My name used to be Allegro.
It was raining. A blond young boy in a rumpled school uniform - the old-fashioned kind, with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a grey knitted vest - ran through the muddy streets of a run-down neighbourhood built from wood and bricks. He gasped for breath, splashing in every puddle he came past.
But that world sucked, so who cares? The only one around for me was my sister.
"Hurry up, big brother!" A girl, only a few years younger than he was and wearing a variation on his uniform with a skirt, turned around from a few steps in front of him. Her hair was the same blonde as his, but instead of green, her eyes were bright white. She stumbled but kept running, looking backwards. "They're going to catch up if you don't-"
The boy, Allegro, looked up. "Watch out!"
"Huh?" The girl smacked into a tall boy, about her brother's age, and fell into the mud. "Ngh..."
The tall boy smirked down at her. "Got ya."
Even though I was older, she was always trying to take care of me.
The blond boy made a face, catching up to his fallen sister. "Move it, Coda. You do this every day."
The tall one shook his head. "I don't think so." He gestured behind them as more children in the same school uniforms ran to catch up and surround the two siblings. "You'd get too used to being left alone."
"We didn't do anything to you," the girl snapped. "Stop it already."
Coda skimmed his foot across the mud puddle, kicking muddy water up on the girl. "You still haven't learned your place, have you?"
No one else in town liked us.
"Andante!" The blond boy tried to run to his sister, but was yanked back by a hand on his wrist. One of the schoolmates in the circle pulled him and pushed him down to the ground. He landed with a thud into another puddle, feeling the grit of mud in his mouth.
"Organ Boy and White-Eyes," Coda sneered. "Why do you even stick around here? Your mom never stuck around."
"She's missing," Andante spat, pulling herself up off the ground. "Father's going to find her, and then they're going to come back and you're all going to get it."
"I bet she ain't," called another child in the circle. "I bet she ran away on purpose."
"Bet she's dead," said another.
"That's why you're cursed," Coda said. "Until you figure that out and leave town, we're not going away!" He raised his fist and struck out at Andante.
"Andante!" Allegro tried to get up, but the other kids held him back.
Andante moved to the side just before Coda's fist hit her. She shot out her hand. There was a sudden flash of light, one that, had it come from anyone else, the bullies would swear up and down had just been lightning in the sky or a street lamp going out. Coda flew down the street, landing in another mud puddle and crashing into a garbage can that spilled its contents all over the sidewalk.
"N-no way!" The children let go of Allegro and backed away. As Andante turned around to face them, white eyes glowing against the street lamps' light, they scrambled out of sight.
Her brother just stared.
After that day, weird things started to happen in town...
Present day. Binbeat grumbled, hands in his pockets, and walked through a dissipating wall. Mireyes' words from a couple minutes before (as much as time mattered in the Etherium) were still playing through his mind. Pretty Cure, not erased? After Kainatrol had used the Moon Dial on them in front of everybody? Binbeat's head hurt.
He looked up and spotted five figures far away. The intruders? A green magic circle appeared beneath him, and he teleported to close the distance. Standing around were not the intruders but five identical white-haired teenage girls.
"Aww, man, it's just Tachimany," Binbeat said. "What're you guys doing?"
Tachimany shifted into the form of seven flower girls and shrugged in unison.
"We were just thinking-"
"-that something was wrong."
"When we lost the Moon Piece-"
"-at the teacher's house-"
"-Pretty Cure said-"
"-that they had three others."
"That means we missed one."
"Aww, man! So we gotta find it?" Binbeat made a face. "At least we'll know where one is. Anyway..." He thought. "Go back to Kazahana City. Maybe they left it there."
The little girls looked at each other, then back at Binbeat.
"Are you sure-"
"-that you're not only asking that-"
"-because you set Hidoinaa-"
"-on the park?"
"You just want them dealt with-"
"-before the Boss finds out-"
"-and you're scolded again."
"Does everybody know?" Binbeat flailed his arms. "Whatever! Just go deal with it! And turn into something else. You're gonna make me catch girl cooties."
