Nakayama Yoko had decided to tell her friends the truth that she'd been hiding about herself, but she didn't get the chance to when Omemi Emiru called her and Asa aside before class. Emiru revealed that she knew for sure that the two were Pretty Cure, and that she had met with Kainatrol and joined the Etherium to get revenge on them for stealing her friends. Now, Asa and Yoko stood helplessly in the Etherium as Emiru transformed into a teal-and-white version of her school uniform, her glasses morphing into a familiar eye mask.
"This can't be happening." Yoko shivered. "What are we supposed to do?"
Asa slashed her Moon Card in her phone. "Come on, transform!"
Yoko took a deep breath and swiped her own Moon Card. The two girls linked hands.
"Dual Infinite Phase!"
To them, it felt like they were covered in light, spinning in a multicoloured background as their uniforms appeared upon them. To everybody else, a flash of light occurred - although this was a world of nothing but white already - and the girls appeared, changed, to pose and do their speech.
"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"
"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"
"We are Pretty Cure!"
"We'll defend at all hours..."
"...to ensure a peaceful era!"
Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "Yes, we've established that you're Pretty Cure. Now, our trial service member has far more reason and right to get rid of you than I do, so I'll just leave it to her. Millusion?"
Millusion drew out a silver-plated pendulum from what looked like nowhere. The face of the pendulum had an ornate design carved into it and filled in with dark teal; the same design appeared on the walls of the room where they stood. She began to glow in the same colour and swung it.
"This is my ability, Trance Lock." As she gave this explanation, an orb of dark teal light immediately surrounded her, Night and Sunday and completely blocked them off. Kainatrol smirked, standing on the outside.
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon
Episode 13: The Lonely Land! Face Yourselves, Pretty Cure!
Night held up her arms to block and flinched, expecting an attack. When none came, she slowly lowered her arms and opened her eyes to look forward. The nothingness was gone - not gone, how could nothing be gone, but... filled? Instead, she was standing in an empty classroom.
Starry popped his little head out of the phone. "What's going on ~susu?"
"I don't know." She scanned the room and stopped when she saw the teacher's desk. A familiar paperweight sat upon it: a purple carving of a cat. Night frowned and slid the classroom door open, craning her neck up to see the sign hanging over it.
"Second Year, Girls' Division... Lily Class."
"Yup! Just like normal," came a voice behind her. Night jumped and spun around to see the previously empty classroom. In front of her stood a smiling, untransformed Asa.
"What?"
"Night? Night!" Sunday ran around the schoolgrounds, or what looked like the schoolgrounds, except that all the students were gone. She turned a corner into the courtyard where everyone ate their lunch. Nobody. She stopped and took a deep breath.
"Night!"
"Looking for someone?"
Sunday stumbled back and looked up into a tree. Yoko, in her school uniform, sat on a branch with her legs crossed and waved.
The blue-green orb was still up, standing impenetrably around Millusion and the Cures. Kainatrol stood outside of it, unchanging, as the wall behind her shifted out of being.
"You look satisfied." Mekuramast walked up behind her. "What's the occasion?"
She turned around and scowled. "What are you here for?"
"Like the rest of us, I was wondering what you were doing." He shrugged. "Talent scouting? That's not your department."
"Can I help it if I see the perfect opportunity?", she said. "Maybe Tachimany just aren't doing their job properly and I need to step in."
"Whatever you say, animal tamer. What's her story?"
"I'm letting her deal with Pretty Cure." Kainatrol's eye mask shone, obscuring her eyes. "You can ask her the rest later. Just get out of my face. You're ruining the moment."
Mekuramast sighed. "I know when I'm not wanted. I'll be off." He tapped the top of his hat with his wand and made himself disappear.
Kainatrol glared into the space where he was. "I hope you will."
"Asa?"
"Of course it's me!" The Asa standing in front of her smiled.
"What's going on?" Night rubbed her head. "This isn't making any sense at all."
"Everything's back to normal. You must have hit your head if you don't remember."
Night wasn't looking at Asa. Out the window, she saw a flash of blue fabric flap by in the wind for a second. Asa stepped in front of her, blocking her view.
"Come on, everything's safe now. We can go back to normal. Class hasn't even started yet, let's go!"
Starry's little head gestured to the screen of the phone he was inside. "Yoko! Yoko, this isn't Asa at all ~susu! The tracker says she's somewhere else ~susu!"
Asa scowled and grabbed for the phone. Night's hands went to guard it and she stepped back.
"Stop it."
"Stop what?" Asa crossed her arms. "I'm just going to give him a talking-to about making up lies."
Night stared for a second and frowned. Asa tilted her head and pouted.
"What, you don't believe me? Aren't we friends?"
Night backed away. "This can't be real. That's impossible."
