Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

by Sana Jisushi

You asked for it, you got it! OC fic. Asa the misfit and Yoko the ice queen are drawn together against the Etherium to save every world that's ever been. There are clocks. Clocks and moldy bread.

15. Pretty Cure Fanclub?

Asa always needed my protection.

Ever since she was a child, Kondou Hoshi would spend her Sunday afternoons at the dojo in Fubuki Town. Her parents and the owner's family were friends, so it was only natural. The group training had lost a few members to people moving too far away or losing interest, and gained more from people moving into town or suddenly deciding they wanted to try something new, but overall had kept the same members. Hoshi was the only one who really remembered much of the little blue-haired girl who used to come to class when they were five or six. Kawada Asa... well, she was Kinou Asa then.

You know how it goes. "If a nail sticks out, hammer it back in." In her case, the nail was a couple meters too big for the board.

Hoshi had usually come in to Asa doing strange things, trying to be like the people she saw on TV. Some of the class would back away from her and try to make themselves scarce when she looked for someone to talk to. The others would be standing around her, hands on their hips.

"Come on, Kinou," one taunted. "You wanna be a hero, right?"

"Of course I do!" She smiled, not even noticing the laughs behind her. "I'm already a hero!"

"Well," another kid smirked, "the seniors are actually monsters. Go kick them in the shin or something. They won't stand a chance against you." The circle erupted into laughter.

"Are they really monsters?" Asa poked her head out from the centre of the circle, looking at the older kids stretching out.

"Course, course!" A member of the circle shoved her out, snickering when she stumbled to catch her footing. "Go on. We'll be waiting."

"Hold it."

Hoshi, her hair messy and her uniform crumpled as much then as it was now, stepped between Asa and the seniors' practice area. She glared at the giggling girls behind her.

I doubt we would have even been friends if I weren't always looking out for her, and she never stopped needing protection.

"Kondou-san?" Asa looked up at her classmate. "What are you doing? I need to fight the monsters!"

"No such thing as monsters. Move it, Kinou." Hoshi walked past her toward the small circle of classmates, grabbing her wrist at the last second in case she really did try to attack the seniors. "You girls, shut up and listen to me."

"We didn't do anything," one said.

"Yeah, we were just having fun," said another, waving her hands in front of her face.

"Shut it." She yanked Asa closer to her when she felt her trying to tug away to reach the 'monsters'. "You know this kid'll believe everything you say."

"I will not!", Asa protested.

Hoshi ignored her. "Wasn't scaring the kid half to death about Hanako-san the washroom ghost enough? You do this stuff again, I'm tellin' Hanamori-sensei, and you know you're gonna get in trouble."

The children whispered amongst themselves and scattered. Hoshi looked over her shoulder at the still-struggling Asa.

"Hey. Kinou."

Asa looked over at her, still straining to escape her grip. "What is it, Kondou-san? Let me go!"

It wasn't like she could look out for herself.

"You listen to me, Kinou." Hoshi looked her right in the eyes. "Those kids are using you for cheap laughs. Don't do what they want."

"How do you know?" Her struggling died down, but she still looked up defiantly, though she was more obviously worried.

"Normal people know this stuff when they see it." Hoshi sighed and let go of Asa's wrist. The blue-haired girl stayed put, so she continued. "Listen, stay clear of those guys if they try and pick on you again."

"But that wasn't picking on me! We're friends!" She waved her arms.

"They're not friends." Hoshi glared. "They're not people if they're doing that stuff to you. Come on."

Asa looked down at the floor. "But I really thought..."

Of course she did.

It's not like...

Present day. Hoshi sat up straight in her school desk, tugging knots out of her wild hair with one hand while watching the front of the room.

"We've got a lot coming up, Lily Class!" Ami-sensei twirled and wrote a few things on the chalkboard. "Only two weeks until the class trip. We'll be spending the night in the mountains, and we'll go hiking and do some other activities, but most of the trip will be spent looking around the historic reconstruction of Gessou Village. So, all of you, get your permission forms in soon, okay?"

A few desk rows over, Okamoto Yukari's eyes sparkled. Hoshi sighed. The trip didn't seem that interesting. She kept her eyes on the front of the room.