Tachimany shrugged and turned into two businessmen. "We'll be back." A gold magic circle appeared underneath them, and they teleported into Kazahana City.
Binbeat rolled his eyes and floated through the Etherium.
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~
Episode 18: Moonlit Confessions! The End of the Vanishing Act!
As Sunday and Night touched the floating clock, the world inside - no, the echo, the recorded memories that were all that was left of that world - faded into view around them. The scene was different. Oh, the caravan and the striped tent were still there, but the signs looked somewhat off, the trees a different colour, the road made of dirt instead of stones. The carts were hidden behind the tent instead of at the side, and there were fewer of them.
"Are you sure this is the right world?", Night asked. "It looks a lot like it, but..."
"Of course it's the right world!" Sunday put her hands on her hips. "I knew where I was going!"
"Really?" Night sighed. "Let's just look around for a little while. As long as you're sure that finding out what happened here will help us get back home."
The setup of the tents was a little different, too, but mostly in regards to size; a lot of the periphery tents around the large red and blue one were gone. They phased through the wall like ghosts - "This is so cool." "I'll never get used to it..." - and walked through the fabric-lined halls to the same ring that they had seen Kairos and Kore perform their magic act in.
"Maybe it is the right world," Night admitted. "Still, what are we going to do now? Will it get us out?"
"I know it will," Sunday said with an emphatic nod. "But, more importantly, I want to know what's going on."
"More importantly?", Night snapped. "How is this more important?"
Sunday only flinched a little, mostly holding her ground and maintaining her serious look. "Because I know everything will be fine! Besides," she added, "this was your idea, anyway."
Night opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. Her face turned a little red and she began to walk backstage. "F-fine. Let's look around."
The backstage area looked sparser than before, with everything packed into boxes and easily-moved racks. Unlike before, where it was packed with performers waiting their turn and assistants bustling around, there were only two other people in the room: twin little girls with long, straight hair and matching dresses, poring over a poster unrolled on the floor.
"Where did you get this?", one asked.
"Shh, Kore!" The other held a finger to her lips and whispered. "Father will hear if you keep being so loud. I found it on the side of a building. Look."
Night cautiously walked over to see what the children were staring at. Sunday ran up with no sense of caution, but they didn't look up. Of course they didn't; this was just an image of something that had happened in the past in a world that wasn't around anymore. The poster was newer than they'd seen it last, with brighter colours and a few tears and thin spots from where the glue had attached the back to the wall. 'Enjoy the Majestic Islands!', it boasted, with an artist's rendition of a tropical beach underneath.
"That's the poster that was in Kore's and Thera's cart," Night mused. "So this is..."
"Them as kids, right?", Asa finished. "All this time, Kainatrol had a twin sister... It's kind of weird to think about."
Thera looked, wide-eyed, at the picture and started to smile. "Promise me something, okay?"
Kore tilted her head. "Promise you what?"
"That one day, we can go here," Thera said. "To that island! We can live just like princesses and have whatever we want. We could do whatever we wanted. Father wouldn't even be around to tell us what to do!"
Kore's jaw dropped. "Really? We could do that?"
"Of course!" Thera smiled. "It would be great-"
"Girls."
Thera and Kore gasped and turned around, pulling themselves to their feet. "Father!"
Sunday and Night stepped back out of habit and looked to see a red-haired man enter the backstage area. He looked somewhat younger, but still had his flashy suit and the same stern look on his face as he approached the girls.
"You should get ready for practice." He towered over his children and gave a disapproving look at the poster on the floor behind them. "What is that?"
Kore gulped. "That's..."
"I found it in the house," Thera lied confidently, gesturing to the empty audience seating section outside of the room. "Somebody in the audience must have dropped it."
"Hm." The man crossed his arms and frowned. "Go practice with the performers. Even if you are children, don't slack off."
"Harsh," Sunday winced.
"Shh," Yoko said, knowing full well that they couldn't be heard anyway.
