I Am Become Death

by Masterdramon

For seven chosen individuals, death was but a new beginning; a chance offered by the Gods of old to join a mission greater than themselves, and to bring a final end to an inescapably chaotic world. Seven-part miniseries.

3. Part III: Misty Lola

I Am Become Death – Misty Lola

Disclaimer: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. All Yu-Gi-Oh!-related characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi.

[-]

"And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices."

– The Book of Revelation, 10:1

[-]

"Okay, try again," intoned the sweet, serene voice of Misty Lola, to which her brother Toby cooed and clapped his hands happily.

Getting Toby to play the games that interested most children was never an easy prospect; the four year-old was simply too distractible, even compared to most other kids his age. He hadn't started talking yet, for one thing…preferring instead to toddle around constantly and affix his gaze to various household items in turn, with apparently no rhyme-or-reason to his choices. A pile of building blocks, like the one Misty was trying in vain to get Toby to focus on right now, apparently held exactly the same amount of fascination for the youngster as did a footstool.

Misty sighed, but also smiled; as difficult as taking care of Toby could sometimes be, she couldn't say that she didn't enjoy the experience on the whole. Yes, thirteen years-old was probably a little young to be a child's primary caretaker, but if she didn't then she knew that no one else would, so she toughed it out. It wasn't like they had the money lying around to simply hire a nanny, and as for their parents…well, that was just laughable.

Oftentimes, though less so in recent years, Misty would idly wonder where the couple would go gallivanting off to for days or even weeks at a time, leaving her in charge of more-or-less everything back at home – Toby included. Occasionally she entertained more fantastical notions, such as that they were secretly spending their nights as cat burglars or serial killers, but odds were good the explanation was far more mundane than that: they were just irresponsible people, and Misty was determined not to emulate them.

Fortunately, teachers had generally been understanding – most of her classes were now taken by correspondence, with only the rare "check-in" session with a faculty advisor required to ensure that she didn't fall behind in her coursework. It helped immensely that she was, by all accounts, an exceptional student; at thirteen she was already set to graduate high school in a manner of months, with the equivalent of her freshman year of university already set-up for the upcoming scholastic season. It was a lonely existence, perhaps…but well-worth it, if this little child could grow up with the love and care she had so craved throughout her youth.

Misty was eventually shocked out of her brief reverie by the eager squeaking of her brother, who was tugging at the hem of her skirt and making the motion that every parental figure on Earth knew meant "up." Smiling warmly again, the teenager swooped him up and bounced him a couple of times, receiving a delighted giggle in response. "At least there's one thing I know you'll focus on," she observed with her own light chuckle, staring deeply into Toby's watery eyes as she did.

Then, to put it very mildly, something rather odd happened.

Barefoot as she currently was, it did not take Misty long to realize that the soles of her feet were no longer in contact with the ground. Indeed, a quick glance downward confirmed that she was currently hovering at least half a meter above the ground, though nothing else appeared to have changed.

Too shocked to react outwardly with the same…"energy" as she was doing inwardly, Misty found herself unable to do anything more than mutely open her mouth and then close it back up several times in succession, an action which apparently triggered Toby's "giggle reflex" all over again.

…And with that, Misty's feet collided rather ungracefully with the floor, their owner still dumbstruck by what she had just witnessed.

[-]

While nothing else out of the ordinary happened that day, Misty kept a much closer eye on her brother's daily actions from thence onward…and rapidly, the targets of his strangely protracted sessions of intense focus no longer seemed so random. Whether it be a toy or a random kitchen appliance, bizarre things were almost sure to follow whenever the boy concentrated on a particular object long-and-hard enough. The symptoms were anything but consistent, but then he was a child, so whatever the Hell was going on here, she doubted he had much of any conscious control over it.

Still, random objects floating or changing colors or turning to liquid – though only ever for a few seconds apiece, undone the moment that Toby stopped staring with perfect attention to the object in question – was turning out to be quite a frequent sight, once Misty knew to watch out for it.

Which was quickly bringing Misty to the million-yen question: to tell, or not to tell?

