It was almost the end of the day for school and Asuna's class was oddly quiet today. It was Friday and usually, her classmates were way more lively than this. On a typical afternoon, they would be quietly chatting amongst themselves, making plans for the weekend and after class. Today the class was looking over their math test results in silence. The marks the students received were pretty good, the class average being around seventy-five percent. Of course, despite the fact that most of the student the good marks, there were a few outliers among the class. One of the those outliers being Asuna.
Asuna stared down at her test result, feeling a bit disappointed in herself as she looked at the mark. A forty percent was written on the top-right of the page and just looking at it greatly frustrated Asuna. She apprehensively looked through the pages of the booklet and unwillingly looked at the looked through the questions she got wrong.
As she was looking through her test, her friend Misa walked up to her and asked," I got a seventy-six! So what did you get on the test?"
"I did ok." Asuna answered, hoping her tone didn't make her seem suspicious. She looked over to Misa and Misa was giving her a look of dsisapproval, as if she wasn't even close to being satisfied with Asuna's answer.
"Ok as in...a seventy, sixty?" Misa pried, but Asuna refused to answer, so Misa continued," A fifty?"
"You're getting close~" Asuna replied in a tone that Misa could only hear as bitter.
Misa was getting impatient and tried grabbing Asuna's test page from her, but Asuna was a step ahead of her and moved the test farther from her. Asuna then reluctantly showed Misa the test page, and Misa cringed at her test score before she offered Asuna her most comforting smile.
"It's ok! That was probably one of the hardest tests this semester!" Misa reassured, giving Asuna a pat on the back," What matters is that you tried and hey, you still got some of them right!"
Asuna rolled her eyes and continued to look through her test results before the teacher made an announcement regarding the test.
"For those of you who failed, you're able to retake the test after class on Monday." The teacher said to the class," So for those of you who want a retest, I suggest that you spend the majority of your weekend studying."
Misa looked excited for Asuna, who looked hesitant about taking the test again.
"Now you can do it again, study harder and pass!" Misa exclaimed, not paying attention to Asuna's lack of interest at the thought of doing the test again.
"But I studied hard the first time around." Asuna thought to herself," What good will come from more studying if I don't even know how to study this stuff?"
Asuna and her group started to walk out of the classroom and began to discuss their plans for the weekend. Asuna wasn't really listening, only worrying about how she was supposed to pass the test when it was clear that she didn't know what she was doing. Asuna then thought about seeking help from someone else, like a tutor. The idea made her hopeful, it was evident in her smile, but trying to find a tutor on short notice might not have been the easiest task. Asuna made a list mentally of all the smart people she knew and tried to figure out who would be available and willing to help her.
"Hisakawa from Class C is one of the smartest people in our grade, but I haven't even talk to her in four months, so asking for help would feel weird. Misa may have got a good mark, but not good enough to trust her for help. I could ask...maybe not. Wait, Kiriko's smart maybe she's good at math too?"
"I heard Sonomi from Class A is throwing a party next week, I don't know if I want to go though..." Amari declared while the rest of the group, except Asuna, looked at her in suspicion.
"It's not that you don't want to go, it's just that you want us to go with you." Yutaro restated flatly," Because you know if you go by yourself it'll look like you just came to hang out with Sonomi's brother."
Amari's face turned red with irritation she said," So what if I do? He switched schools last year and we haven't seen each other ever since!"
"Amari, does that mean you're a cougar?" One of the other guys asked, causing Amari's face to turn even more red.
Asuna watched the group make jokes at Amari's expense with very little interest. Asuna suddenly flinched as the boys laughter got louder out of nowhere. She narrowed her eyes at the group and shook her head.
"God they're way louder than usual today." Asuna thought to herself," And to think some of them got a better mark than me on the test and even passed."
"So are we going to hang out on Sunday afternoon?" Misa asked to confirm, with the rest of the group nodding in responded. Asuna wore a blank look on her face, she had been too busy thinking about her test mark that she completely tuned out her friends.
"Asuna, you're going too, right?" Misa reaffirmed, turning and walking backwards to face her.
"Only if we can study for a bit, I think I'm going to retake the math test." Asuna declared.
Misa exchanged looks with the other kids in the group and then said," That's why we're hanging out on Sunday! Yutaro, Amari, and Tomoko failed so we're going to help as much as we can so you guys can pass!"