The children's father turned around and walked towards the open flap of tent that was serving as a door. "Don't think about foolish things. People of our station, our background... we shouldn't dream to be anything but what we are." He stopped in the doorway without looking back. "What you are is the children of the ringmaster of the Chronos Travelling Show. You are members of this show, and you will perform in this show as if it is the only important thing in your lives."
"Yes, Father," the girls said, and, satisfied, he left the backstage area. Kore bit her lip. Thera balled her fists and glared at the end of the room.
The echo began to fade in and out again. Sunday looked over at Night, who was staring into space, head down.
"Night?"
"It's just like Ami-sensei's story," Night mumbled. "About the three families of Gessou Village, and the lovers who couldn't be together. Their parents were stopping them, too."
Sunday grabbed Night's hand just as the echo faded out.
Five figures moved through the void: three girls in blue school uniforms, one more in a black version of the same uniform, and a little orange creature with floppy ears and a sunburst symbol on his forehead.
"So we're here," Kondou Hoshi said, tensing up. "Now what?"
"Stick together and move cautiously, of course," Millusion said, adjusting her black eye mask so it glinted in the light from everywhere and nowhere. "Do you want to get caught?"
Hoshi shot a glare at her, something like 'you'd know about sneaking around, Omemi' on her lips, but said nothing.
"There's a lot of space to cover," Okamoto Yukari ventured, looking around at the white carved walls fading in and out. "Yoko and Asa said something about this place being made up of dead worlds."
"Erased worlds, actually ~susu," Starry explained, staying close to the group. "They used the Moon Dial to erase all the time that passed before these worlds were made, just so they could add to the void... or something like that ~susu," he trailed off.
Ogata Mia shuffled her feet. "But if there are whole worlds in here, we could be here for years! How are we even going to start?"
"We'll start around the core room," Millusion said. "There's more of a chance of being caught, of course, but it's unsafe if you get too far from there. It's the most stable area. Beyond that, it's just a void with nothing in it. Probably."
"Probably?", Hoshi snarked.
Millusion spared a glance at the side. "Do you honestly think I had the time to explore around, Kondou? You should really think before you speak."
"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi rolled her eyes.
"You guys are loud."
At once, they all turned around to see a young boy in a rumpled white and green school uniform levitating at the girls' eye level, bending his white eye mask this way and that in boredom.
"You again?", Hoshi asked.
"What's a little kid doing here?" Mia stepped back just the same.
"I'm not a little kid! I'm a hundred and four!" He pouted and put his mask back on. "And my name's Binbeat! Geez."
Yukari frowned. "I've seen you before. You were one of the people attacking the school."
Binbeat scratched his head. "Yeah, you're Pretty Cure's friend." He looked at the rest of the circle. "You're their pet-"
"I'm not a pet ~susu," Starry said.
Binbeat ignored him. "And you're their friend too. You're that person who was hiding in the shed," he said, pointing at Hoshi.
She just glared at him. "Can you shut up about that?"
He stuck out his tongue and moved along to Millusion. "You... I dunno you. You're probably that girl Kainatrol brought who left after, like, a day or something. How'd you get your uniform to be black?"
Millusion smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Something told them that she didn't quite know herself.
Finally, the child looked at Mia and blinked. "You... You kinda look like Cure Dawn, except she's old now. Like, grownup old, not old lady old like Mireyes old. You're not old, so I dunno who you are either."
Mia deflated. "Is that a compliment or an insult?" She suddenly stood up straight. "Wait, who's Cure Dawn?"
"Does it matter?", Hoshi snapped. "We've been caught! That's more important!"
"Actually, old lady Mireyes already saw you in her crystal ball," Binbeat yawned, stretching his arms and legs out. "So I came looking for you. I dunno what I'm supposed to do, though. Kick you out?"
"Wait up," Yukari said. "What do you mean by not knowing?"
Binbeat shrugged. "The Boss hasn't talked to anyone but Kainatrol in months, and Kainatrol is a dumbface. She only sticks around 'cause her power's useful and the Boss likes her. Tachimany're busy with the monster thing, I dunno where Mekuramast went, and Mireyes sent me out here, so she's probably busy trying to figure out why Pretty Cure are still alive." He bobbed up and down in the air. "Besides, it's not like you guys could do anything. The Moon Dial has a bunch of Moon Pieces in it now. One... two..." He began to count to seven on his fingers.