The point of decision hurtled toward her far quicker than she had ever thought it would, as only about a week after what her mind was unable to describe in any more specific terms than as "the incident," she'd received a surprise e-mail from her parents informing her that they would be coming home for the weekend. Short-notice, out-of-the-blue, and with nary a single question about her welfare or Toby's…yeah, pretty par for the course as far as these "visits" usually went.

Ultimately, she'd resolved to do a little…phishing before making the final call.

"So mother, father…how is work?" she asked over dinner the next evening – the couple were, at least ostensibly, independently employed loan officers.

"Closed some good contracts in America…nothing you'd be interested in," Irene Lola replied shortly, not looking up from her carton of take-out.

A long silence followed this, which Robert Lola eventually broke with a perfunctory-sounding, "I trust that your studies are going well?"

"Certainly, father," she told him, at least glad that he'd had the decency to ask something about her life, as disinterested as he clearly was in her answer. "The way things are progressing, I should be graduating at least a month ahead of schedule. That'll give me a bit more time to read ahead and prepare myself for my university classes."

"I am glad to hear that," said her father, the difference between his words and the tone in which they were expressed so dramatic that it was almost comical. "And your brother?"

Misty twitched nervously. "He is…fine, father," she answered, glancing briefly in the direction of his bedroom; the boy had already been put to bed, and in the absence of any great disturbances, she figured this was as good a time as any to make her inquiries. "Although, I do have one question that I would appreciate input on from the both of you…"

"What is it?" Robert Lola demanded, his tone sounding at least mildly more interested, though still not enough for him to look up from his dinner. This was often the case when they happened to converse – Misty supposed that it probably had something to do with Toby being male.

"Well…what would be your reaction if something turned out to be a little…err…different with Toby?" she responded delicately.

"Is it really possible to tell that early?" Irene Lola wondered aloud to her husband, her brow furrowed in mild curiosity. He, however, almost instantly turned livid at the question.

"Oh fuck no!" Robert Lola shouted, abruptly getting to his feet and kicking his chair backward. "I am not having a fucking faggot for a son!"

"Father, wait, you don't…" Misty began to protest, but the now-seething man cut across her with a sharp strike to the head.

"How could you let this happen?" he screamed, towering over her with his fist clenched, his eyes daring her to give him an excuse to use it again.

Initially, Misty had thought that the dominating emotion in response to the blow would've been pain – he had hit her hard, and tears were welling up in her eyes accordingly – but at this last comment she found her own fury to be rising to its boiling point. "Why the fuck do you care?" she cried out, getting to her feet as well. "It doesn't matter whether Toby's gay, straight, or purple; you wouldn't see any of it anyway!"

In her anger, Misty mentally abandoned any attempts to correct her parents' initial misconception. Besides, if they reacted this strongly to something like this, she could only imagine what they'd say if she told them Toby had some weird sort of superpowers…

"Don't you talk to your father that way!" ordered Irene Lola, apparently keen to get in on the rage-fest as well. "We are still your parents, and you will…"

Misty actually laughed at that one, albeit completely humorlessly. "Since when?" she shot back. "You may have given birth to Toby and I, but in what fucking universe have you acted like parents? When Toby starts talking, it's going to be me he calls 'momma,' not you!"

"He hasn't even started talking yet?" Robert Lola bellowed, throwing his long-empty bottle of sake in Misty's general direction, though she dodged it. "Oh great, so now my son's a faggot and a retard…!"

Misty slapped him across the face for that one, but her technique was wild enough that the strike barely connected. His fist, on the other hand, hit its mark perfectly once again.

Misty wasn't sure how much time the three of them spent yelling at each other across the rest of the night, her father periodically raising his hand to her afresh and usually managing to make the most of it. Her mother never attacked her directly but did occasionally throw various kitchen objects her way, her poor aim offset by the slowdown effect of the bruises and abrasions Misty was rapidly accumulating.