Mekuramast jumped up onto the roof from the windowsill where he'd hung the blue scarf. On the ground and inside the school building, the world looked quite normal aside from its lack of students and faculty, but up there, he could spot a few inconsistencies. One of the benches was only half-made, the edges tapering off into a telltale dark teal. Pieces of the sky above the school, too, were missing, replaced by a vision of the orb they were trapped in.
Well, the new girl had never used her powers before. He couldn't fault her the small mistakes.
He wasn't even sure why he was here. On a regular day, he probably would have teleported out normally to go search for the Moon Pieces, not used his powers to disappear and then enter Millusion's world. It wasn't as if he owed Pretty Cure any favours. He shut his eyes.
A series of red and white circus tents were set up, and a crowd of people in old-fashioned clothes was filing through the front door. The performers were standing backstage, waiting in a line as an assistant checked them over. At the front was Mekuramast, minus his eye mask and in a sepia brown version of his blue and white suit. He snuck a look out of the curtain at the gathering audience.
"It looks like a full house tonight," he whispered. He stood back up and turned to face the fellow performers in the line.
"That should cheer Thera up from whatever she's been thinking about lately," said the young woman standing beside him. She wore a blue dress to match his suit instead of a dress shirt, red vest and pants, her hair was longer, and she, too, was missing the eye mask, but those were superficial differences. The deep red, board-straight hair, yellow eyes... she looked exactly like Kainatrol.
The announcer cut in. "Thank you all very much for attending. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Chronos Travelling Show!" The two of them wheeled a black cart into the centre of the round stage, and the spotlight fell onto them as the announcer continued. "For our first act, please welcome Kairos, the Master Magician, and his assistant, Kore!"
Mekuramast tightened his grip on his wand. He walked over to the corner of the building and looked down to see the false Yoko climb carefully out of the tree and advance on Cure Sunday.
"Tch." He drew a playing card out of his sleeve and tossed it down.
You have only yourself to blame for this, Kainatrol.
Sunday looked up. Mekuramast's cape caught her eye for a split second before it disappeared. "What?"
"Come on, Asa." The Yoko standing in front of her grabbed her wrist and yanked her to attention. "We've got some time to kill before class, so just detransform before someone shows up and sees you."
Sunday looked past her at what had been thrown from the roof. A playing card had embedded itself in the lawn. She yanked her wrist out of the strange Yoko's grip and frowned.
"Hold on."
Yoko's smile shifted into an imitation of the Ice Queen Nakayama glare. "What?"
Sunday didn't flinch. "This happened on DaiFighter once. How do I know you're really Yoko?"
"That's easy." Yoko smiled, a little too self-assured. "Ask me something you wouldn't have told anyone else."
Sunday put her finger to her lip for a while, then hit her open palm with her fist. "I've got it! Yoko, you know I just transferred here a few months ago, right? Then, how did Hoshi and I become friends?"
Yoko's eyes seemed to change colour a bit, towards a dark blue-green. "Kondou-san? She lives in the next town over and only comes here for school. You used to commute there for your martial arts classes when you were little, and that's when you two became friends. You only stopped because your dad ran out of town and your mom couldn't afford to send you anymore." She smiled, sure of her answer.
"She really does know everything, just like Hoshi told me," Sunday said. "Omemi-san does, that is."
The teal-eyed Yoko froze. "What?"
Sunday looked her in the eyes. "I never told Yoko that."
The Yoko-copy glared. Not in the Ice Queen's regular fashion, nor any cheap imitation; this had far too much anger to hold. Her body was covered in a dark teal glow, and the black diamond of a Hidoinaa appeared on her forehead.
"That's awful," she said.
Sunday startled, but quickly darted past her, ducking to yank the card out of the dirt as she ran.
"What do you mean it can't be real?" The Asa-copy in the classroom pouted and stomped her foot. "If it's not real, then what is it?"
"How should I know?" Night gave a proper cold glare. "I do know that nothing's quite adding up. A class with no people, a friend who isn't acting right..."
"That's normal," the Asa said, as her eyes gained a dark teal glow themselves.
"What!" Night stumbled back. Starry shut himself up in the phone.
The Asa-copy advanced on her. "Normal these days, anyway, now that the whole world's turned upside down." Her voice began to change from Asa's to Emiru's, and her whole body glowed as the black diamond mark appeared.
Night backed up against the wall. "Omemi-san!"
The Asa-Emiru-Hidoinaa-thing's face twisted. "Everyone's changing and acting differently. Nobody cares what they're risking. It's just like I told you before! No one's afraid of what will happen if they show what they've been hiding all this time!"
"You'd rather people were afraid?", Night said.
The other snarled. "At least then I had friends!" She pinned Night to the wall with one arm and drew back her hand.