"Hold it!" Hoshi lunged at Binbeat. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground and jumped back. Yukari put her arm out in front of the boy. Hoshi clenched her fists. "What do you mean, 'still alive'? What happened to them?"
Binbeat took a deep breath and looked up at Yukari. Assured that Hoshi wasn't going to attack, he continued. "Kainatrol tried erasing them with the Moon Dial and it didn't work. We all thought they were gone, but Mireyes said they're still alive and in some weird thing."
"How..." Starry shut his eyes and shook his head. "Never mind ~susu! Where are they ~susu?"
"I dunno!" Binbeat put his hands on his hips. "Not so loud, okay? The old lady didn't want anyone else to know!" He flashed back to Mireyes telling him about Pretty Cure's survival, how she looked around the room with her eyes covered and lowered her voice. "I dunno why, but she didn't. She told me not to tell Kainatrol and them about this other Moon Piece we were trying to find, too, back when we were picking 'em up earlier today."
Millusion stepped forward and leaned over to face the child. "Well, then. If you help us find them, we won't tell anyone about it, and we won't tell about Kawada and Nakayama surviving this Moon Dial incident, either." She straightened up. "Do we have a deal?"
"Typical Omemi," Hoshi muttered.
"Shh," Mia whispered.
Binbeat thought about this. "I want a chocolate bar, too."
Millusion adjusted her eye mask. "That can be arranged. Now, tell us everything you know."
Yukari sighed. "You're a little scary, you know that?"
Millusion shrugged. "What would you expect me to do?"
A golden magic circle appeared for a second in the garbage-laden grass of Sapphire Park, and the two businessmen, Tachimany, teleported in. They didn't even need to hide. The only people left in the area were a handful of news reporters, all focusing on the green-eyed tree monsters rampaging around.
What a mess. Tachimany shook their heads and shifted into the form of eleven cloaked figures with golden daggers in their hands. They crouched behind a towering bush, watching the tree.
The radio reporter held on tightly to her microphone and recorder, taking cover behind a tree. "Once again, we bring you live news from the town of Kazahana City, where rumours of monsters persisted beginning twenty-six years ago. They were decried as fake when it happened, but recent events suggest that the rumours were true, as monsters have appeared in this town once again- ah!"
"Hidoinaaa!"
The limb of a tree monster came swooping down at her.
Tachimany watched.
Dark blue lights flashed in the air past them.
At once, the Hidoinaa was impaled with dark blue glowing knives.
"What?" Tachimany's eleven bodies shot up and looked around.
"Hello," came a voice behind them. At once, some of the bodies turned around to face its owner. It was a man in a black suit with a dark blue dress shirt. His hair was a darker blue than that, and the way he frowned, serious under his black eye mask, it was clear. They knew him.
"Devance!" All of Tachimany tensed up, though only one spoke at a time.
The man nodded with a frown. "You haven't changed a bit, Tachimany."
In response, they shifted back into the form of seven little flower girls and began to circle him.
"Unlike some other people-"
"-we are always changing."
"You've changed too."
"Your uniform is black-"
"-and you're much older."
"It's surprising-"
"-that you can still fight."
Devance looked past Tachimany and through the budding bush, towards the reporter and the monster she'd barely been rescued from. "I'm not the only one."
"What do you-"
"-mean by that?" A few of the bodies looked back, though others kept their eyes firmly set on the man before them.
From another direction, a beam of light impaled the same tree monster they'd been watching before. It burst into flames. Tachimany's eyes followed the beam to its origin.
Holding out their hands, magic discharged from them, were two adult women.
When the echo faded out, Sunday and Night were standing, floating in the clock-littered void. Sunday held onto Night's hand.
Night didn't look at her partner. "Haven't we been through this before?"