"We've also got to start preparing for the spring cultural festival!", Ami-sensei continued. "Now, I know we've got a lot of time to work, but being prepared never hurt anyone! Because of this, today I'll be taking suggestions for what the Lily Class will be doing for the festival, and then we can vote!"

Izumi Misaki raised her hand.

"Yes?"

She stood up. "Do we have any guidelines? What's allowed?"

Misaki Izumi stood up beside her. "What's allowed? Do we have any guidelines?"

"Nothing inappropriate, nothing that will get me fired, and nothing overused." At that last point, Ami-sensei took a piece of chalk and wrote NO MAID CAFES and NO HAUNTED HOUSES on the board. "Something original!"

"Then we've got something," Izumi Misaki said. "How about we all work together on a display?"

"Yes, how about a mini-museum? We already have the beginning of something."

Some more classmates nodded from their desks. One spoke up. "We were just going to do something little, but with the cultural festival, we can get everyone involved!"

"I see, I see!" Ami-sensei clasped her hands together. "So, what is this wonderful idea going to be about?"

"It's a celebration we've put together as..."

Five girls stood up and posed. "The Clair Academy Middle School Division Pretty Cure Appreciation Society!"

Hoshi choked on the air she was breathing. "What!"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 15: Pretty Cure Fanclub? That's Amazing!

Come lunchtime, the group of five girls walked into the multi-purpose room with their lunches and bags and took a seat at the nearest free table.

"This is so cool!" Kawada Asa twirled on her heel before putting down her takeout lunch box and sitting in one of the chairs. "I can't believe they actually voted for that Pretty Cure museum display!"

"Neither can I," Hoshi grumbled, sitting down next to her. "I'd rather have a haunted house."

"Kondou-san..." Ogata Mia frowned and took a bite out of her rice ball.

"Can we talk about something else for a while? The cultural festival's not for another month." Nakayama Yoko, sitting across from Asa, gave what Hoshi could only guess was a warning look to her not to give their secret away.

"How about the school trip?", Yukari offered. "Can you believe that we're actually going to see the Gessou Village reconstruction?"

"Boring," Hoshi said.

Yukari frowned. "Maybe you don't like history, but... Oh, have you been to the open mall lately? You know, my parents' store has this amazing heart necklace that we've had since about halfway through second term, and we're thinking about putting it in the display window. It's got a huge jewel, about this big, and-"

"Just shut up, okay?" Hoshi rubbed her forehead and stood up, kicking her chair behind her. "All of you, just shut up."

"Hoshi?"

"Kondou-san!"

"I said shut up!" Hoshi pointed at Yukari and Mia. "You two dragged me into this whole thing, and then you made me keep my mouth shut about it and just let it happen!"

"What are you doing!", Yukari whispered.

Hoshi ignored her and whirled to point at Yoko. "You!"

"Me?" Yoko blinked and her eyes snapped open.

"Yeah, you! This is probably all your fault! I told Asa not to talk to you, and you went and became her new best friend!"

Asa stood up and grabbed Hoshi's wrist. "Hoshi!"

Hoshi yanked it out of her grip and glared. "Asa. Don't touch me."

"What do you think you're doing, Hoshi?" The crowd was looking at them. Hoshi looked around and sighed.

"Is it too much for you to at least try to be normal? It's for your own good." She turned on her heel, walking out of the room without her lunch.

"Kondou-san..." Mia dropped her rice ball.

"What was that about?" Yoko frowned.

Asa sat down and sighed. "Hoshi... she's a jerk like that sometimes."

The Etherium was blank as it always was. Kainatrol, Mekuramast, Tachimany (in the form of nine shrine maidens again, and crowding up the place) and Mireyes stood in a general clump in what could be assumed was the middle, according to where the walls were right now.

"So... you lost Binbeat."

Some of Tachimany's bodies sweatdropped, others nervously poked their pointer fingers together, and others rubbed the backs of their heads.

"We didn't mean to-"

"-but one minute he was there-"

"-and the next-"

"-he wasn't."

Kainatrol snapped her riding crop against her palm. "The one agent in this establishment who can be in multiple places at once can't keep track of a child!"

"We're not one person," they said.

"Insist on the plural some other time," she said. "Just explain your miserable failure now."