"Really, you guys would be willing to do that?" Asuna questioned in surprise as Misa nodded in response," Thanks guys, it means a lot."
"Of course!" Misa replied cheerfully before their paths were going to split,"We'll see you on Sunday, ok?"
Asuna nodded in response and waved goodbye to her friends. As Asuna walked by herself, Asuna was beginning to reconsider Misa's offer. It was nice of her friends to offer help to her when she really needed it but, she wasn't sure how well a tutoring session with her friends would go. Knowing them, they'd probably get distracted a half hour in and start doing other things, like gossip about the kids in class C or even go out to the restaurant next to Misa's house. The more Asuna thought about it, the apprehensive she became. Maybe she could find someone else to tutor her before Sunday, that way she wouldn't have to worry about her friends slacking off on her.
"I'm not really in a position to only study a little bit of the stuff covered on the test, I need to try a lot harder, so I'll need all the help I can get." Asuna said to herself with a sigh,"I don't have any other choice."
Asuna then took her phone out from her pocket and dialed a number. She held the phone up to her ear and waited for the person on the other line to answer. As soon as they answered, Asuna simply asked over the phone,
"Hey Kiriko, are you any good at math?"
"Huh?" Was all Kiriko said from the other side.
That night, Kiriko, Rani and Nova went over to Asuna's house and set down an extended list of notes, she claimed that she held onto them from first year just in case she ever needed it again. A pair of pencil cases had been placed on Asuna's working table. One of the pencil cases had most, if not all, off it's contents spilled out from it with highlighters of every colour laying on top of Asuna's notes. Kiriko was standing up, while Asuna was sitting down behind the low table. Kiriko was pacing around, looking through Asuna's test carefully. She had secured it onto a clipboard and was highlighting the material that Asuna had yet to fully understand from the test. Kiriko had been taking awhile, and as time passed, Asuna was starting to feel more and more worried for herself. Asuna took a good look at Kiriko to see if she could tell what she was thinking and had no luck in doing so. Despite knowing the girl a little better now, Kiriko was still as straight-faced as ever and it was still damn near impossible to try and figure out what was going on in Kiriko's mind.
"She's probably thinking I'm one of the dumbest people she's ever met." Asuna said in her head, though the thought of this didn't seem to bother her that much," I guess it couldn't be helped though."
"Ok, I think I've figured which areas you need the most help on." Kiriko stated as she sat down across from Asuna at the table," First, I'm going to compile a list ordered from areas you need the most and least help on for a few minutes. After that, I'll look through your notes and see if they have some to do with your marks. I know sometimes that if you're far from the board, some of the more important information can get lost if it's written in the corners. Oh, and could I possibly take a look through your textbook? Don't worry, I won't write in it."
Asuna nodded and handed Kiriko the textbook with disdain as if she was handing her a worn out sneaker. Kiriko took the textbook from her and started to read through the chapter that Asuna was on. As Kiriko was reading, she attempted to engage in some small talk with her.
"I'm really happy that you asked me for Asuna," Kiriko stated as she read through the pages," But I can't help but wonder, why didn't you ask Tadashi?"
"Tadashi went on a class field trip to Okinawa and he's not coming back until Tuesday." Asuna explained, with Kiriko nodding as she continued to read through the pages,"Plus if he found out that I failed yet another test, there's no doubt he would tell mom who'd actually sign me up for tutoring lessons."
"But it's not like it's the end of the world if I get another not so great mark. All I want is a fifty, if I get that, I'll be thrilled." Asuna declared, though her tone wasn't all that convincing," Plus, it's freaking trigonometry, exactly when the hell am I going to need that kinda stuff in life?"
Kiriko then smiled, and not missing a beat, she answered with," Are you kidding me? Trigonometry can be found in more places than you think! If you look hard enough of course. You'd need if you someday got a job in construction, or flight engineering, or physics or marine biology or criminology-"
Asuna rolled her eyes and snickered as she said,"Do I look like I'd actually be doing any of that stuff in the future?"
Kiriko then took a moment to herself, and countered with," Alright, so chances are you won't go into construction or physics or any of that stuff. But, how about wayfinding? To just, figure out the distance from one place to another?"