Regardless of how long it lasted, however, the fighting abruptly ceased when a great cry erupted from the adjacent room, followed a moment later by the toddling figure of Toby Lola. Given the sheer volume of their "confrontation" Misty was hardly surprised that they had managed to awaken him, though she felt quite guilty for it; her parents, on the other hand, seemed to be regarding the wailing child as if they'd never seen anything like him before.

"Can't you shut him up?" exclaimed Robert Lola, his hands over his ears. Misty started toward her brother in response, but her mother got there first.

Picking Toby up as Misty looked on in horror, Irene Lola began to shake the toddler vigorously. When this failed to achieve the desired result, the woman exhibited only the slightest amount of hesitation before growling in frustration and striking the child.

Misty immediately gasped in terror and revulsion at this display and rushed forward to snatch Toby from her mother, but she needn't have bothered; for the briefest of moments in the aftermath of the slap, Toby ceased his bawling and stared straight into his attacker's eyes.

Then, without warning, Irene Lola crumpled to the ground.

Robert Lola, for his part, appeared to be at a complete loss for words as Misty made a wild dive to catch her brother before he could fall to the ground. In the absence of speech to express his ever-rising choler, however, he seemed poised to make up for it via his fists, given the way he was now staring at both his children.

He only made it three steps, however, before Toby looked up at him with unblinking innocence and he, too, collapsed.

[-]

"Both of your parents are experiencing completely normal cognitive function, but remain unresponsive," explained the white-coated doctor, gesturing to charts and figures on a clipboard which Misty couldn't make heads-or-tails of. "Truly, while I've seen my fair share of coma patients over the years, their brain-scans are unlike any I've ever seen in the field. I've paged for a specialist from the neurology department."

"Thank you very much, Doctor…" Misty began, glancing at the nametag on his lapel to finish the salutation. "Err, yes, thank you Doctor Goat. Is there anything else you need from me?"

"No, no. Actually, you can go in and visit them now, if you'd like," he told her with a patronizing – if perhaps not intentionally so – pat to the head. Then he turned around and walked off, presumably to see another patient.

Misty, however, did not move from her current spot; she didn't feel at all like facing her mother and father at the moment, comas or not. Especially not with Toby in wait – the little boy didn't seem to have any comprehension of the severity of current events, instead toddling around with his mouth wide-open, as if this outing was to some fascinating new amusement park. Although, Misty supposed, there probably wasn't much difference between the two from his perspective.

…And for as long as was humanly possible, Misty preferred to keep it that way.

Apparently growing bored with watching the activity at the nurses' station after a little while, Toby eventually turned back to his sister and climbed into her lap, which she welcomed with soft strokes to his hair. So profoundly ignorant he was right now…and honestly, Misty would give much to be in the same position at this particular moment.

It'd been a long night – not only because of all the medical paperwork and such she'd had to fill out one-handed (the other one wrapped tightly around Toby's to prevent him from wandering, of course), but also because of the seemingly endless harangues she'd been receiving from the police ever since they'd arrived on the scene.

Fortunately, since assault-by-telepathy was not currently a chargeable crime, the authorities had believed her when she'd claimed she had no idea why her parents had so suddenly fallen comatose, but there still remained the not-so-small matter of what one of the emergency responders had happened across when moving the bodies. A single, extremely suspicious-looking document found in Robert Lola's shirt pocket had resulted in a search warrant, and that had resulted in Misty finally finding out what her parents did for a living.

They were, it had turned out, professional scam artists, and the paper trail now being uncovered was looking to implicate them in the largest American Ponzi scheme since that of Bernie Madoff. This was, of course, hardly good news from Misty's perspective – with the money she'd been living on for her entire life declared at least predominately illicit, she was likely going to find herself without access to any of it very soon. And with her parents marked for long prison sentences upon waking (if they were ever going to wake up at all) and no known adult relatives to speak of, that meant that her immediate future – and Toby's – was decidedly unclear.

"Don't worry, Toby," she whispered softly, continuing to stroke her brother's hair as he started to drift off to sleep in her arms. "Everything will be alright. Everything will always be alright. I promise."

She swallowed a lump in her throat, desperate not to show her own tears in front of the child.