Tachimany cringed in unison. Mireyes gave a wrinkled frown, eyes hidden as always by the purple cloth draped over her head, and stepped between the crowd and the red-haired woman.

"The priority is getting Binbeat back before he causes too much trouble," said Mireyes. Or before something happens to him, she thought, but there was no use saying that to Kainatrol. She'd probably either not care or interpret it as a threat that the boy might go astray, like Devance, the boy Mireyes had been recruited to replace all those years ago, or like Millusion, Kainatrol's precious anti-Cure weapon who managed to fail on her first assignment. Besides, all things considered, Binbeat causing trouble for others was far more likely than him getting into it himself. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be out looking for him."

"Go on ahead," Kainatrol said with a shrug. "You're the only one who can tolerate the little brat anyway."

Mireyes must have been glaring under the veil before she teleported out of the core. Kainatrol turned on her heel and began to walk out.

"I don't like this."

"Don't you mean the Boss isn't going to like this?"

She whirled around to see Mekuramast casually walking after her.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," she said. "Why are you following me?"

"Can't I?" He shrugged and walked past her. "If the meeting's over, I'll be elsewhere."

The afternoon hadn't improved, and Hoshi had just been ignoring everyone. When the final school bell rang, she picked up her things and was out the door before anyone could even grab her or try to talk to her. Asa, Yoko, Yukari and Mia walked slowly down the hall in a sideways row.

"Um, Kawada-san, how long does it usually take for Kondou-san to start being nice again?"

"I don't know, Mia." Asa sighed. "It depends. But for her to suddenly start yelling at everyone in public, she must have been mad for a while before this."

Yukari looked over, bit her lip for a second, and then put her arms around the other girls, pushing them around the corner into a classroom. "Come on, come on, everyone. This will cheer you up!"

"What are you doing, Yukari?" Yoko dug in her heels but was dragged along anyway.

"O-okamoto-san?" Mia shivered.

"Don't give me those looks." Yukari removed her hands from her friends and stepped forward with a smile. Behind her in the classroom stood about a third of the Lily Class, typing away at computers, working on posterboard displays, arranging a set of badly-taken photos, and sewing the finishing touches on...

"...are those Pretty Cure costumes?" Yoko gaped.

"Mhm." Yukari smiled. "It's the Pretty Cure fanclub's meeting room. This is where everyone's been working on the stuff for the cultural festival! Why don't you help out? It'll keep your minds off things."

Yoko sighed. "What about you, Yukari?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Yukari tapped the side of her head, where the arm of her glasses would be were she wearing them. "I'm going to talk to Kondou-san and get things all cleared up. You girls need a break."

Asa frowned. "Yukari, I appreciate it, but... Hoshi's my responsibility. She got mad because of me."

Yoko looked over at Asa. Her heart tightened. The last time the blue-haired girl had gotten like this seemed so far away by now. So much had changed, and still Asa being quiet and reserved and worrying about how strange she was seemed so wrong-

"No."

Yoko almost thought she'd said it for a moment there, before seeing Yukari shake her head.

"But..."

"No," Yukari repeated. "Kondou-san is... no, Hoshi is our friend, too, not just yours. You don't have to take sole responsibility for her, just like she doesn't have to take sole responsibility for you. This is about all of us."

Yoko slowly nodded and put a hand on Asa's shoulder. "She's right. Kondou-san got angry at everyone. Even though she can be rude, she seems like a nice person underneath. You don't have to work through all your problems alone."

Asa looked up at Yoko, then at Mia, who quietly nodded, and then at Yukari.

"I'll deal with it this time." Yukari turned to leave and called over her shoulder. "Okay, Asa?"

Kondou Hoshi, for her part, had made herself scarce. As soon as school let out, she sped out the door and walked as quickly as she could without attracting attention. It was still only February, and too cold for anyone to go into the sports equipment shed. The lock had rusted off long ago, and Kazahana City was too peaceful a town for replacing the lock to be near the top of the school budget. Hoshi yanked the door open, ran in, and pulled the door as close to shut as it would go from the inside.

She leaned against the door, looking at racks and bins full of sports equipment, and sighed.

"What am I doing?"

"I dunno."

Hoshi's head shot back, bouncing off the shed door with an echo of thin metal denting. She winced and rubbed the back of her head, looking around the small shed.