"That's what Yahoogle's for." Asuna pointed out, her eyes narrowed at Kiriko as she had yet to show Asuna the reason in learning trigonometry.
Kiriko took the deepest breath she possibly could and began to speak," Ok Asuna, picture this. You're on a trip to London with a group of friends, but you stray away from them unintentionally and all of a sudden, you're lost. Your phone's broken in every way possible. You... cracked the screen so bad the phone's performance is now affected, you've got no signal being in out of town and to top it all off, your phone's now dead and you misplaced your charger. You can't get a charger because no one speaks your language and even if you did your phone's too broken for you to Yahoogle anything. So, all you've got is trigonometry. You're friends told you they were going to meet up in the area near to the Big Ben in the case you guys get lost, and what you do is calculate your distance from the Big Ben to figure out the quickest way to get to your friends."
"Does that make any sense?" Kiriko finally asked.
"Not entirely, but I get the gist of it." Asuna answered," I think we've wasted enough time though, can we start with the studying?"
Kiriko nodded and the studying began.
For Kiriko, she thought things were going quite smoothly. She highlighted all the key notes from Asuna's notes and lent Asuna her copy from her first year. Kiriko made worksheets for Asuna to practice from as well as give her definitions for terms that had been on the test that she didn't quite seem to understand. Asuna worked away without dispute from there and diligently did everything Kiriko told her to do.
For Asuna though, she felt as if she bought herself a one-way ticket to torment land. Kiriko was intense when it came to studying and not a single topic was left uncovered by her. She went into great detail to explain every little thing and to make things worse, Asuna still wasn't understanding the material. It looked prettier to say the least, with all the different key notes now highlighted in various colours, but it wasn't helping Asuna very much. If anything, the material felt harder to follow with Kiriko's help. Asuna asked a lot of questions and while Kiriko's explanation were sometimes helpful, the majority still left Asuna confused.
"She's too smart for me! She needs to dumb it down!" Asuna thought to herself, frustrated as she felt like she wasn't getting anywhere.
Asuna then simply gave up but she chose not to tell Kiriko about how her studying methods weren't helping her. Asuna let Kiriko go home for the night, but before Kiriko left she gave Asuna a fairly small white and gold bag.
"What's this for?" Asuna asked as she took the bag from her.
"So, Nova wants to stay with you from now on." Kiriko explained as Nova rested on her shoulder while Rani was in her bag," We figured that it'd be better if we each had at least one fairy per household, would that be ok with you?"
"It's fine." Asuna answered as Kiriko left Asuna's place as she waved goodbye to her. Asuna waved goodbye back and as soon as Kiriko left, Asuna closed the door and groaned loudly as she slid down against the door.
"Asuna are you ok?" Nova asked, sounding very alarmed as Asuna who appeared to be in great pain.
"No, I still don't know how to do math!" Asuna griped as she banged the back of her head against the door," I only pretended I did during that last hour because I knew studying with Kiriko wasn't getting me anywhere. When she talks about math, it's literally like she's speaking a whole new language that only she and the rest of the nerds at my school can understand. I guess this means I'm just left studying with my friends."
"I'd help you if I could," Nova stated in defeat as she really didn't have much clue on how to help out Asuna," Rani's smart too, I would've suggested asking her for help but during that session, she got overwhelmed with all the problems you had to do. Your definition of math here on earth is a little scary."
"Scary? This stuff is nightmare fuel." Asuna declared, banging her head against the door once more," I've never been good at math, to be honest, I think I'm only getting worse. I can't fail another test this semester otherwise I'll risk failing the class. My marks kept getting lower with each test and now I think my averaging grade is sitting somewhere around a fifty. It'd be nice to get a real good mark on the test, a seventy-five would be a dream come true but, it's not realistic."
Nova looked at Asuna with a pitied look on her face and just sat in her lap and lean against her stomach.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do if I fail this retest, at the rate I'm going I might not be able to bump my grade up enough to pass." Asuna stated with a sigh," But, I'll try my best. I'll do whatever it takes just to pass."
"That's all you can do anyways." Nova reminded her.