Before she could strike, she was hit with an exploding card thrown from the classroom and knocked to the side.
Night stood up and waved the tiny smoke cloud out of the way. The real Sunday, arm out after she tossed the card, straightened up and jumped off of the simulacrum of Yoko's desk and onto the floor.
"Sunday!" Night ran over to her. "How did you -"
Sunday pointed out the window at the blue scarf fluttering at the side. "I got a hint about where you were. These copies of us are some kind of Hidoinaa, but Omemi-san is controlling what they do, and this whole world isn't real, and-"
Night coughed. "I... figured all that out."
"Oh, yeah, don't leave anything for me," Sunday grumbled.
"Excuse me!"
Night and Sunday turned to the door. The fake Asa pulled herself to her feet.
"We're not letting you out of here." They turned around again to see the fake Yoko climb through the classroom window.
Night and Sunday looked at each other. Sunday took a step towards the door and Night stood back to back with her, facing the window.
"It was this way in the DaiFighter episode, too," Sunday grinned.
"Save it for later," Night said. "Just try not to break anything."
"It's an illusion world! Nothing here is real!" Sunday rushed forward and struck out her palm. The fake Asa couldn't block fast enough and went flying into the wall.
"It still looks like the school!" Night ran forward and blocked a punch from her double before striking back with a high kick that nearly sent her out the window.
Back in the real classroom, Ami-sensei blinked and looked at the three girls standing at their seats. "Kawada-san, Nakayama-san... and Omemi-san will be late?"
"That's what we said." Kondou Hoshi crossed her arms and nodded. "They had something really important to do."
"Please believe us," Ogata Mia said, wringing her hands.
"We totally swear they're not skipping." Okamoto Yukari bowed and held her hand over her heart.
The three of them looked at each other, the same thing on all of their minds.
The copies were going down without very much effort on the Cures' part. They could get a few punches in, but the real things hit more often and hit much harder. The fake Asa picked up a desk and swung it at Sunday, but she ducked and kicked upwards, sending her flying into the wall and the desk clattering onto the floor.
"I said don't damage anything!" Night dodged a strike from her double and brought her hand down onto her neck, sending her crashing into the ground.
"Yell at her, not me!" Sunday called back. The doubles pulled themselves back up. Sunday and Night looked at each other.
"Let's go."
On opposite sides of the room, they punched in complete unison. The impostors collapsed again and began to fade away into black blobs.
"Hidoi..."
"...naa." They lost their forms and burned completely away.
Sunday pumped her fist in the air. "All right! That was awesome!"
Night sighed. "Aren't you even a little disturbed that you just vaporized yourself?"
"She was trying to kill you!" Sunday waved her arms.
Night looked away. "Let's just go."
"Go where?"
Starry popped out of Night's phone and onto one of the desks. "We should find a way out ~susu."
"What we should do," Night said without looking at them, "is find Omemi-san."
The school proved empty. All that was left now was the roof, before they tested the borders of the illusion world. Sunday kicked open the door and looked around before walking outside.
"Did you really have to do that?", Night said as she followed along with Starry in her arms.
Sunday blushed. "Of course! This is enemy territory. You need to think like a soldier."
"Are you sure you're not just thinking like... never mind." Night looked up at the blue-green patches in the sky and around at the half-formed benches. "We must be close to the edge."
"Why?", came a third voice.
Sunday and Night spun around and looked into the previously empty doorway. Millusion, in her crisp white version of the Clair Academy uniform and with her pendulum clutched in her hand, appeared and walked out of it, encroaching upon the two.
"Starry, get in the phone," Night said, He quickly obliged.
Sunday stepped in front of her partner. "Omemi-san! Don't try to stop us!"
"Why not?" Millusion's glare could have burned holes into them. "You ruined everything. I just want my life to go back to normal. Is that so hard for you to understand?"
"Wait, what?" Sunday blinked. "If you don't want to erase the world, why are you even with the Etherium? You know that's what they're here for, right?"
"Why should I believe you?," Millusion said. "In case you forgot, Kawada, you're crazy."
Night stepped forward. "It's true."
"I don't care even if it is." Millusion took a deep breath. "If, on some off-chance, you're not deluded, I'll just turn on them. I don't want the world to be destroyed. The only reason I took Kainatrol up on her offer was because she told me I could be rid of you."
"Could you at least explain why you-"
Night held up her hand to cut Sunday off. She stared at Millusion for a moment. "...I know how you feel."
"You're just as crazy as she is, Nakayama!", Millusion snapped. "You couldn't possibly understand!"
"I do!"
There was a silence for a few seconds. Night continued.
"You were saying through your copies that you wanted everyone to go back to being afraid of being themselves. Because it was normal and better for you that way."
"She was?" Sunday blinked.