"I promise…"

[-]

A whole lot of bureaucratic red-tape and piles of paperwork later, and Misty and Toby Lola were being driven to their very first foster home. Misty had heard all of the horror stories and, in general, had been assuming the worst – ready to fight tooth-and-nail with whatever abusive, money-grubbing bastard the state had decided to fling their way.

That…hadn't exactly been what had happened.

"Don't be nervous," a heavyset government agent attempted to assure them from the front seat. "Your new guardian has a lot of experience with kids. I hear he used to be a teacher at Duel Academia, of all places; retired a couple years ago. It should be fun living with someone who knows that much about Duel Monsters, right?"

"I suppose," Misty mumbled with a sigh. "I don't really play that game very much. Never enough money laying around for…that kind of thing."

"Well, maybe that'll all change here!" the agent replied brightly, pulling up into the driveway of a well-sized but extremely strange-looking house. Misty merely nodded as she helped Toby unbuckle himself and led him out of the government van.

The most striking feature of this dwelling, Misty noted, was definitely its age – everything about it, from the intricate gratings and romantic statuettes on the roof to the antique, wolf-shaped knocker on the double doors they were fast approaching, screamed a rather different century than the twenty-first. A red, white, and green flag flew in the wind from atop a tall steeple, though Misty couldn't quite place the country of origin – too many European flags looked identical to her.

Holding her breath without really realizing it, Misty gave up trying to guess and instead lifted the knocker twice.

"I shall be there in just a minute, na no ne?" called out a much older male voice from inside the house, and after a few moments of silence – punctuated by the distinct sound of someone tripping and crashing to the ground – the door opened, and the children first set sights on their new guardian.

He was…well, "distinctive" was certainly a good word. There was clearly a deep connection between the man's decorative sense with regards to his home and with regards to his own appearance, as both his attire and his makeup (yes, makeup) brought to mind a style that might well have been the height of fashion in the Victorian Era, but a few hundred years later…

"Buongiorno, Signorina Misty," he greeted her with a polite nod, his accent thick but understandable. "I am Professor Cronos de Medici. And this must be Signore Toby, na no ne?"

"Err…yes, yes sir," she answered, somewhat awkwardly, as the rather tall gentleman bent down nearly a meter in order to look the children in the eye. He received a sharp tug on his long blond hair and an enthused giggle from Toby for his troubles.

Wincing, Professor Cronos straightened himself up and signed a form being held aloft by the patient government agent without another word. "Alright, it looks like everything's squared away here," said the agent, shaking the hands of both Cronos and Misty before departing. "If for whatever reason this arrangement doesn't end up working out, I've left you our office's contact info. For now, though, just make sure to have fun!"

Misty wasn't really sure what to say in response to that, so she just shuffled around on the balls of her feet and held onto Toby as the van pulled away, leaving the children and their new "father" alone on his stoop.

"Now, eh…how would you and Signore Toby like some dinner, Signorina Misty?" Professor Cronos asked after a long pause. "I cook up a mean fettuccini alfredo, no ne?"

The pause lingered. Then, Misty found herself smiling slightly, and she responded, "That…that would be nice, actually."

And with that, the trio entered the house together.

[-]

The next few weeks had progressed…interestingly.

It was evident within an hour or two in his company that Professor Cronos didn't have a whole lot of experience dealing with children outside of the classroom. Daily life with him involved pop quizzes at every turn – over breakfast, in the car, while she was brushing her teeth before bed – which admittedly made some deal of sense for her, being a prodigy and all…but he also insisted on administering age-appropriate ones to Toby as well, which all ended rather predictably. Toby's latest round of hair-pulling had matched the answer to Cronos' question ("What is two times four?"), though, so apparently the older gentleman was choosing to count that one as a win.

And then there were the cards; oh good Lord, the cards. Professor Cronos had fallen over rather dramatically when Misty had informed him of her general disinterest in the game; for the daughter of the former principal of Duel Academia (okay, she could admit, she blushed a little bit at the term "daughter"), that simply would not do! And so accordingly, after picking up Toby from his first ever – and fortunately, psychic-accident-free – day of preschool, the trio had made a stop at the Black Clown Game Shop to pick out her first deck.