Sunday drifted closer. "Is this what you were sad about earlier? With the story about the village founders' children? I..."
Night yanked her hand away and spun backwards, still not totally facing Sunday. "It's... just not something you would understand, all right?"
"I do understand it!"
Night's eyes widened, her mouth opening a bit. "What?"
Sunday moved forward, starting to close the distance between herself and Night. "I see the way the world is, Yoko. I see it just the same as everybody else does. Hoshi, trying to protect me by telling me I should act normal. Mia, when we first met her - how she didn't want to talk to me because people would associate her with me. Everyone at school, how they were talking behind my back, and how they would start to avoid people just for being friends with me."
Night stayed where she was, but slowly looked up at her partner. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words caught just at the end of her throat.
Sunday looked her in the eyes, blue pushing down on grey, and held out her hands. "I might have decided that I still just want to be myself... but that doesn't mean it's the easiest thing in the world."
Night hesitated. She looked at Sunday, arms open, hands outstretched and floating in front of her. Slowly, her own hand reached out, hesitated, and latched onto Sunday's.
A warm orange glow surrounded their hands.
"I told you all I know," Binbeat complained. "Old lady Mireyes didn't even know how they survived. How am I supposed to know where they are?"
Hoshi facepalmed. "That just makes you completely useless. We're trying to help find our friends!"
Binbeat stuck out his tongue. "Geez. I said I was gonna help. At least you know they're not dead."
"Assuming you're telling the truth," Millusion said with a gleam of her eye mask.
"I am too telling the truth!" Binbeat hovered into the air. "I'm gonna prove it, too! You guys, get outta the way."
"Um, what do you-" Mia began.
"Come on, do what he says!" Yukari pulled Mia and Starry out from in front of Binbeat. With a flash of light and a glowing green magic circle, a white organ and its bench rose up from nowhere. Binbeat floated down to sit on the bench.
"The organ ~susu!", Starry gasped from Yukari's arms.
"Calm down!", Binbeat whined. "I'm not gonna use Musical Ride. I got another song."
"Another song?", Mia asked.
"Yeah!" He grinned. "My little sister found the sheet music in Mom's stuff and taught it to me. It's called 'Hearts'... uh, 'Heart'... y'know, I forget what it's called. But it'll do somethin' weird."
"What are you-"
"Shh," Yukari whispered. "Hoshi, this might be important."
Hoshi sighed. "...fine. Just try it. It's better than nothing."
"Oh, letting things slide now, Kondou-san?" Millusion laughed. "That's really not like you."
"Shove it, Omemi."
"Come on, play," Mia said. Binbeat nodded and put his hands to the keys.
The sound that began to pour out of the organ's pipes wasn't the clashing sound of Musical Ride, and nothing was exploding; nor was it the cacophony of a child pounding on the organ out of boredom to annoy the people around him. It wasn't soft, but it was a strong sort of slow, feeling calm and determined. Seeing this impatient child who had spent a time longer than the average human lifespan in the Etherium... maybe that accounted for the strange feeling arising in the hearts of the five others standing there. The boy closed his eyes and began to sing.
"I don't know where you are
But tell me if you're gone
As we you left behind
Continue living on
Are you here?"
The green magic circle reappeared underneath the organ, and, like when he used his other ability, Binbeat's hands began to glow in the same colour.
Allegro and Andante's home had seen better days. With only children around, and only the younger responsible enough to do chores without being nagged, the small house was usually a dusty mess, and that didn't take into account the rocks tossed through windows and rude graffiti scrawled on the walls of the house. The words on the walls had started to change after the incident in the streets: the faded usual RATS and YOUR MOTHER'S DEAD were now accompanied by freshly-painted accusations of FREAKS and WHITE-EYED DEMON CHILD. Written right above the porch, in paint neither of the siblings could wash out, was a big red label: CURSED FAMILY.
Allegro kicked his legs up on the bench of the family's old, scratched organ. "Hey, Andante?"
Andante looked up. Her blank white eyes might have scared the rest of the village, but on his sister, Allegro was used to them. "What is it, big brother?"