"Who's there?"

"Me!" A small boy popped out of one of the bins, scattering soccer balls everywhere. He scrambled out, flipping onto his feet, and bowed as if to an audience. "My name's Binbeat! What's yours?"

"Kondou Hoshi - hey, wait!" Hoshi cringed, holding the still-aching back of her head. "What are you doing here? This school doesn't have an elementary school division."

"I'm bored," he shrugged, tossing around a soccer ball like he was juggling it. "My babysitter's boring, and I'm hiding."

Hoshi groaned. "I don't have time for this. Come on, I'm taking you back to-" She stopped. To where? She didn't even want to leave the shed. That was why she was there. To hide. Hiding from her own stupid self and the consequences of making herself a spectacle just to try and stop her friend from being one too. "..."

"I'm not goin' anywhere." Binbeat pouted and threw the soccer ball at Hoshi. She quickly brought up her arm to block, and it fell helplessly to the ground.

"...Me neither." Hoshi sighed. "Not for a while."

They were silent for a few seconds. Then Binbeat started to hum.

"Stop that," Hoshi said.

"No fair!" Binbeat pouted, crossing his arms. "I can hum if I want to."

"Then go hide somewhere else."

Binbeat stuck his tongue out and paced around the soccer balls strewn over the floor. "Hey, have you seen any big black jewels?" He made a circle with one of his hands. "Like this big?"

"No," Hoshi said, barely looking at him.

"Anything that size? I already checked all the baseballs."

Hoshi sighed. "What? No. I appreciate that you're playing a game to keep yourself occupied, but I really don't have time for this right now."

"You're boring. Hey, did you see two girls who wear the same thing you're wearing? They have some."

"The same - this is a uniform," Hoshi said. "Every girl in the middle school section of the academy wears this."

"Aww. You're no help."

"Neither are you."

As difficult as it was to keep their minds off Hoshi despite Yukari's assurances, it was nearly as hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the Clair Academy Middle School Division Pretty Cure Appreciation Society. Asa, Yoko and Mia hesitantly looked over the displays in progress.

"You did this yourselves?" Yoko bent over a collection of photos.

"Absolutely!" One of the girls smiled and sticky-tacked another picture to one of the poster boards. "And now that the whole class is going to be on the project, we can do even more things before the cultural festival!" She called over her shoulder at Misaki Izumi. "Misaki-san! Do you think we could add a snack table and have the girls in the costumes serve food?"

"I think that would fall under 'maid cafe'," she replied, "and that's overused."

"It's overused," Izumi Misaki piped up, "but wouldn't it be more like a cosplay cafe?"

"Cosplay cafe, yeah," Misaki Izumi nodded back. "But that's overused too."

"Aww, it was worth a try!" The girl talking with Yoko turned back and smiled. "Maybe we can still get away with making little cupcakes or something. Do you bake, Nakayama-san?"

"Uh... no?" Yoko blushed. "I don't."

"Aww. But I'm sure someone in the class does! Don't worry about it!"

Yoko stood up from looking at the pictures and turned her head. There was Mia, nervously talking to some of her old friends from the popular end of the classroom. Yoko wondered if Emiru was helping with this thing. And there, holding a pair of customized dolls made to look like Night and Sunday... Asa.

Asa smiling.

Yoko cracked a small smile, excused herself, and walked over. "Asa? What are you looking at?"

Asa looked up and turned pink, sweatdropping a little. "Look at these, Yoko! Fujisawa-san made them out of her old Starlight Patrol dolls."

Fujisawa Suzu smiled from the other end of the table, busy threading a needle with a section of bright blue hair, apparently taken from a cheap hair extension, and pushing it through the head of another decapitated, bald doll. "I'm making more of them, too- ow!" She yanked her other hand away from the needle and winced, looking for a bandage. "Rooting is harder than it looks!"

"That's..." Yoko blinked. "Wow. Why all this effort?"

"Simple!" A boy from the Rose Class popped up, running a hand through his hair. "Pretty Cure are a breath of fresh air, like the warm spring breezes that Kazahana City was named for! They're nothing like anyone's seen before, and no one that anyone would dare to be!" He posed. "I want to marry them."

"Both of them, Yokote-san?", one of the girls teased.