Kiriko was walking back to her house now, it had gotten colder and she just couldn't wait to get home. Today had been a good use of her time in helping Asuna, but now she had school work to do. All she could think about though was that last fight they had against Asperity and how her powers malfunctioned. The thought of it had been bothering her ever since it happened, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to hear the answer of why it happened. Kiriko finally decided she was ready to find out and so nervously she said,
"Rani? There's something I've been meaning to ask you. During our last fight, I was trying to use the pretend mode but it didn't work as I wanted it to and I got hurt somehow. Do you know why that may have happened?"
Rani turned away from Kiriko for a few moments, wearing a rather guilty look on her face.
"The Pretend mode is...well, it can be dangerous for novices to use. Since you had mastered it on the first attempt without any prior knowledge of the attack, I think explaining the risks that came with it slipped our minds. I'm really sorry that happened to you Kiriko." Rani explained.
"It's ok, really! I wasn't too badly hurt, I was more confused if anything. I just didn't understand how something like that would've happened, do you think there's some kind of defect on my PlayPact?" Kiriko suggested nervously, but she somehow knew that probably wasn't the case.
"It's not usually the PlayPact that has the defect when something like this happens..." Rani began nervously," You're a great Pretty Cure Kiriko, but perhaps your mind wasn't fully clear when you were trying your attack?"
"But, I cleared my mind and did the usual routine when I was doing my attack, so I'm still not sure how my PlayPact ended up attacking me." Kiriko stated, starting to feel somewhat impatient from not receiving the answers she'd been waiting to hear.
"The Pretend mode comes with the risk of inflicting pain on the user at the slightest negative feeling. If the user is feeling doubtful in their own abilities, or worse, wishes for misfortune on someone they care about, then the Pretend mode won't work as it's supposed to. The Pretend mode won't single out any of the heart's feeling, unconscious or not, and using it without a strong heart can lead to harm for the user." Rani stated, feeling more and more guilty in her actions," I didn't mean to leave this out Kiriko, honest! I really hope you understand."
"It's...it's ok, it's in the past now Rani. That means we can move forward and learn from it." Kiriko reassured as she put a smile on her face," But, if that's case...what was I feeling that caused my attack to backfire?"
On Sunday afternoon, Asuna and the rest of her friends were assembled at Misa's house.
"Alright you guys. We're gonna teach you the ways of math." Reo declared right before he took a large sip from his soda can," So, believe or not, math is easy as hell. It just takes some logic and stuff."
"I'm already having my doubts about this study session." Asuna thought to herself, her eyes wide as she shook her head.
"Ok so, trigonometry was made a real long time ago by this guy named...?" Reo began, looking towards the rest of the group for help in finishing his statement.
"I think his name was Trigamus Nohm-Etrey." Asuna's friend Sakuya answered confidently.
Everyone in the room looked at him blankly, though Sakuya seemed very certain in his answer so no one made the effort to correct him.
Reo continued with, "Yeah sure, so Mr. N was a guy who believed that the world needs to figure out the distance between things and how to build the pyramids and so what he said was..."
"This session is probably going to be worse than my night with Kiriko..." Asuna said in her head as she opened her can of cream soda," We're not even ten minutes in and they're already getting off-track."
Today, all of Asuna's friends plus herself had met up at Misa's house just as they planned. Misa's house was quite large and the living room was thankfully big enough to hold all of her guests. Asuna had spent all of yesterday desperately trying to study as much as she could through tutorials she found online. The tutorials were helpful in getting her to master the simpler parts of trigonometry, but Asuna was still not confident in her abilities to tackle the harder problems. Asuna knew she wasn't going to get a lot accomplished and she figured that her only option now was to just hope and pray that Tadashi's phone had reception in Okinawa so that he could see her texts for help to him.
"I'm starting to wonder why I even came." Asuna said under her breath as she sat herself sideways on Misa's one-seat swivel chair.
All was quiet at Asperity, maybe too quiet. Jack and Domino were working away at their own personal projects. Domino was devising yet another plan that would be absolutely fool-proof in use against the Pretty Cure and Jack was styling his hair. The two of them were awfully tense, they usually were more talkative in each other's company but right now, all they could think about was Bounce's absence. She had just been summoned by Lilith about half an hour ago and ever since then, the two of them had been growing uneasy as time passed. Whether or not Bounce was going to be spared by Lilith despite her brash and arrogant mannerisms was not the concern that had been bothering them. It was whether or not Lilith would send Bounce out again.
