Anya POV:
When I woke up next, I saw that I was inside of a bathtub and that it was filled up with water and soap. And the one washing me? It made me very embarrassed and I blushed profusely when I saw that it was my love.
"J-Jiro!" I gasped as I covered myself in embarrassment, him looking at me with a smile.
"S-Sorry, but Sahlia said you needed a bath and everyone said I should do it," Jiro said with a bit of surprise in his voice as well, me noticing that my ring wasn't on my finger.
"Do you have my ring?" I asked him.
"Yes, it's in my pocket... now that you're up, do you think you can wash yourself?" Jiro asked, me looking at him with a smile as my face soothed from his warmth.
"You can continue to wash me, just don't stare at me," I smiled at him, Jiro then washing my backside as I simply stayed in the tub and let him finish. He had apparently already done my front side while I was asleep and he soon got done and I smiled at him. "Now you can leave. I need to rinse and dry myself off now," I smiled at him. He did so and I then proceeded to rinse off in the tub, let the water out, and I then dried off my body with a towel that was nearby. Once I did so, I saw that there were some clothes provided for me that I tried on. They looked to be brand new clothes, so I was happy to have them. They consisted of a blue shirt, a white bra, a frilly skirt that went down to my knees, leggings of black, and pink panties, which made me smile. Sahlia must've picked these clothes, since she knew that pink was my least favorite color, but I ignored that and put on the clothes before emerging from the bathroom with a smile. All of my allies were sitting in Sahlia's house with my cousin nearby, me noticing that all of their collars had broken off during my slumber.
"I guess the other reason you wanted to sleep for a whole 24 hours was because you wanted our collars to be off before we left?" Shu smiled at me.
"That's one reason, another reason is because my power was dangerously low and I needed a rest. And the main reason was so you could all get to know my cousin... speaking of which, Sahlia... sorry about scaring you like that yesterday... I kind of flew off the handle when I learned what happened to Auntie and uncle... I swear that the next time I see Nene, I'm going to rip into his body and demolish his insides while he's still alive. He deserves nothing but the worst for what he's done to all of us in this world... going from town to town and wreaking havoc wherever he goes and... wait a minute... has anyone seen Kesu anywhere?" I asked, finally noticing the complete lack of our female robot companion.
"You mean the robot that flies and has a pointy head? She's actually out by the cliff. She said she wanted to see her first sunrise," Sahlia smiled.
"Okay, when the sun rises, we're immediately heading out to the Devour Forest and we're going to go south to Noluta... it's high time that we paid a well-needed visit at Anya's home and save everyone that's been frozen there," Kluke said.
"Maro agrees! Nene needs to pay!" Marumaro said as I noticed that his hand looked like it had been hurt.
"What happened to your hand?" I asked him with a smile.
"He touched the cookie tray while it was still hot," Jiro smiled at me, which I chuckled at.
I then decided to go out to the cliff area and I saw Kesu hovering in place looking over the cliff as I saw a slight pink light start to emerge from the ocean. "I see you finally woke up, Anya," Kesu said when she heard my footsteps approach her, me standing next to her and me looking out to the sunrise as well.
"Yeah... what are you thinking about in that brain of yours?" I asked her.
"About what I found out from Master Nene's history... he did have love in his heart at one point, but this disease he has... it's causing him to do all of these things to the point that, even when he isn't diseased, he still has the mind of a madman. He's drunk with power and he won't stop until he destroys this world... and I have a feeling he's going to do something drastic soon, but what it could be, I cannot even fathom," Kesu said, her turning to me when she talked.
"My guess, Kesu... he's going to try something to turn the world into what I saw in one of the history books... the world of the Ancients isn't the earth we stand on right now. It's actually inside of our world. In order for Nene to rule this world, my guess is that he's going to bring back the world of the Ancients lying right under our feet in various cube-shaped mini-planets hidden deep inside of the planet's core... I have no idea how he's going to do it, but I fear that's what he will resort to," I said with a frown.
"It may just be that... or maybe he'll try to find the Biogenetic weapon that has been sealed for thousands of years. But whatever the case, we need to be careful in how we proceed. Once we free Noluta from its plight, we need to find Zola. We need her expertise in combat to take the fight to Nene," Kesu said.