"You think we really are cursed?"
Andante frowned. "Certainly not," she said in her most grown-up voice. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."
Allegro hopped off the bench. "But weird things are already happening. You know, like how you beat up Coda and scared off him and his buddies. And- and how people are acting weird, coming after you! And how you keep on looking at the circus that came to town..."
"The Etherium," she mumbled.
"Huh?"
"Never mind," Andante said. "They're bad guys. Don't worry about them. I just wish they were the only reason people were coming after me. It's better than the whole town hating us already."
Allegro scratched his head. "You're weird, sis."
"I know." Andante sighed. "Big brother?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you... can you play the song again?" She stood on her toes and pointed up at the sheet music on the organ. "That song's magic. I know it is. And... it's the only thing we've got to see if Mom and Dad are still..."
Allegro grinned. "'Course I can! I'm awesome!" He took a deep breath and began to play along on the keys. The sheet music was in front of him, but he didn't even need to look at it. As Andante sang along with him, a warm light filled the room.
I don't know where you are
But tell me if you're gone
As we you left behind
Continue living on
Are you here?
The future cannot die
The past will fall apart
O song, bring me the truth
O path, connect our hearts
Bring you here...
"They're both still out there." He nodded, lifting his hands off the keys. "They're... I dunno where they are."
Andante closed her eyes. "I wish I could see it."
Allegro swung his legs back around to face his sister. "Heh, bet you'd do a better job than me. I'm not good at the weird seeing thing."
Andante laughed a little. "But I can't play the organ like you can!"
"Anyone can!" Allegro pounded randomly on the keyboard. Andante only burst out laughing more at the awful noise.
That was only a week before Andante's fight concluded. The 'circus' run by a man called Eiender left town, and the Land of Tracks was safe. Allegro left with it. He'd hidden inside the supplies, leaving a note in front of the sheet music at home.
You didn't want to come. I cant stay here anymore neether can you. Coda said he was gonna get the grownups to beet us up or kick us out of town cause he says your a wich. Run. -A
Andante climbed up onto the bench, threw the note onto the scuffed and scratched-up floorboards, and held the sheet music tightly to herself.
Present day, Etherium. Binbeat continued to play and sing, green light spreading. The five around him began to feel something as the glow spread through each of them, not green, nor the cold white of the Etherium, but a warm white that set off the nothingness around them.
Flashes appeared in their minds. Sunday and Night moving through the echo of the Garden of Rings, then stepping out of it. Talking. Sunday holding Night's hands. Orange light.
"What exactly is this doing?", Millusion asked.
"It feels like that time at the school," Hoshi said.
"Is this... energy?" Mia gaped at the aura leaving her.
"It feels like the Unison Second!" Yukari smiled. "Everyone, focus on those two!"
"Susu..." Starry held tightly onto Yukari's arm.
The auras of light shot off of the four girls and one tiny creature, merging into a large beam of light that shot straight off to the side.
Binbeat kept singing.
The images changed.
The white space with nothing but floating clocks around Sunday and Night began to fill. A stretch of a street would appear for a second, or a boat on the water, or a castle floating by itself in the sky.
"What now?", Night asked.
"Don't ask me," Sunday said, "but I think this is probably a good thing."
"Probably!"
The beam of light shot through the images, and they grew wider and spread out, turning the void into a patchwork of different pieces of worlds. The light hit Sunday and Night head on and began to fold over them.
"This is..." Night began.
Sunday gave a wide smile as the energy flowed into the both of them. "Let's do it!"
Night hesitated, took a breath, and nodded. "All right."
Around them, blue fire appeared and burned brighter until it too became bright white. Sunday and Night held each other's inside hands and put their outside hands to the side.
"Sun Limit!"
"Night Limit!"
"Despite the passage of time..."
"...our feelings will endure forever!"
"Pretty Cure Unison Second!"
They flew. Not up. Forward. As the energy pillar began to dissolve, as they flew past pieces of worlds that were supposed to have been erased, they flew along the beam to its source. Further. Further. Through the void they'd been floating in until they touched the Garden of Rings' fragment by accident and woke up. Through the nothingness that was dangerous to touch. Through the walls that were there and then weren't and then were again.