He coughed. "Sure, why not?"

Asa and Yoko looked at each other. "A...haha..."

"Hey, everyone!" The students all turned around to see a girl in a black and blue dress that looked as much like Cure Night's as a student club working off fuzzy memories and bad pictures could possibly get. Though her hair was done up like Night's with bits sticking up at the sides, its bright blonde colour immediately gave the girl away as Mitsuishi Seira. "I'm done changing! What do you think?"

"Looks great, Seira-chan!" Suzu smiled. Asa and Yoko looked at each other - 'Seira-chan' instead of 'Alice'? Things really were changing here.

Seira twirled around in the outfit. "I'd never have gotten to do this back when I was out of the country! This is the best school club I've ever been in."

"Well, we're not an official club yet," another girl reminded. "We'll have to wait for spring for the applications to open again."

"That's only a couple weeks from now!" Seira gave the thumbs up. "Practically no time!"

Asa's smile widened. She looked around at everyone, Seira going off to change back into her normal clothes, Suzu rooting the hair on the Sunday doll, Yokote Haruka fanboying and one of the Lily Class girls smacking him for being a pervert. She whispered to herself something she thought no one else could hear.

"Things can get better."

Yoko smiled.

"Aren't you gonna leave?"

"No." Hoshi sighed, still rubbing the back of her head. "Aren't you?"

"No way!" Binbeat crossed his arms. "Hiding's fun. You're hiding too, right?"

"I am n-" Hoshi stopped. "...I have better reasons to hide than not wanting to listen to my babysitter. I'm old enough to not even need a babysitter, so I'm not worrying anyone by hiding here anyway."

"I'm older than you."

"I doubt that."

"Am too!" Binbeat counted on his fingers over and over. "I'm... a hundred and four."

"You are not," Hoshi said. "You're, like, eight."

"Nine!", he protested.

"Nine's not a hundred and four."

The boy thought about this for a second. "Fine, I'm nine and a hundred and four."

"You can't be two ages!"

"Can so!"

The shed door squeaked and bumped open. Hoshi spun around to see Yukari, frowning and standing in the doorway.

"There you are."

Hoshi stepped back. "Okamoto? Please tell me you're looking for this kid, because if you're looking for me, I'm not talking to you. Sorry."

"Kondou Hoshi!" Yukari took a deep breath and stepped into Hoshi's personal space. Hoshi jumped back defensively, and Yukari put her hands on her hips. "Can you just stop?"

"Stop what?" Hoshi put her own hands on her hips. "What I did was for the sake of my friend. I protected her when we were kids! I was there when she had to stop coming to class! I was there when her dad left town and her mom made her change her name! And this whole time, she's just kept putting herself out there and kept getting hurt!"

"You guys are weird." Binbeat walked between the two, looking up at Hoshi. "You sound like my sister. She was always saying stuff like that. 'I'm trying to protect you.' 'Stay safe.' Booooooooriiiiiing."

Hoshi frowned. "Every kid feels like that. Stay out of this. You don't understand."

"Do so!" Binbeat stomped his feet. "Sis was nice and I liked her, but she was really, really boring and thought that just 'cause we got made fun of about our mom being gone and Sis looking weird and stuff that she had to look after me. When I ran away 'cause I got bored, she kept coming after me. She even fought the-"

"Binbeat." An old woman with a purple head covering walked up to the shed door. "There you are."

The boy gulped. "Old lady!"

Mireyes grabbed him by the ear and yanked him out of the shed. "How many times have I told you all not to call me that? You're lucky that I tolerate it when it's from you, Binbeat."

Hoshi pulled her eyes away from her fight with Yukari. "Are you this kid's babysitter?"

"Sometimes it feels like it," the woman sighed. "Come on, Binbeat. We've got work to do."

"Fiiiine," he groaned. "Just let go of my ear."

Mireyes obliged. Binbeat immediately tried to run away, but the old woman grabbed his wrist just as quickly, as if she knew just where it would be and what he was going to do.

"That's cheating!"

"Come on," she said, dragging him away. Hoshi and Yukari stood silently for a moment.

"So..."

"Shut up and leave," Hoshi said. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"You shut up." Yukari looked her in the eye.