It'd been slow-goings, relatively speaking, but eventually something had managed to catch her eye, lain adrift in a small corner sandwiched-between some rather flashier Warrior and Dragon displays. As she was just beginning her college correspondence courses (which, incidentally, Cronos approved of wholeheartedly; nothing pleased him more, he would often muse aloud, than a studious student who applied themselves fully to their studies) she was beginning to focus upon the field of Classics, with an emphasis in Greek mythology. Given this, seeing a neat row of grotesque Gorgons struck an instant chord with her.

"These ones, Cronos-sensei," she said, pointing to the Reptiless' Vengeance Structure Deck (with nine all-new cards and a limited-edition reprint of Mischief of the Time Goddess!, read the box). "I mean, if that's not too much…"

"What? Nonsense! Every duelist should wield the cards that he or she feels the deepest connection to, na no ne?" Cronos declared loudly, striking a thespian pose. If he noticed that everyone else in the store, the owner included, turned to stare at him at this outburst, then he did not seem to care. "Now, who is the proprietor of this establishment?"

"Err…that would be me," answered the owner, a younger gentleman with a rather bizarre haircut and even more bizarre tastes in jewelry. "Ryuji Otogi, manager of the Black Clown Game Shop and head of its parent company, Black Clown Games Limited. What can I do for you?"

"What packs would you say would boost an…ahem, 'Reptiless' deck most effectively, in your estimation?" he asked, while simultaneously holding Toby back from grabbing the dice hanging from Otogi's ears.

The man's initial confusion brightened considerably at this question, and with a confident grin he picked up a couple of small packages from the wall behind him. "Try to give these a roll," he answered, handing them over to the awkwardly gawking Misty. "One pack each of Phantom Darkness and Reign of Olympus, little lady – on the house."

"Th…Thank you," Misty sputtered, taking the proffered packs as Cronos pulled out his wallet to pay for the Structure Deck.

"Oh, don't mention it," Otogi tossed off nonchalantly. "It always warms my heart to see a good little child get rewarded with some sweet cards. She has been a good little child, I take it?"

"Absolutely! I could not be prouder, no ne?" Cronos told him with a broad smile. "Signorina Misty here just aced her college entrance exams, all across the board!"

"College entrance exams? Well then, I guess I owe you an apology for the 'little' comment, Misty-chan," quipped Otogi as he finished ringing up the sale – Misty flushed, but she did not argue. "Enjoy these, in any event – and don't be afraid to stop by again once you knock those college courses dead!"

He inclined his head to Cronos, who did likewise; later, as they were exiting the shop and returning to the former professor's aged-but-reliable car, Misty could hear him musing to himself, "Such a delightful man. Oh, if he had been just ten years younger, he'd have been a perfect student…"

When they arrived home that day, Cronos had insisted on a practice duel; he had won, of course, but she thought she'd put up quite a decent fight for someone who had no clue what she was doing. Then they'd rematched again, and again, and again – Toby apparently not minding in the slightest, since the life-sized holograms produced by the Duel Disks they were using didn't exactly skimp on spectacle. Plus, his playful attempts to climb the leg of Antique Gear Golem did wonders for distracting Cronos in their matches, an act for which Misty would attribute all the credit once she finally won a round.

Misty wasn't exactly sure what to call what she felt at that moment, other than as the sum of its parts – that she had someone in her life that cared enough about her to introduce her to something he loved; or that her accomplishments were finally being met with pride and reasonable rewards rather than total disinterest; or Hell, that she was even able to have something in her life that didn't revolve solely around Toby, without actually having to cut him out in any way.

No, she definitely didn't know what to call it. But she did know that the following day, when social services had come knocking and Cronos-sensei had decided to broach the subject, she hadn't hesitated in the least in requesting official adoption papers.