"She probably wouldn't since last time Bounce went she came back empty-handed..." Jack thought to himself," It would probably take a lot of convincing to try and get Lilith to make Bounce leave this place again anyways."
"Lilith is going to be adamant. She wouldn't send Bounce out again after that." Domino said in his head," Bounce is tough, that I will admit, but these Pretty Cure...defeating has proved itself to be a difficult task. Should Bounce come back harmed, Lilith's wrath will know no boundaries."
"Guess who's fighting the Pretty Cure again~?" Bounce cheered as she bursted out through the doors into the room, startling Jack and Domino.
"My, aren't you a lucky girl?" Domino remarked, doing his best attempt to appear happy for Bounce," I'm sure you'll do a fine job today."
"Try not to get hurt, otherwise Lilith is gonna give us an earful." Jack advised, resulting in Domino giving him a very disapproving look.
Bounce who had been originally walking off to take her leave to the human world simply turned around and said," Come again?"
Domino quickly interjected before Jack could say a thing, though he wouldn't have been able to with Domino standing right in front of him.
"Pay no mind to him, just be on your way!" Domino urged, with Bounce doing as told to. Once Bounce left, Jack elbowed Domino in the back and wore a rather annoyed expression on his face.
"Why the heck did you do that?" Jack asked in irritation," What are you, scared of Bounce or something?"
Domino rolled his eyes and simply shook his head," You don't actually think that do you? I don't want Bounce to think that she's under strict protection, even if she's...you know what I'm getting at. Anyways, Bounce can handle herself, she's become just as strong as us and I simply think we don't give her enough credit."
"Ok fine, don't tell me why spoke for me." Jack responded, clearly not satisfied with Domino's answer," You might be able to fool space-cadet Lili and maybe Bounce sometimes, but nothing can get past me."
"I know that." Domino replied flatly," After all, we're brothers aren't we?"
"Unfortunately." Jack commented, conjuring up a mirror to style his hair again.
Bounce looked around the area she arrived in at the human world. Nobody was in sight, yet she appeared to be in a fairly large neigborhood. The houses were lavish and massive, but as nice as they were to look at, they ultimately had no use to her. Bounce exhaled a deep breath and shook her head.
"I can't even hope to make a Defective unless I find a good target around here." Bounce said to herself," Then again, this city is way bigger than this, so if I can't find someone here, than chances are there will be a better target somewhere else."
"I hate my life!" Bounce suddenly heard a voice cry from nearby. Bounce was startled, but then she became inquisitive. She went to the direction she heard the cry and found Asuna's friend Tomoko sitting on the steps leading to Misa's backdoor, her head buried in her folded arms. She raised her head up a few moments later and started crying.
"I hate math so much, I don't need when I'm gonna become an actress so should I even bother?" Tomoko sobbed as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
Bounce then hopped over the fence that blocked her entry from Misa's house and walked over to Tomoko. Tomoko didn't notice Bounce approaching her until the green-haired girl was right in front of her.
"What happened, failed a test?" Bounce asked in mock concern, though Tomoko was convinced that Bounce was actually worried about her.
"Not just one, this is my second test in a row that I failed! I was better at this stuff at the beginning of the semester but now I suck at it!" Tomoko wailed," I don't even want to become a magic magician or whatever the hell it is! I just want to live my life the way I dreamed, by becoming an actress and making myself happy."
Bounce appeared to be slightly surprised as she looked to Tomoko thinking to herself," This girl didn't even question how I came here and just started to rant about her miserable school life, where's all the screams of terror and begging me to spare her life?"
Tomoko then asked," Are you some kind of skater? If you are then where's your board?"
Bounce rolled her eyes while reaching for the dark green vial in her pocket and answered with," Not a skater, just here to do my job."
Bounce then opened up the vial and let the contents spill out from inside of it. A dark poisonous cloud then formed and smothered Tomoko. Tomoko found tears forming and streaming from her eyes again. She somehow felt immeasurably worse than when she was crying before and couldn't understand why. After a few moments, Tomoko passed out and the clouds turned into a dark green sphere.
The dark green sphere gravitated to Bounce's palm and Bounce then pointed to a nearby bike and shouted," Do your worst, Defective!"