Hoshi shivered. "Okamoto, just-"

"I know you care about Asa and everything," Yukari said, "and I get that you want to protect her. And yeah, she's weird, and maybe people have a problem with people who are weird. But can't you see that everything that's changed in the past few months is a good thing?"

"Good?", Hoshi asked. "All I see is weird."

"That's the point!" Yukari put a hand on her heart. "The way things were normally was just trapping everyone, normal or weird. Now Mia's starting to come out of her shell. Seira stood up for herself and let everyone know she didn't want to be treated like an exotic foreigner. Omemi-san's nicer - and she's not running everyone's lives anymore. People who would never speak to each other are friends. And just like you said, it started with Asa being weird when you wanted her to act normal. Right?"

Hoshi frowned. "This isn't going to last, Okamoto. This isn't one of those inspirational movies where the new teacher comes in and lets everyone be themselves. You can't be yourself here. Move somewhere else if you want it that badly. Go overseas, like Mitsuishi did, or go be a hermit in the mountains, or I don't even know."

"Who says?" Yukari smiled.

"Everyone says. Life says."

"I think you're wrong."

"Why?"

Yukari looked Hoshi over. "Because I started out normal, just like everybody else. Being friends with people who were basically just using me for this, that or the other thing, going to really boring parties, denying the existence of Pretty Cure when I saw them with my own eyes just because people would think I was crazy? It's not fun. Not as much as this is. Even if everyone else goes back to normal, I'm staying right here with Yoko and the others."

She reached up to the top of her head and pulled a handful of pins out of her hair. The braid she wore wrapped around her forehead every day tumbled down, hanging at the back down to her waist.

"That includes you, you know."

The meeting was over, and everybody packed up their things and began to file out. Asa, Yoko and Mia walked out the school doors with their bags.

"Where do you think Hoshi and Yukari are?" Asa looked around nervously.

Yoko frowned. "Don't worry. Yukari knows what she's doing."

"Um, sorry, but I've got to go now," Mia said. "My mom's going to be home late, so I need to go make supper."

"Don't worry about it!" Asa waved, smiling a little too widely. "Have fun, okay? See you tomorrow!"

Mia bowed and ran off down the tree-lined path. Asa stopped to look around, and Yoko hesitated before stopping too.

"What is it?"

"Hey, look! Pretty Cure!"

The two girls turned to the side, startled. An old woman in light purple with her eyes covered and a blond-haired boy in green, the latter of whom was pointing at them and yelling, approached.

"Mireyes? Binbeat?" Yoko's hand went to her transformation phone. "What are you doing here?"

Mireyes smirked. "My ability, Future Sight, says that there is a Moon Piece somewhere on the grounds of this school. You two must know where it is, right?"

"A Moon Piece?" Asa gaped. "But we already got a Moon Piece here! It was Ami-sensei's paperweight! There's never two pieces of the mysterious broken item in the same place!"

Starry popped his head out of Asa's transformation phone. "We haven't seen anything like that ~susu!"

"In that case..." Mireyes transformed into her flowing white dress with the purple starred shawl over her head. "We'll take yours."

Binbeat followed suit, transforming into his green and white school uniform. "Yeah! All right!"

Asa and Yoko nodded at each other, swiped their Moon Cards, and grabbed each other's hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light wrapped around them and burst, leaving them in their Cure outfits. They posed and went through the motions of their introduction.

"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!"

Mireyes drew out a Hidoinaa crystal from her dress. "Come on, Binbeat. If we're going to defeat these two, we should put in more effort than just a single monster."

Binbeat pulled another Hidoinaa crystal out of his pocket. "Got it!"

They threw the crystals at the same time across to different sides of the pathway, infusing them with two different light posts. Both morphed into identical monsters, save that one's eyes glowed purple, the other's glowed green.

"Hidoinaaaa!"

"Two Hidoinaa?" Night stepped back.

Sunday pumped her fist. "We can take them!" She ran flying at one of the lampposts.

Night watched after her for a second before nodding and running toward the other. She tackled it and was quickly flung off, smacking into the cold pavement and skidding down so quickly she cried out in pain. "Augh!" She looked up. "Sunday!"

