Author notes at bottom...

Cecillia, who had left the others while nobody was looking, was walking through one of the hallways in the mansion. She didn't want to go near anyone, especially Hikari and her ability, any longer than she needed too. It wasn't that the aftereffects were too strong for her, or that she hated the feeling of happiness. On the contrary, she enjoyed the uplifting feeling. However, she didn't want to be too happy because deep down, she was afraid. Afraid that getting close to someone, to allow someone else to understand her, to know her, would eventually turn on her and inflict lasting pain too deep to recover quickly. She closed her eyes as memories began to flash back in her mind…

She was a little girl, about 4 or 5 years old. The other children would throw sticks and rocks at her, calling her names and swearing so openly. The adults would watch the scene, but they would simply ignore them or spit at the ground nearby before laughing. She was crying, she didn't know what she did wrong…

She was about 9 or 10 years old. She received her first hate mail. It was a piece of paper attached to a rock that was thrown into her window. After picking up the letter and reading it, she tossed the stone into the trash bin. She sighed, knowing that this wasn't going to be the end of it all…

15 to 17 years old. She was asked to meet up with some kind of peace corp to talk about living together in harmony or some crap. When she got there, it was nothing more than a building full of murderers and rapists. She quickly took care of them all, leaving them just barely alive. However, the townspeople complained about her actions and started to throw even more trash at her home. It was going to be another long day for her.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit, DAMNIT!"

She balled her hand into a fist and pounded the nearby wall. She sneered as her head dropped in place. Since her birth, nothing about her childhood was really considered "normal" in any sense. Her very existence was considered a mere curse, simply because her parents….no, she can't say that it was completely their fault. It was a forbidden relationship of course, but she couldn't blame them for that. If anything, she hated the people who discriminated her for being so different from them. She wasn't human, but even so, there didn't seem to be any reason to go as far as to call her a "cursed child".

You're not human…are you….

She suddenly thought back to what that boy Kyle said. Aside from her anger, she thought it was strange that he knew she wasn't human from a mere glance. Her face changed to one of confusion as she wondered just who exactly Kyle was.

"Umm…"

Cecilia turned around to see a blonde young girl with fox ears and two fox tails standing nervously behind her. She silently took a few deep breaths to calm herself before speaking.

"What is it?"

"Um…I was supposed to show you where you would be sleeping from now on…" The young girl seemed very meek and nervous as she struggled to just look face-to-face with one of the newest member of their community. Cecilia just watched before bending down so that their eyes would meet on the same level, and gave a gentle smile.

"Thank you….?"

"L-Lily…"

"Lily. I'm glad that you're offering to help me to use to things around here." She started scratching behind the young fox's ears. "But you don't need to feel like you have to do this…"

"No!" she gently moved the elegant girl's hand while showing a bit more confidence than before. "It's something that I want to do! Helping everyone in the community by joining in the [Gift Games], helping us out with gardening and restoration, the least we all can do to repay all of you is to offer some assistance and help you feel more at home after you just came!"

Cecilia momentarily clenched her hand in frustration in response to the last part of the answer, but quickly relaxed her grip and continued to give a gentle smile to the young fox.

"Well then, I accept your offer." She brought both of her hands in front of her in a very lady-like way, and slowly followed Lily to the bedrooms.

As they were walking towards her assigned room, Cecilia asked Lily about how she and the other kids were feeling about the way they all lived.

"It's quite nice!" Lily began to reply with an honest smile. "We've managed to just barely get by with everyone pitching in. But ever since Kurousagi brought those other three here, things have gotten much easier for us all!"

"Hmm? How so?"

"Well, instead of fetching water, we have a steady source flowing from the water sapling we won from the water serpent…Asuka-san has won a giant servant that has been very useful with replanting the garden…We've managed to defeat a couple of [Demon Lords]…Ah yes, and we've also recovered our good friend, Leticia-sama!"

"Lily…"

The two of them turned to see a young blond-haired girl wearing a large dark-colored ribbon and a frilly maid dress standing with an emotionless face. Despite the faint and uneasy vibe she was giving off, as well as the somewhat stern look she appeared to be showing, her loli-isque appearance gave her the appearance of a life sized china doll. Cecilia was surprised and slightly tempted to poke at the young girl, but she kept herself in control and gave a confused look instead.