Elsewhere, Kiriko had been walking to the bus stop from work, with Rani in her bag. Kiriko was drained of all her energy from today's busy day at the cafe and she wanted nothing more than to the curl up under her covers and go to sleep. A loud, prolonged yawn escaped from her mouth and she stretched her arms out just before she heard her phone ringing.
She usually didn't answer her calls, but the caller ID revealed it was Asuna on the other line, so she picked up.
"What's up?" Kiriko asked as she held back on another yawn.
"Kiriko I need help! A Defective showed up at my friend Misa's place!" Asuna yelled into the phone, causing Kiriko to impulsively hold the phone away from her ear.
"Ok, I'll come there as fast as I can, just text me Misa's address and I'll be on my way!" Kiriko responded as she hung up the phone.
Cure Teddy ran to the scene and Bounce grimaced at the sight of her. Bounce then quickly scoped the area for Cure Dolly.
"Where's your partner at? I'm trying to kill two birds in one stone." Bounce stated, as her Defective stared at Teddy, awaiting an order from Bounce.
"I guess it doesn't matter, you are the stronger one anyways. Blondie does nothing but get in your way." Bounce noted, as she snapped her fingers," Defective, put an end to her right now!"
The Defective then charged to Teddy, and so Teddy jumped up as high as she could to determine her next move.
"I called Kiriko awhile ago, where the heck is she?" Teddy said to herself as she landed a somewhat weak kick on the Defective.
Teddy was back on the ground and the Defective recovered from her attack within seconds. The two of them began to fight with each other, and neither opponent seemed intent on giving in. As Teddy fought, she felt herself growing tired quickly, it was a lot like her last fight, but she knew she had no other choice but to power through. During her last battle with Asperity, Teddy had found herself at her limits and while she had been enjoying the fight, she knew it would've been easier if Dolly had fought just as much as she did.
Just then, the Defective grabbed a hold of Cure Teddy's leg and tossed her hard. She collided with a tree and winced at the pain.
"Wow, and to think I thought you were going to be the harder opponent." Bounce commented with a snicker,"Alright, you've had your fun, now to wrap things up-"
"-Hold it right there!" Dolly then cried as she hopped over the fence,"You won't be wreaking havoc here any longer!"
"Oh it's just you." Bounce stated with a sigh of relief," For a second I really thought we were in trouble. Don't scare me like that Goldilocks!"
Dolly glared at Bounce in frustration while Teddy got back on her feet. The Defective wasted no time in attacking the girls and quickly sped towards them again. The bicycle Defective would've ran the two of them over if they hadn't got out of the way in time.
As Dolly was catching her breath, she was thinking about what Bounce just said to her and already felt herself losing confidence. But then, realization hit her.
"That's why my attack from last time wasn't working, it was because I was comparing myself to Cure Teddy..." Dolly thought to herself as she stared at Teddy right in front of her," She's really strong, so I guess it only made sense that I started feeling inferior to her despite the fact that I became a Pretty Cure first."
Teddy then fixated her gaze on Bounce and as if she was reading Dolly's mind, said," We're both threats to you, you know! Quite treating my friend like she isn't worth the effort!"
The Defective then returned to fighting with the two Cures, and both of them jumped in opposite directions away from it. Teddy was ready to land an attack from above, but Dolly was still trying to devise a strategy. Without realizing it, Dolly was about to get caught by the Defective and so, Teddy had to cover for her.
"Pretty Cure, Flame of Hope!" Teddy shouted as red and gold flames shot out from her hands. The Defective sharply turned to it's side and the attack hit it's reflector, resulting in the attack getting directed towards Teddy. Teddy hadn't anticipated that to happen, so she didn't have enough time to dodge the attack.
Dolly had remained unharmed since the Defective ignored her due to Teddy attacking. Dolly felt regretful in her actions as she looked at her teammate trying to stand up. Dolly knew she had taking too much time trying to find logic, to study her opponent and figure out what would work best in spite of the time that she had so little time to do so.
"I'm such a bad teammate..." Dolly thought to herself, as she began to panic.
"Some friend she is, huh Teddy bear?" Bounce jeered as she watched Teddy fight to stand up again," It's almost admirable to see you try and defend your teammate but even Blondie here knows she's no good."