They landed in front of four girls, one holding an orange creature with a sun on his head, and a boy who finished his song, dispelled the green glow around his hands and the organ he was playing on, and opened his eyes.
"..."
"..."
"What's going on?"
Flash.
Mekuramast surveyed the Etherium's core room behind his mask before drawing out his scarf whip and striking out at Kainatrol. Hand still on the Moon Dial, she put up a round shield of red light and deflected it without a word. The shield disappeared just as quickly as it showed up. He skidded back across the polished white floor, narrowly avoiding the gaps as they faded in and out.
He started to pull his head up. Kainatrol's eyes locked onto the corner of his eye, not guarded by his mask, as he looked to the side at her. Her eyes gave off a red light, and he slowly stood up, his own eyes glazed over.
"Give up," she smirked. "With the Moon Dial's power, even you can't stand up to me."
His body didn't move. The weapons he'd drawn, scarf-whip and wand, were in his hands, but he wasn't using them. Kainatrol's hand lay on the incomplete Moon Dial, her face twisting into a horrible smile.
Mekuramast's posture shifted as he stood under her control. Something moved - the tiny snow globe he'd picked up pushed out of his pocket and fell to the floor. This time, the resulting crack shattered the glass of the globe. Pieces of glass and water and glitter covered a small spot on the shifting floor, surrounding the image of a sad girl.
No.
The statue of a sad girl.
A statue, or at least a reasonable facsimile of a statue crafted from paper mache. Kairos grinned proudly as he unveiled it, comparing his assistant to her mirror image in the statue.
"What do you think?", he asked.
"It's... me?" Kore stared at it.
He nodded. "And to top it off, it's a kore, like your name. Well," he added with a nervous laugh, "it's not a real one. I don't think this show has the budget to bring in a real ancient statue. Besides, this fake one looks more like you. It'll be perfect for the vanishing act we've been working on."
Kore looked left and right around the empty backstage and sighed. "I wish I could pull a vanishing act."
"What's wrong?"
"It's not important." The red-haired woman shook her head. "It's not something I should be thinking about."
"It's the boss, isn't it?" Kairos looked at her. "Your father."
"Sort of." Kore took a deep breath and looked up at him. "I... well, Thera and I never wanted to be here. We always wanted to escape. You probably can't understand, because you chose to be in the show, but for us, it was never a question. I don't have the money to leave, and people like us, well... we have our place. It's easier to just give up and be what Father wants - what everyone wants."
Kairos put a hand on Kore's shoulder. "We could go, you know."
She looked up. "We could? You mean, the two of us?"
Nod. "I know how you feel. I don't think there's anyone who would call me a brave person." He looked at her. "But with you around, I think I could stand up to anyone and do anything."
Something rustled behind the curtain.
...No.
He started to twitch at the sides. He couldn't see it, but he felt something revive inside of him and began to push out the energy controlling him. Life began to return to his eyes.
"What?" Kainatrol held her head with both hands. No longer touching the incomplete Moon Dial, her power dropped. Mekuramast forced the mind control out of his head and glared behind the protective lenses of his eye mask.
"I won't let you do whatever you want anymore." He stepped over the broken snow globe with a glare. "Now get out."
Kainatrol raised her head, shaking, and grasped the edge of the Moon Dial in one hand. Her eyes snapped between Mekuramast and the snow globe, the image fading from a sad girl in glittery snow to a statue. A statue that looked just like her. A statue of her sister. Kore. Kore and Thera, the sisters. One had given up. One let the anger boil up inside of her. Then the first agreed to leave again, without her, leave her behind because she could cope, she thought she could manage with the tyrannical man who had raised them now bereft of his magic act and the more complacent of his children.
No.
No. No. No.
Kainatrol's glare narrowed and twisted, her grip closing tightly around the Moon Dial.
