika's pun.
A few seconds awkward silence later, Karen, Setsuna, Ellen, Rin, Kanade, Nagisa, Kaoru, Yayoi and Mai showed up, several of them in normal clothes. "Did the room shuffling start?" Erika was curious about it. Since there was no real ranking for them to view, it was kind of a complete surprise who would get what room.
"Got kicked out of my own room." Rin had just laid down to take a nap, while Kanade was at the other end of the bed, reading a book, when they were telepathically informed that the room re-assignment was starting in a few minutes and everyone would be required to leave their room for that time period. "So how'd the battle go? Did we win?"
Waving her hand in disappointment, Itsuki didn't feel embarrassed at all. The other side had simply been stronger this time. Moonlight was a real danger, just like Rose. Having both of them on one team and even in the same battle was almost cheating. "Not this time."
"At least we're not down to eating bread yet. What was it like?" Rin walked over to the end of the table, Kanade almost falling over a chair because she was still reading her book while walking. "Give me that." Taking the book from Kanade who immediately started to pout and refuse to even look at Rin, the red Cure returned it only when they had finally sat down.
"Hell." Nao answered, still not lifting her head. "My skin feels like I've been under the tanning machine too long."
"Big pools and streams of lava, subterranean cave god knows how far down, sticky air, hot as hell and the rules were completely stupid. Windy, you negotiated this, didn't you?" Itsuki didn't look for someone to blame but rather give some... constructive feedback.
"Most of the conditions were pushed on us by Lemonade. The state she was in left me unable to properly negotiate with her." Kaoru explained briefly.
"Urara won't be a problem anymore. I talked some sense into her." Ako had finally made it down to the dinning hall, looking half ghost.
Continuing her explanation, Kaoru sat down next to Melody. "I was only able to secure the rules Sturdy, Century Negate and the Dive. Was it difficult to handle the Dive?"
Itsuki shook her head. "No." Leaning back and flicking Hibiki's forehead in an attempt to get her to let go, she was feeling hot enough already, she looked at the blue Cure. "When it started I immediately knew how to use it."
"The advanced form of that rule alone doubles the coin gained for everyone. I think it'll be great to benefit from the dive options regularly." Kaoru liked to maximize gains, especially when they were of monetary nature.
"Ako, you talked to Lemonade? At the dome?" Hibiki was finally done recharging, with Itsuki being her power supply, and now talked to the very tired out Ako.
"I heard from Windy and Egret that she's completely out of control. So I went to talk to her." Ako wondered if there wasn't a way to get a drink without having to get up again.
"What did you talk about?" Hibiki was curious.
"Are you gonna tell me what you and Sunshine talk about in your private time?" Ako liked to keep her private life exactly that, private. Giving Hibiki a very specific look, the older girl knew that she should not pursue that question. "I hope she'll make it over here in the next few days. She was seriously irritated, in a way I've not seen her before."
Karen, sitting opposite Muse across the table, was now chipping in. "I almost can't imagine Urara committing to a relationship because of the way she's been acting for the last few years. I mean, she was... a bit notorious for how often she jumped ship."
"We all have some things we're not very proud of." Ako wasn't happy about lying to almost everyone present about her real age. That she had lied to Urara as well wasn't something to be proud of either.
With a loud ringing noise, something the combatants really could have done without, the system announced that the re-arrangements were done. Telepathically telling them that they were all going to be moved to their rooms momentarily didn't come as a real surprise.
=== Dissonance ===
"That emblem belongs to Miyuki... so she's the done who got the room next to me. If she's not here, then..." Nozomi, ranked seventh, felt bad for her new friend, Miyuki, ranked eight. Ending up in exile after the first real battle would be a really tough experience. She'd try and check on her when she got out. Hearing a loud groan, it was easy to place it as Lemonade.
"So I swap out one member of the cooking squad for another? At least it's someone from my own team." Urara, ranking third, was still in one of the top rooms, together with Kurumi, ranked fourth.
"I'd have preferred to share my room with Hikari, too." Kurumi walked outside to meet her best friend, feeling slightly sorry that her roommate turned out to be Urara of all people. "I still have my own room, so I'm still happy." Hikari ranked fifth, with a seventy coin difference between her and Lemonade.