"How would you know she was an expert combatant?" I asked Kesu, confused how she would know that fact about someone she never talked to before.
"It's because of something that we're going to explain to you on our way through Devour Forest," Shu said from behind me, him looking at me with a smile as I saw the others join us and Sahlia as well... though Sahlia looked at me with a small smile.
"Annie?" she asked me with a smile.
"Yes, cousin Sahlia?" I smiled at her.
"Your friends say that you're able to call the magic out of people that lies in their hearts... I wanted to know if you could give that to me as well. I heard you gave it to King Jibral... I want to be able to protect the village if anything might attack it again. We don't need another tree around here to eat people," Sahlia said with seriousness. I couldn't help but smile at her as I then approached her with a smile.
"Of course I'll help you out, Sahlia. After all, we're family," I smiled at her as I then placed my hands on her temples and she looked confused. "You will feel a bit of pain, just yell out when I'm doing this and your shadow will come out," I said to her. She nodded and I focused my powers, Sahlia immediately wincing and yelling from the pain of me trying to call out her shadow, Sahlia shouting extremely loud at the peak of pain as her shadow emerged, me smiling at what it was.
"Oh my god... I feel powerful! I feel like I could punch through a brick wall!" Sahlia exclaimed after her shadow came out and we all laughed when it simply meowed. "That doesn't sound like a sound of a powerful shadow... dammit, I look stupid, don't I?" Sahlia frowned with a blush when she saw her shadow was a large and fat cat with a wand in its hand and wearing an open vest on it.
"Well, you may not be able to punch through walls, but the Cat Genie specializes in weakening magics and 1 hit kill attacks with enough training. You can weaken an opponent's attack power, defense, speed, the works, no matter if they have a defense against it or not. And when you get more experience with it, you'll be able to kill enemies of a certain type of category, such as beasts, poo monsters, robots, and undead," I smiled at her.
"Well, that sounds better! So I can basically weaken an enemy until they can be squishy enough to defeat, right?" Sahlia smiled.
"That's the idea. I suggest you start training your shadow immediately. It looks to be quite strong already, powerful enough to defeat some of the monsters in Devour Forest for sure," I smiled at her.
"I haven't been to that forest in so long... that tree prevented us from leaving this town for so long," Sahlia said with a sigh before smiling at Shu.
"Do you like Shu?" Marumaro asked her, Shu slapping him on the head for that, making me smirk.
"I would say... I am quite interested in him," Sahlia smiled, but I could sense it inside of her. She had a crush on Shu.
"What's her true feelings, Anya?" Kluke smiled at me. I just had to say it... damn truth genes.
"She has a crush on Shu... dammit..." I groaned, Sahlia slapping me for that, which I expected. "Sorry, I can't tell lies... I couldn't save you this time, cousin," I sighed at her as I rubbed my cheek. She wasn't using her shadow, but it was obvious she got a boost in physical strength from the shadow emerging.
"I will admit, that is one thing that is probably the hardest code to overcome," Kesu said.
"So... you have a crush on me?" Shu asked Sahlia, her simply blushing at that.
"Well... um... Kluke? Could you help me out here?" Shu asked Kluke.
"Well... uh... Anya? Any idea what I can say?" Kluke asked. I simply smiled as I thought of one way everyone can be happy.
"Shu can have a girlfriend in both you and Sahlia, right?" I smiled, Sahlia blushing at that, as did Shu while Kluke gasped.
"That's the solution?" she frowned.
"Well, can't you share him? I know I used to have more than one boyfriend during my teenage years. And they were perfectly fine with sharing me," I smiled.
"Really? I never knew that," Jiro said.
"Well... should we take a vote?" Shu asked.
"Fine. All for having Shu share both of us, raise their hands," Kluke said. Shu, myself, Sahlia, and Marumaro all raised our hands. "Well... majority rules, I guess. Okay, we'll share Shu. But we'll need to wait for anything until after we've finally defeated Nene. None of us are safe so long as he's still out there causing havoc," Kluke said.
"Agreed," I smiled at that.