"You went along with it all! Even if it were just to stay alive, you helped to destroy those worlds and all of those lives, so you can't tell me that I'm a monster! What are you even here for?" A red aura arose around her, her yellow eyes feeling like they were burning. "Always trying to one-up me! Holding information from me! You invented Hidoinaa just to make my Tamer's Chain less of an asset! Why didn't you just give up and die!"
Mekuramast moved forward, whipping his string of scarves back up his sleeve. A shadow grew behind him for the first time in a void of only light.
"For someone who hates everyone, you certainly care a lot about other people's approval."
Kainatrol's grip tightened in her other hand, too, around the handle of her riding crop. "I should have killed you with her!"
Mekuramast pointed his black magician's wand at her. "You didn't kill her. You erased her. And..." He looked Kainatrol in the eyes, protected by the mask in front of them. A blue magic circle drew itself under him, and black spread over his crisp white suit. Not noticing or not caring, Mekuramast returned the smirk that Kainatrol had regarded him with for over one hundred fifty years. "You didn't do a very good job."
Blue light enveloped him, and he disappeared. Kainatrol seethed at the spot in the shifting room where he'd been standing. Slowly, she let go of the side of the Moon Dial and let her riding crop drop to the floor.
She stood there, taking it all in.
Binbeat had left the girls alone, not wanting to get in trouble, and, thanks to Millusion's teleportation, returning to Gessou Village had been relatively simple. Apparently, they hadn't been gone all that long - something about how time didn't work quite right in the Etherium - but they'd certainly been gone long enough for their abandoned lunchboxes to have been raided by animals. Hoshi, Yukari, Starry, and Mia had eaten enough to not be too bothered, but Yoko hadn't had that much, and Asa hadn't had anything to eat at all. Emiru, for her part, had had a perfectly good lunch beforehand and saw fit not to involve herself in the lunchbox woes of others.
After Ami-sensei returned from town with news that the monsters had been dispelled and everyone was okay, the outing resumed as normal. The class regrouped for a meeting and an educational lecture that Asa slept through, stayed for supper (generously provided by the Aki Guest Lodge, and after starving through lunch, Asa and Yoko didn't even care how bad it was), and, for the most part, returned to their rooms.
Yoko stepped out of the guest lodge and wandered through the tourist village, staying to the moonlit main roads. She kept walking, following the sound of the waterfall, until she made it to the lake at the edge of the village.
"Gessou Lake..." She approached the thick tree standing up above the mist and reached out a hand to touch it.
"I knew I'd find you here!"
"Wha-" Yoko spun around and blinked at the girl standing and waving at her from a few steps away. "Asa? What are you doing out here?"
"Looking for you." Asa smiled and gave a shrug. "Just to make sure you hadn't been abducted by aliens or anything like that."
Yoko sighed and leaned against the tree. "I see things are back to normal for you."
"Not for you?"
"How could they be?" Yoko shook her head. "We could have died back there. We were supposed to die back there. Even if we didn't, we could have been stuck in that empty space forever."
"But we didn't." Asa made her way over to the tree and sat down under it, facing the lake. "That's proof of something, right?"
"Proof of what?"
"Who knows?" Asa craned her neck back to look at Yoko. "But we're going to win in the end, even if they took most of our Moon Pieces. I know that for sure."
Yoko slowly pulled herself away from the tree, taking care to unhook the pieces of her hair that had become stuck in the tree bark. "You never change, do you, Kawada Asa?"
"I do so!" Asa made a face. "A little."
"How so?" Yoko picked a piece of bark out of her hair.
Asa looked back at the lake and rubbed her neck. "Well, for one thing... I used to be scared, but now I'm glad I met you."
Yoko's face turned pink. She slowly sat down beside Asa, breathing in the mist that was rising above the lake. The two of them didn't talk for a moment.
"Ami-sensei's story about the lovers who died under this tree...", Yoko began.
Asa shook her head. "They might have lived, remember? Nobody knows for sure."
Yoko bit her lip. "...Mhm."
Slowly, she put her hand over top of Asa's. They sat there for a while, looking up at the moon.