The room next to them, housing the two top ranked members, was extremely calm and composed, the exact opposite. "I am very much looking forward to sharing a room with you." Reika, ranked second, extended her hand towards Yuri, ranked first, who could have imagined a lot of worse roommates than Beauty. Now, it was all a matter of negotiation to let Miki at least sleep in the same room. Because she was ranked tenth and thus in one of the bottom level rooms.
That very same room also housed Bloom and Pine, ranked ninth and eleventh respectively, the latter not surprised at all that she was on the bottom floor. Saki on the other hand had moved from a top floor room to a bottom level floor, making her quite depressed. "Not only did I mess up getting together with Mai, now I'm in this room, too..."
Directly above them, Honoka, ranked sixth, just left her room, quite satisfied that she had managed to keep staying in the exact same room as before. Going down the stairs, she saw the four occupants of the worst room stand in front of it, their faces showing everything from slight disappointment to near tears. Love, ranked twelfth, Blossom, ranked thirteenth, Mint, ranking fourteenth and Sunny, occupying the the lowest rank.
"I think I'll volunteer for the next battle." Love wasn't overly bothered by the room, as she had stayed in worse, but she didn't dislike fighting as much as to willingly stay in there permanently.
"Same here." Tsubomi was sick of the poor quality rooms. She had even moved down the ladder, just like Komachi.
"I'm all the way down here and Reika is all the way up there with Moonlight. So. Unfair." Akane sighed hard before walking off towards the dinner hall.
"Interesting. So you work as vigilante all over Asia?" Yuri had barely spoken to Reika before becoming her roommate and had now found her to be an interesting conversation partner.
"Yes. I have been to to Europe as well as parts of America, but I generally specialize in Asia." The two of them walking down the stairs together, past two small crowds of people either being happy or disappointed about their rooms, both of them understood the motivation the class system was supposed to instill. And it was working. Those who were assigned to the lower class rooms could be heard thinking about volunteering for a fight, while those in the upper rooms were simply happy with their results. "I have to say that there is indeed a certain sense of gratification to be able to rise all the way from nothing to second in the ranking in three days."
"It promotes the cause we're here for, to generate as much energy as we can at any one day without burning out." Yuri finally found Miki, who was talking to Pine, both of them still in the same room, having simply switched places in the ranking. "Miki!" Calling for her partner, she excused herself from Reika.
At the other end of the hallway, Kurumi and Hikari were just coming down the stairs together. Hikari was happy having her own room, not really needing the luxury of the top floors but liking a bit of privacy. "Are you going to be okay with Lemonade?"
"I hope so. If she becomes too annoying, can I come and stay in your room for the night?" For every other person, there would have been some very specific connotations to those words, but not for Hikari and Kurumi.
"The bed isn't very big but we're both not too tall so it should be fine." Turning around the corner, ready to do her duty as the 'cooking squad' as Lemonade had now dubbed those two, Hikari smiled. "Just don't tickle me. I get surprised really easily when I get tickled."
"Like this?" Gabbing Hikari's sides, causing the blonde to break out in laughter almost immediately, Kurumi very much enjoyed teasing her a bit. "Come, come, come." Tickling the girl, who was desperately trying to escape the clutches of evil, Kurumi ended up accidentally groping Hikari but not thinking anything on it.
"St... sto... stop, stop... stop.. please... stop... Kurumi...!" Out of breath, Hikari was finally released. "That was so mean of you!" Trying to catch her breath while Kurumi was smiling and apologizing, Hikari pouted a little. "No desert for you." Walking off with a smile of her own, Hikari already had a plan of what to cook. The team had won twice in a row now, so she could be a little extravagant with the meal.
"Oh come on." Running after Hikari, the purple Cure wasn't going to give up without a fight "You're not serious, are you?" Catching up and looking at the big smile on Hikari's face, she couldn't tell. "Hikari!"
=== Dissonance ===
The mood was incredibly awkward. Nao couldn't quite understand why but Nagisa and Mai completely avoided even looking at each other. Thinking there might have been some bad blood between them, she tried to make peace. "Now, now, we're all going to have to share this room for the next three days, so... lets go along, okay?"