"Ah! Leticia-sama!" The young fox cried as she ran up to the young maid and grasped her hands with her own. "Did you hear about the newest members in our community?"

"Yes…" the maid replied in a near emotionless-tone. She shifted her eyes over to Cecilia, who scrunched her eyebrows a bit as if to say "what are you looking at?"

"Kurousagi had informed me about this a few minutes ago. I wanted to see them myself in order to distinguish their appearance from outsiders, so I am visiting each of their rooms."

"I see," Lily sighed. "Then why don't you come join us?"

"Eh?"

"I was going to show Cecilia-san the way to her bedroom, so it might be better if we all went together at the same time!"

Cecilia was starting to feel uncomfortable with the current situation. She didn't have anything against Leticia, but she wasn't really comfortable with staying around someone else she just met any longer than she needed to. She was going to point this out when…

"What do you think? Master?"

Leticia was asking Cecilia directly as she started into her face. Cecilia was momentarily shocked, she turned to Lily, who was looking at her expectantly with a cute serious-looking face. It seems like there was no helping it…

"I-I guess it's…fine…" Cecilia replied as she shifted her head toward the side.

"Yay!"

Lily gave a small jump of happiness as she clutched Leticia's hand and started to pull her over through the hallway. Cecilia watched for a few moments before putting her hand over her face in exasperation.

"I think I'm going straight to bed after this…"

Ryo suddenly brought his head up and looked around. He was sitting in a chair and his head seemed to have been resting on the table in front of him. Unconsciously wiping his mouth, he saw a grand, yet unfamiliar scene of large glass windows that revealed a large forest outside. The room he was in appeared to be a somewhat fancy dining room, or the kind of room that people might use for large gatherings. However, the first thing that came to his mind was that he wasn't at home.

"Oh right…" he blinked a few times before he suddenly remembered the event from earlier. "This is that [Little Garden] place…"

He looked up through the glass windows to see a deep dark blue with white dots covering the sky. It looked like the night sky, so he must have been out for no more than a couple hours. He doesn't usually feel this exhausted after using his trick just once, but with all the excitement from his discovery, he must have used up more energy than he expected. That, and the fact that he was admittedly wasn't the most physical person he knew, meant that he needed to make better judgments from now on.

Yes, his [Gift], as they called it. It was something he decided to call [Doppelganger], since his "copies" were essentially the same as him. People seem to assume that making a doppelganger is always like taking numbers and splitting them into two equal numbers (like taking the number 100 and splitting it into two 50s). But actually, it's nothing more than just taking the number 100, and copying it onto another space (Like copy-paste on a document). However, this trick had another secret to it.

[Doppelganger] allows Ryo to just slightly modify his "copies" enough to differentiate them from the original (or even each other) if he chose. To do so however, he would need to compensate the gain by lowering something else. (Even if you have two 100s, it does not mean that they must both be formed by 2 50s. It can also be formed by a 70 and a 30, or even just a 1 and a 99).

So to summarize…

[Doppelganger] makes the perfect copy (or at the very least, uses the original as a blueprint)

If the "copy" was to increase one skill, it must decrease another.

Yes, that was how [Doppelganger] worked, and that was all he could do…..or so he originally thought. He didn't think much about it before, but ever since he came to [Little Garden], he felt like something was stuck in his chest. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it was like something was trying to escape into the open. Was it another [Gift]? Or was something about him changing suddenly? He would be lying if he said he didn't feel uncomfortable about this, but at the same time, he was secretly excited about this new development.

"Well, looks like coming here was the right idea…"

He silently chuckled to himself as he stared out the window. His body grew with anticipation as he eagerly waited for morning to arrive.

"But first…" he thought to himself. "I should probably take a bath…"

Author's note: So here we come once again...

First, an explanation for 2 different chapters in one day (to anyone who really cares that much). At first, I wanted this chapter and the chapter before to be one large chapter. But as I thought through this, I decided "It's too much to try and make sense of how everythin works together, so I'm just gonna take the easier path..." And thus, we've got two chapters instead of one.

Second, I want to ask people to let me know if I've used Ryo and Cecilia in the right way, or if something was off. If so, let me know, and I'll do my best to try and correct things.

Anyways, that's all I gotta say. I'm gonna upload the next chapter in a couple days or sooner, so until then, hope you enjoyed this chapter, and be sure to review about ANYTHING you feel like.