[-]

Now of course, while her life did expand in quite a few new directions during her stay with Cronos de Medici (including the progression of her college career, a steadily increasing interest in dueling, and even some prospects she was beginning to dabble into within the modeling world, due to a chance meeting with some influential people at a recent tournament), Toby was still her number-one priority and always would be.

Fortunately, this didn't seem to bother Cronos-sensei too much (yet another reason why she liked him), as his patience with a child that still lacked the power of speech was evidently somewhat limited. It wasn't that he overtly steered away from Toby – far from it – but when it came to the…less glamorous elements of taking care of a four year-old, he was more than happy to step aside and allow Misty the room to do what she did best.

It was in roughly this arrangement that the three eventually settled: Cronos as the breadwinner (through speaking gigs and a book tour on his recently published guide to teaching dueling, not to mention his sizable pension) and caring-if-inept father-figure; Misty as the scholar and, by proxy if nothing else, homemaker; and Toby as the dependent. Unconventional? Misty would never deny it to be so…but it was certainly a marked improvement on her first thirteen years of life, so she hardly felt an urge to complain.

What she enjoyed most, however, was the simple fact that in this – the first thing she had ever really been able to call a family – no one was fully independent from anyone else. She spoke with her adoptive father (whom she still called "sensei," for no greater or lesser reason than that any other moniker just seemed jarring to her ears) quite often in the evenings, especially once Toby was safely off to bed, and it very soon became clear that what she was dealing with was a man whose heart experienced a gaping hole if he wasn't guiding the progress of young minds.

And the fascinating part of it – though she wasn't really certain how she could tell this, beyond a simple gut feeling – was that this was clearly a recent development. She wasn't about to pry into exactly what had brought this need to care for children about so intensely, but she hoped perhaps he'd tell her on his own, someday.

"How are your studies going, Signorina Misty?" Cronos-sensei asked on one such evening, handing her a hot cup of freshly brewed tea. Her lip curled in bemusement as she blew delicately upon the steaming beverage; strange, wasn't it, how almost the exact same question could connote such different things, simply by being asked by someone who truly cared for her?

"Extremely well, actually," Misty replied. "I've just begun reading Plato's Republic for my classical political theory course. I've already finished it, of course…but it's fascinating to hear about it from a whole new perspective."

"This is the professor that allows you to watch his lectures through that…weird…internet…video-thingy, na no ne?" Cronos checked, evidently finding it prohibitively difficult to pronounce the word "Skype."

"Yes, he's been very understanding of my responsibilities to Toby," Misty answered genially, taking a tepid sip of her tea. Fortunately, it had turned out quite elegantly, and she thanked him for it.

"Oh, it was no trouble at all," said Cronos, waving away the expression of gratitude. Tapping his chin ponderously for a few moments, he then added, "Speaking of which, how is little Toby anyway? Is he adjusting well to life here? You always seem to know him so much better than I do, no ne…"

"He certainly likes you much more than he ever liked mother or father," Misty reflected truthfully. "He may not understand your…err, propensity for quizzes, but the additional stimulation does him good. What with all the additional exposure he's getting in preschool, I wouldn't be surprised if he finally takes to speaking any day now."

"I very much hope so," agreed Cronos with a nod. "I do wish it isn't causing him problems with the other students in the interim, though. Even at that young age, kids can be cruel, na no ne?"

Misty swallowed her current sip of tea a little too fast, and coughed loudly; in response, Cronos handed her a handkerchief with a speed that bordered on the superhuman. As she thanked him again, Misty swallowed and reflected back on a brief report the teacher had provided her last time she had gone to pick up Toby.

Toby Lola is well-behaved and disciplined, if overly excitable and distractible, the note had read. But his constant quietness disturbs the other children. Several students who have sat next to him during activities have complained of strange occurrences, and have demanded reseating.

I recommend a greater effort put toward socializing Toby with other children his age, outside of the classroom setting. If he does not begin to learn how to talk within the near future, I also highly recommend that you look into options in special education.