Neither of the two felt particularly inclined to tell March about what happened. "Why... both of us..." Mai was getting a serious headache now. Ending up on a team alone with Nagisa wasn't enough, no, they had to end up in the same room. At least March was there as well but still... it brought back a lot of bad memories. And the more she wanted to forget them, the more vividly she started to remember.
Nagisa felt the same way. She was ranked tenth, Mai was ranked eleventh. March was ninth. And they were stuck in the same room for three days now, unless one of them managed to win the exchange race. But that took a lot of luck.
The room right next to them had its occupants share mixed feelings. Karen, ranked twelfth, Yayoi, ranked thirteenth, Kaoru, ranked second to last and Setsuna, ranked last. While Setsuna could stay at her partner's room, Ellen, ranked seventh, and Kaoru could stay at her sisters room, ranked fifth, the other two were stuck together and their personalities were extremely different. Karen had already escaped the room and taken refuge in the garden, as Yayoi was overly excited getting to know her new roommates. Kaoru was trying to simply ignore her endless talking while Setsuna tried to be polite and get to know her a bit. Which was really trying her patience a little. She wanted to go and meet Ellen but just walking away would be very rude. She was stuck between wanting to be polite and wanting to get away.
"I didn't think it would turn out like this." Itsuki, ranked second, was sitting on the very lofty bed, Hibiki, ranked eight, much more enthusiastic about it, rolling over the same bed. "Hibiki, it's not your bed, show some restraint."
"Maybe I should Invest in ear plugs." Erika was thinking out loud on purpose, watching Melody's reaction. "I hope they will be enough. You don't do it as Cures, right?"
Itsuki didn't know if she should answer honestly or not. Erika could really shoot down any bird with her bluntness. It was Hibiki who reacted first. Getting on her knees and hugging Itsuki from behind and looking at Erika, who was leaned against the separating wall in the middle of the room, watching the two lovebirds. "Do you and Blossom?" She, too, could play that game.
"Wanna know? Wanna know what kind of hot plays little Tsubomi and I have done? You want to know, right?" Making her best creepy face, Erika got the exact reaction she was going for. Hibiki realized that she was outclassed in the teasing league, by far. "You know, Tsubomi is really-"
The pillow hit Erika right in the face. "Stop it Erika. I've known you for years and you really ought to learn when you go too far. Don't worry, you won't even realize she's here at night." Taking a deep breath, Itsuki slightly turned her head, addressing her partner. "You heard me. No rolling around, the bed isn't indestructible. And no more loud moaning."
"I'm not heavy! And you're much louder than me!" Her face comparable to a ripe tomato, Hibiki hit her partner with a pillow, repeatedly, until she was out of breath. Both of them were out of Cure form as it was much more comfortable. "I'm not the loud one, Marine!"
"In Germany they have a proverb you know." Erika's smile got even wider than before. "Dogs bark when they're called out." Starting to laugh loudly the moment Hibiki's face was buried in the remaining pillows in an attempt to hide her shame, Erika managed to regain a little composure. "And just call me Erika. Itsuki is one of my best friends and you're her girlfriend. I consider you my friend as well."
"Erika, who is in the room next door?" Itsuki hadn't checked that yet. She was quite happy sharing a room with her old friend, who was even completely okay with Hibiki staying in as well.
"Rouge and Muse. I checked earlier when I went to the toilet. Man, there is some real tension in the air. It's almost like past and future are having an argument." Erika held up her finger and waited for them to get the pun. Both Hibiki and Itsuki just blankly stared at her. "You get it? Past and Future? Tension? Tense?"
"Erika..." Grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the designer, Itsuki had forgotten about all the awful puns Erika liked to make. "Wait... Rouge is next door? That means..." Leering at Hibiki, she didn't make any obvious moves.
"Kanade is probably going to stay with her. Don't give me that look, Itsuki. I don't really mind. You told me to make peace with her and... I think it was childish of me to keep distancing myself from her. It's not like she is still making a fuss about you and me." Hibiki laid down on the bed and felt like falling asleep.
Rin sneezed loudly while enjoying the comfy bed. Kanade had left the room already, going down to use the kitchen for a while. But being roommates with Muse was not exactly her idea of optimal. She was ranked fourth while Muse was ranked third. Kanade was ranked sixth. She hadn't expected that there would be so many with that much accumulated coin, or points.