"Let me finish." Night kept her eyes on Millusion. "You're just as afraid as everyone else, aren't you?"
Millusion forced a laugh. "What?"
"It's true." Night didn't move. "You're afraid that people won't like the real you. Otherwise, would you honestly think that you couldn't be friends with people you couldn't deceive or scare?"
The girl in front of them didn't say anything for a while. She slowly took off her eye mask and looked into it. Sunday started forward, but Night grabbed her arm and yanked her back into place. The two of them just watched Millusion before she spoke.
"Alice... no, Seira doesn't want to be treated like a foreigner anymore. Ogata's terrified of us - the Etherium - attacking again. Misaki Izumi and Izumi Misaki act like they have one brain between them, but they're actually sick of being treated like the same person. Fujisawa Ayumu's been skipping cram school. She goes into the city every weekend, but she actually spends the time at the karaoke bar. Suzu lives her life by the horoscope in the paper because she thinks it'll get some guy interested in her." She looked up at Sunday, raising her eye mask in front of her so she could see clearly. "It's just like you said. I've got something on everyone. I need to."
"For blackmail?", Sunday asked.
"For safety." Millusion shook her head. "I guess it's the same thing. If someone leaves me, they'll know to regret it. But if everyone leaves me at once, then... I can't deal with it, okay!"
Night inhaled. "...Do you still like your friends?"
Millusion blinked. "What?"
"I'm asking if you still like your friends, even after everything you've dug up on them. Or do you just think of them as something to use to keep you afloat?"
Millusion started to speak, but then stopped. She thought of every day, sitting and talking at the side of the Lily Class' room, how her group got smaller and smaller. Going to the Open Mall, the park, even that magic show, though it had been set up to brainwash the crowd to find Moon Pieces.
Night gave a small smile. "...I don't think you have anything to worry about."
"What are you..."
Sunday's eyes widened in understanding, and she gave the thumbs up. "Yeah, you know what? She's right."
"What are you saying?" Millusion's voice wavered.
"We're saying that, if everyone else is dropping their guard, you don't have to keep yours up anymore." Yoko coughed. "I think."
"Wait, you mean..."
"We'd even be your friends, if you want." Sunday shrugged. "Rule to remember: if one of the people who tried to kill you is the same age as you, and especially if they're in your class, they can be your best friends."
Millusion blinked twice. "But I just called you crazy. I've been saying things about you all term long."
"Ogata-san did it," Sunday replied. "She's our friend."
The green-haired girl stared at the mask in her hand. Her grip on it loosened for a second, and she grabbed it tightly again before it dropped onto the cement roof. The illusion world around them began to fade, showing its true form, the inside of a small dark teal orb of light.
"...I'll take you back." She looked forward at them. "As long as you'll make sure she doesn't come after me for leaving. Do we have a deal?"
"We're Pretty Cure!" Sunday posed dramatically. "We'll protect anyone who needs it!"
"Then could you stop complaining when I tell you to go after stalkers and panty thieves?" Night facepalmed.
Millusion's mask shifted into her glasses again. A light shimmered on her clothes, which changed back to the regular blue jacket and goldenrod skirt. Emiru put her glasses on again and slipped her pendulum back into her school bag, which she hadn't been holding before.
"Let's go." The light orb broke apart, and Emiru snapped her fingers to teleport the three girls back to the courtyard.
Mekuramast teleported back into the core room and looked around. Kainatrol was nowhere to be found. He shook his head and walked off through a gap of white empty space.
Asa and Yoko detransformed almost as soon as Emiru did. Without a word, they walked as quickly as they could to their classroom, hoping they weren't too late. Emiru walked a few paces ahead of them and stepped into the classroom, giving the best explanation she could fabricate to the history teacher; they'd apparently taken so long that Ami-sensei's homeroom class was over. Asa and Yoko stood at the doorway and looked at each other.
"Hey, Yoko," Asa said.
"Hm?"
"You know how you said you had something to tell us?"
Yoko slowly nodded.
"I have stuff to tell you, too. Okay?"
She paused... and then nodded. "All right. At lunch today."
They walked in, Asa's mind on young versions of Hoshi and herself, Yoko's on the Vita standing in the garage.
Asa: Whoo! Now it's time for...
Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (Starry: ~susu!)
Hoshi: Hey, we were barely in this episode! No fair!
Yukari: Especially since we've just found out that you two were Pretty Cure.
Tachimany: Out of all the characters, aren't we in the most need of screentime?
Yoko: There wasn't really room for many more people in this episode...
Mekuramast: It fit a lot of plot in, regardless, as well as the first real flashback to our original worlds.
Mia: This episode actually corresponds to episodes 19 and 20 on the original outline!
Starry: Wow, we're so far along ~susu!
Asa: Everyone, do your best, okay?
Yoko: See you all next time.