Sunday was being held upside down by one of her legs. "Night!" She swung her body over and punched the light post hard enough for it to let her go, barely flipping back to her feet in time to land. She ran over to Night on the ground. "Night, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Night said, wincing, but took her hand anyway to stand up. "These things are stronger than they look!"

Binbeat levitated up to stand on top of the green-eyed Hidoinaa. "That's 'cause we're awesome! And since you guys always work together, we gotta do that too if we wanna be even awesomer!"

"Awesomer isn't a word, Binbeat," Mireyes reminded as she floated to stand on top of the purple-eyed Hidoinaa.

Night looked over at Sunday. Her smile was faltering. Asa... she's still worried. "Asa-"

Sunday forced a smile. "Come on, Night, let's finish this off quickly!"

Night slowly nodded and reached out to grab her hand.

"Oh, no, you don't." Mireyes pointed a spindly finger at the girls. "Get them, Hidoinaa!"

"Hidoinaaa!" The purple-eyed Hidoinaa shot glowing beams from its eyes. Sunday and Night jumped away from each other, out of its path.

"That's just cheating!" Night ran forward and jumped to kick the monster in its light-bearing head. Mireyes leapt off the top, floating down to the ground, and the Hidoinaa brought up its head, cutting a laser swath through the school and hitting Night hard enough to send her flying into the air and crashing into the second-floor wall. She fell slowly out of the dent she left and dropped, crumpling, into a hedge.

"Night!" Sunday ran over to her. Binbeat jumped off his own Hidoinaa, which shot forward and leaned down to trip Sunday as she was running. The orange-clad girl fell onto the pavement, and the Hidoinaa grabbed her like a snake and lifted her up.

"You guys are off your game," Binbeat yawned. "You usually kick our butts. Why do you suck today?"

"They're hurt ~susu!" Starry struggled from inside Sunday's phone. "Leave them alone ~susu!"

"N-ngh..." Night slowly started to pull herself back up, thanking whatever force kept her miraculously alive. "Sun...day..."

Mireyes frowned and looked at her Hidoinaa. "Finish this."

"Stop!"

Binbeat looked up.

Mireyes turned her head, her eyes still covered.

Sunday struggled in the Hidoinaa's grip to look down.

Night winced and focused her eyes forward.

Between them all stood a figure in a Clair Academy uniform with wild brown hair, holding her arms out to guard Night.

"Hoshi!" Sunday coughed, still struggling. "Get out, it isn't-"

"Asa!" Hoshi looked up. "Asa, I'm sorry. Everyone, Okamoto, Ogata, even Omemi has faith in you, and I've just treated you like you're gonna get yourself killed."

"What's going on?", Night asked. "How did you know-"

"Can it, Nakayama," Hoshi said. "I'll explain when neither of you is half-dead."

Binbeat looked up at Mireyes. "What's goin' on?"

"I have no idea," she stated flatly. "It's nothing we can't handle. That's not a third Pretty Cure or anything like that, just a normal girl."

Yukari ran up beside Hoshi. "What are you going to do? If these people even beat Pretty Cure, then..."

"Think I care!", Hoshi snapped. "I know Asa and Nakayama have the power to take these things down and I don't, but if they need help, I'm not gonna just sit there! It's called being a friend!"

As she spoke, white light seemed to glow around her. Yukari didn't seem to notice, as she nodded and glared forward, shielding Night like Hoshi was.

"What the...?" Night gaped.

"Now what?", Binbeat asked.

Mireyes shook her head. "I should have known."

Sunday stared down. "Mid-season plot twist?"

The light shot off of their friends as quickly as it had appeared, and it flowed into Sunday and Night themselves. Their pained expressions shifted into confident, unhurt ones. Sunday broke out of the Hidoinaa's grip, and Night ran up beside her when she landed on the ground.

"What in the huh now?" Hoshi blinked.

"Your guess is as good as mine..." Yukari stared.

"Friendship."

A woman in a soft pink sweater and skirt walked out of the trees, her red hair and pearlescent heart necklace glowing in the streetlights.

"Who's that?", Mireyes asked.

"Aww, man! It's Dawn!" Binbeat stomped his feet and pointed at the offending party. "What do you want?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten, Binbeat," Dawn smirked. "Every Pretty Cure team is different. Some need to hold hands to transform and use their powers. Some transform and attack separately. Some hate each other at first, some are friends from the beginning. Power bases and origins are different. Despite all this, they all have one thing in common. Pretty Cure's power runs on friendship."