"Sick?" Ako was not hospitality in person but she wanted to avoid drama. It would become really difficult if Urara made it over now because of the way she and Rouge used to be. But that was something to worry about later.
"Just someone talking shit about me."
"You really believe in the whole 'sneeze when someone talks about you' thing?"
"Little superstition really doesn't hurt. I don't believe in god in exchange."
"You're an odd one."
"You're dating Urara, so you're hardly one to talk."
"You were sleeping with her before that."
"Touché. Don't bring that up with Kanade around."
"I'm not that insensitive."
One level down, Michiru, ranked fifth, was quite satisfied with her room. She didn't require much and a single room was just about right for herself. The situation between her and Kaoru was pretty much reversed in terms of rooms.
Leaving her room, she examined who the other girls on the floor were. "Melody, Rhythm and Beat... the entire floor but me is occupied by the same team? Odd." Sensing someone else behind her, she turned around and found her sister.
"You look terrible. You should rest." Kaoru was a little worried about Michiru precisely because she hadn't been seen in the dinning room earlier. "Or are you that interested in where the others live?"
"I'd like to get dinner before I sleep. I know that I won't wake up again for at least several hours if I slept now." Michiru did feel incredibly tired but she was hungry as well.
"That's a good point."
=== Dissonance ===
"I'm never going to leave this team." Stuffing her face with croquettes, Nozomi was glancing at Hikari and Kurumi, who had come to regularly prepare the food. Kurumi was picking up tricks from Hikari very quickly and had soon become an essential part of preparing quality meals for everyone.
"To our win today!" Love was fairly excited about winning twice in a row. Several others cheered in agreement. "May we win again tomorrow!"
Sitting down next to Komachi and Tsubomi, Love had already made new friends out of them. Akane had been with Miyuki for most of the time since the room shuffle so she hadn't gotten a good chance to talk to her yet.
Sitting a few seats away, Saki was trying to bury her frustration under food. Honoka was just as frustrated but preferred to drown hers instead, regardless of how bad an idea that might have seem. Hearing that Nagisa and Mai were stuck in the same room from a third party had been very awkward. That those two didn't think it worth telling their partners they'd be sharing a room was just making them feel paranoid.
They knew there would be nothing happening at all, that Nagisa and Mai would probably be much more depressed about this than their partners, and still it annoyed them. "Are you sure it's a good idea to drink? Remember what happened the last time." Saki was sitting next to Honoka, not in the mood to associate with some of the cheerier Cures at the time.
"That won't happen again. I'm not drinking that much." Honoka could very well tell when she had enough when it was just drinking to forget a few unpleasant memories that came back up.
"How did you end up choosing an usual weapon like that?" Cutting her croquettes and eating them slowly, Reika was quite interested in Inori. Yuri and Miki both listened in on the conversation, sitting across those two.
"How do I explain this..." Thinking for a moment, she paused for a drink. "I work as a veterinarian in my family's clinic. Sometimes we have to operate on animals. It was really hard to get used to that, but when we all took our Cure training to a new level, Miki developed her impact attacks and Setsuna her instant movement abilities, I decided to go for something that aided me in an area I was already good at. I don't excel at technique like Miki or have Setsuna's energy reserves, so I looked for something I could do. Speed orientated fighting was the answer. I could sacrifice quite a bit of defense and endurance if I just got fast enough to never get hit. And when I thought about a way to effectively attack without having to build up a lot of physical strength, it one day came to me when I was watching my dad help a dog that had eaten something made of plastic, the scalpel was basically my answer. It's a very light-weight weapon that has extraordinary offensive capabilities. However, a scalpel is difficult to wield. But I was already on the right track. My card suit is the diamond, and diamonds are used to cut even the hardest materials. So I focused on that and created my Diamond Blades. They're extremely durable, are easy to wield, no risk of losing them mid-battle and have extremely high offensive capabilities. It may look like an unreasonably brutal weapon for someone like me, but they're my solution."
"You can still talk a lot without having to breath." Miki's remark had both Yuri and Reika smile. "I got to my impact moves with a lot less thinking. Makes me almost feel bad for having such a simple progression path."
"I understand you're an arms master, Reika?" Yuri was interested in the way the blue Cure fought. It was unique among all the others, even those that used weapons, such as Rouge, Lemonade, Pine or Aqua.