"She's not a bad teammate!" Teddy shouted back to Bounce in frustration," She just fights differently, can't see all the gears in her head moving?"
Dolly then flushed red at that statement as Teddy said," She might not like fighting the way we do, but that doesn't mean she's useless! Cure Dolly works hard and I'm not gonna let you talk about her like that anymore!"
"Teddy doesn't think badly of me, despite the fact like I feel like I drag her down...no, she's right though. We're equals, she has weaknesses just like me but luckily for us, we're opposites so we help each other get stronger." Dolly said to herself quietly.
Dolly then looked to her teammates and shouted to her," I'm going to try my very best to fight without thinking so that I can be of aid to you, rather than a hindrance!"
"Sounds good to me!" Teddy responded.
The two Cures then went head to head with the Defective and fought as hard as they could. The Defective put up a good fight, but it wasn't able to compete with the Cures as well as before. This time, Dolly tried to fight instinctively, rather than thinking about each and every move she made and it seemed to have been working well for her. She might not have originally enjoyed fighting like this, but being able to fight in a way that would help Teddy made Dolly feel like her efforts weren't in vain.
One final attack was all it took to defeat the Defective. The Cures delivered the final blow together and the Defective was fell down, unable to move anymore.
The Cures exchanged expression and then Dolly said," You can purify it, you don't get to use your magical powers as much in battle so I think this would be good practice for you."
Teddy nodded and Dolly took note of the fact that Teddy seemed a bit unsure of herself at first as she quickly averted her gaze from Dolly.
"You'll be ok! You've done it before, you got this!" Dolly reassured her teammate,"Is this why she doesn't use her magic all that often, because she lacks confidence in her magical powers?"
Teddy nodded and then took a deep breath as she shut her eyes, saying," Pretty Cure, Charm of Hope!"
The area around them turned orange and gold in mid-sentence and the Defective was cleansed, reverting back into a regular bicycle.
"Cure Teddy, remember, we're not only teammates we're friends ok?" Dolly reminded her," So, I want us to bring out the best in each other. I like working with you, and I think we can learn from other, do you agree with me?"
"Of course." Teddy replied with a kind, genuine smile on her face.
Asuna was sitting at one of the tables at lunch period all by herself on Monday, trying desperately to soak up as much information as possible. Asuna hadn't ever this stressed out and was beginning to lose hope fast. Kiriko's help, despite appreciated, didn't do much for Asuna. Neither did her friends attempts. Her brother never responded to her messages and since it was too late to get his help, she just unsent the messages from Sunday. Asuna was truly at wit's end, hoping that if she studied in full solitude she might stand a chance at getting a fifty.
"I know Kiriko said that we had to help each other out, but it's way too late to ask her at this point." Asuna said to herself as she desolately stared as all of her worksheets spread out on the table," I feel like death right now."
"Working hard or hardly working?" A familiar voice asked. Standing on the opposite end of the table was Hayase.
Asuna was unsure of what to say and sputtered out,"I'm gonna fail my math test and I can't do anything about it. So, I guess a bit of both, to answer your question."
"Maybe I could be of help?" Hayase said as he took a seat at Asuna's table. Asuna seemed skeptic of the idea at first, but she gave him a chance.
Asuna was expecting Hayase to have given her explanations as detailed and incomprehensible as Kiriko, but instead Hayase did a great job in simplifying terms and even creating problems that Asuna would've been able to follow, such as how far a video-game character would need to jump in order to avoid fall off the screen. Trigonometry was finally starting to make sense to Asuna and she believed she would've never lived to see the day that would happen. While she wasn't sure that she ace the test with an A+, she was confident she'd at least pass this time. She was more than thankful that Hayase helped her out, to the point where she was thinking about just how she would repay him.
When lunch period had finished, Asuna reassembled her work back into her folder and Hayase helped her.
"I guess I'll get going, I will see you around. Alright, Morino?" Hayase said as he handed her the worksheets.
Asuna gingerly took them and Hayase left in a hurry. Asuna watched him head to the school building and looked somewhat displeased as she put her folders into her bag.
"Should I be surprised he's pulling out the formalities on me?" Asuna asked aloud to no one in particular," He's deliberately making me feel like we're strangers, I guessed it can't be helped though. We might as well be strangers."