Sunday looked up. "So that means because our own friends showed up to try and help us..."

"...even though they couldn't fight the Hidoinaa themselves...", Night said.

"It let you become stronger for a while." Dawn crossed her arms. "But more than that, the two of you are becoming closer as well. It looks like you didn't need me after all. Go on now, before anything else happens."

Night looked back over her shoulder. "Yukari... Kondou-san..."

Sunday looked over the opposite shoulder. "Hoshi, don't worry! It'll be fine from now on, okay?"

Hoshi twitched and looked to the side. "Y-yeah, yeah... Just fight already."

"Okay!" Night and Sunday linked hands. The blue fire of a Second Spin surrounded them, but the colour burned into a bright white.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"Despite the passage of time...", Sunday cried out.

"Our feelings will endure forever!", Night finished.

"Pretty Cure Unison Second!"

They launched themselves into the air and, this time, separated. Night flew right through the purple-eyed Hidoinaa's lightbulb, shattering it before burning it up and leaving a regular lamppost where it had been. Sunday did the same to the green-eyed Hidoinaa. They flew back together, grabbed each other's hands, and flew down towards Binbeat and Mireyes.

"Haaaaaaaaaah!"

"Binbeat, get behind me." Mireyes' eyes glowed purple, and before they could get a chance, she stepped in front of Binbeat, taking the entire attack herself. She skidded back, putting her hands up as a barrier, white light versus the purple light glowing from her hands.

"Nngh..."

Grey smoke exploded from nowhere, and the light faded. When the smoke blew away, Pretty Cure were standing on one side of a crater that hadn't been there before. Mireyes, gasping for breath and holding her side but otherwise okay, was on the other.

"Old lady!" Binbeat came out from behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live," she said. "We'd better get back before anything else happens." The two of them teleported off, and the damaged schoolgrounds and path returned to normal.

"Asa! Nakayama!" Hoshi ran up to the Cures. "You guys are okay, right?"

"Yeah, perfectly fine!" Sunday smiled. "But, hey, how did you know we were Pretty Cure? How long have you known? Is that why you got mad? You gotta tell me, okay?"

Night looked off down the path. The woman who had stepped in on their behalf yet again was nearly gone. She looked back at her gathered friends. "You can sort all that out. I'll be right back, all right?"

"Yoko, wait!", Yukari said.

"I said I'd be right back." Night ran off down the path.

Out of sight of the rest of the group, the red-haired woman sighed at hearing herself being followed and didn't look back. "What do you need?"

"I know who you are!", Night said. "Who you are and why the Etherium knows you!"

The woman stopped, not looking, a hand going up - presumably to her white pearlescent necklace. "You do?"

Night caught her breath. "Sunday and I match. 'Day' and 'night'. They're English words, opposites, times of the day. There were other Pretty Cures twenty-five years ago, right here in this town. One of them was named Cure Dusk."

No answer. Night continued.

"'Dusk' fits the pattern. It means sundown, twilight, tasogare. If she had a partner, and I know she must have, then it would have to be 'sunrise', or..." She looked up. "Dawn. You're Cure Dawn, aren't you?"

She didn't look back. After a few seconds, she nodded.

"I was, once."

The red-haired woman walked out of sight, her pink skirt swishing in the February wind.

Mekuramast sat on a rooftop, looking down over Kazahana City. He heard someone teleporting in behind him and frowned.

"I thought you wanted me to go away, Kainatrol." He looked behind him and stood up to face her. "What are you after?"

Kainatrol smacked her riding crop into her gloved hand. "You've been lying this whole time."

"About what?"

"What do you think? You never really wanted to be here, did you?"

"What are you going on about?", Mekuramast asked. "I thought you had sense."

"I do. You don't, or you wouldn't think that I would fall for that."

"Make your accusations about my not wanting to erase worlds or whatever else you're making up later." Mekuramast stretched out his arms and turned away. "At this point? You can't even prove something like that."

"Maybe not. But proof always presents itself, and when it does, you'll be gone from all existence. Just like that disgusting world you and I came from."

The light glinted off of Kainatrol's eye mask.

"Just like my sister."