"It is quite a long story so I think it's better if we postpone that until later." Getting up and grabbing her dish, Reika went to get seconds.
"You're going to make me jealous, Yuri." Miki eyed Reika's butt from the distance. It only consolidated her ego. Her own body was leagues above that.
"She's not narcissistic enough to put even a dent into what we have." Yuri liked to make a little fun of Miki at times. It was something she couldn't have done before.
"I'll take that as a compliment." All three of them laughing together caught Tsubomi's attention.
It didn't escape Love that Tsubomi was staring at Moonlight. "Don't you have Marine?" Grinning wide and poking Tsubomi, the pink Cure reacted with a calm smile.
"It's not that. Yuri, Moonlight, has gone through... some really bad times, even before I've met her. I haven't seen her smile like that in years. She was always looking worried, stressed or tired when I saw her back home."
"It must be because of her new girlfriend." Love knew really well how a partner could change someone. And Miki was a special case of her own.
"You think so?" Komachi finished a croquette and put down her fork. "I don't really know Berry. She belongs to your team, doesn't she, Love?"
"Miki is an over-achiever, a real hard worker. She might come off as self-centered, but she really cares about the people she gets close with. She has gone through hell with Inori, Setsu and me."
"I'm interested in hearing more about that and your travels with Setsuna." Komachi loved good stories and life made for the best ones.
"Just don't make a novel out of it." Laughing, Love wasn't really upset about the new room. She had really nice people in it, after all.
=== Dissonance ===
Mai woke up with a cold shiver running down her spine. "A bad dream..." The reflections were still haunting her. Wither was haunting, taunting, mocking and ridiculing her. "How long is this gonna last..." Hitting the hard mattress, she noticed something sticky on it. "Did I sweat that much?"
Unable to see properly, she smelled the bit of it that was on her finger. A particular smell of iron came from it. There was little doubt what it was. "Blood? It's not my time of the month so..." A single droplet hit her face. Blood. She wasn't in the bunk bed, so where was it coming from. Getting up, Mai transformed and checked the ceiling of the room. What she saw drove home all the horrors she had kept inside, those that haunted her at night, when the reflections were still alive inside her mind. March, dismembered and dead, was nailed into the ceiling. She knew it was her. She was still able to make out the long green hair during the flash of light her transformation caused. "Nagisa!" Shouting, she immediately felt a hand with a wet cloth touch her face, cover her mouth.
In a matter of seconds, she felt paralyzed and plummeted to the ground. There was something standing above her. And realizing who it was terrified her more than anything. Unable to speak, her vision blurry, she could still make out that particular outfit and hair. Nagisa had drugged her, paralyzed her. It made sense. Her partner did work in pharmaceuticals. She would know how to mix something that paralyzed a person.
Only noticing it now, that her attention was focused solely on the black Cure, she knew that Honoka's partner was breathing heavily and her hands were blood stained. Kneeling down, she ripped apart Mai's costume, baring her skin. Leaning down even further, she whispered something to the helpless Egret. "You're mine now, Mai."
Feeling her hands move over her body, touch and squeeze her breasts, rip apart the remains of her costume, Mai's mind was completely frozen, unable to tell what was going on. Just as she thought it couldn't get any worse, Nagisa tightly gripped her throat, not putting enough force behind it to snap her neck but very slowly draining Mai of her breath.
Her vision was fading just as she was starting to lose consciousness. Was this how she was gonna die? After all the battles, the horrors, the reflections... Nagisa was going to rape and kill her?
No.
No, that couldn't be.
Could it?
Was something controlling Nagisa?
Was she really gonna kill her?
What... what... what...
With a sudden, violent outcry, she woke up. Breathing heavily and rapidly, her vision blurry and flickery, she quickly felt the mattress. No blood. "What happened?" March's voice. She wasn't dead.
"Really bad dream, sorry. Go back to sleep." She didn't want to worry March. Feeling her own neck, Mai could still vividly tell the sensation of being strangled. She could have sworn there were marks on her throat. Getting up and walking to the door, she was going to check in the mirror in the bath. She wouldn't find peace otherwise.
She stopped dead in her tracks just as she opened the door. A horrible thought ran through her mind.
Nagisa was not in her bed. She was gone.
=== End of Event XIV ===