The "strange occurrences" part was, unsurprisingly, what had bothered Misty the most. Toby's powers (or whatever one might call them) had appeared to have gone largely dormant since…that night, manifesting in little more than the occasional vibrating object or miniscule temperature changes in the air around him. But she hadn't been able to directly observe him while he'd been off making his first foray into the classroom – much as she'd have liked to – and so if he'd had some sort of "relapse" (for lack of a better term) then that was definitely a cause for alarm.

Misty stared at Cronos-sensei rather pensively for a few moments, and he appeared to notice, as he averted his eyes and adjusted his collar awkwardly. He'd proved himself eminently understanding over the past several months, hadn't he? Caring, reasonable, and trustworthy in the extreme?

But…well, as much as she'd opened up to the retired professor as of late – she hadn't sugarcoated any of the issues stemming from her own upbringing, and he'd tried his damndest to ease the ones that still lingered with wisdom and advice – this was one trigger she wasn't sure she could pull with anyone anymore. Look at what had happened last time she had merely phished for a favorable response, after all! And yet…

It was undeniable; if those on the "outside" were starting to take notice of Toby's…uniqueness, then this simply wasn't a burden she was capable of wielding on her own much longer. Meeting the gaze of evident concern that Cronos-sensei was now extending as the silence dragged on, Misty swallowed hard and murmured, "There's…something I want to tell you about Toby, actually. But you need to promise me that you'll hear me out on it. Promise me."

"Of course. Why would I ever do otherwise, no ne?" responded Cronos, tenting his fingers.

"Well, see, the thing is…oh God, I'm really not sure if I should say anything at all…" Misty sputtered, becoming quite frazzled as she continued to go back-and-forth on the issue within her head. In this state she felt a strange compulsion to check-in on the sleeping Toby, which she acted upon immediately; the fact that his blanket turned out to be shifting from blue to yellow and back in time with his breathing finally sealed the deal.

"Okay, Cronos-sensei, look…" she started again, closing the door to Toby's bedroom within moments of opening it. "Toby is…well, that is to say…he's sort of…"

"He isn't a vampire, is he?" Cronos cut in, shivering and making a rather weary face.

Misty burst out laughing at this one immediately, but when the expression didn't fade she scrunched her eyebrows together and in a much more sober tone, inquired, "You're…not really serious about that one, are you? I mean…everyone knows that vampires aren't…"

"I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you there, Signorina Misty. Met one myself a while back, actually," Cronos related, shivering from head-to-toe once again. "Not a particularly…agreeable experience. But I suppose, looking back, that that probably has nothing whatsoever to do with what you were trying to explain in the first place, na no ne?"

Misty's eyes were practically bugging out of her skull – not merely at the revelation itself, but far moreso, the sheer casualness with which it was being brought up – and she felt compelled to declare, "More than you might think, perhaps. But first, Cronos-sensei…is there anything else, err, 'like that' which you experienced in your life? Anything…weird?"

Cronos de Medici laughing was quite a rare sight, to the point where his hoarse, throaty guffaws in response to this query were simultaneously the most hilarious and the most disturbing things she had witnessed in recent years. Eventually he managed to get a hold of himself, though, and replied in highly amused tones, "You are kidding me, na no ne? I've seen ghosts, demons, alternate dimensions, evil alien globs of light that tried to blow up the Earth with a laser satellite…not to mention students who managed to graduate with honors despite sleeping through half their classes. Not much can surprise me now, Signorina Misty."

He chuckled a bit at this brief self-reflection, and groaned at the rest of it, before following his words up with, "So what is the relevance of this to your brother, no ne? Is he flying? Orange skin? Psychic powers? Dancing with…"

"That one!" Misty interjected, more loudly than she'd been intending. "Or, I guess that's one thing you could call it. I've never really seen anything like it…"

In lieu of further explanation, she motioned for Professor Cronos to peek inside of Toby's bedroom, where, in addition to the color-changing blanket, a plush toy was now levitating a few centimeters off the ground. Toby was smiling serenely in his slumber; if Misty had to guess, she'd wager heavily that he was currently engaged in a wonderful dream.

…And with that in mind, her eyes went wide with shock as he mumbled what was unmistakably the word "sister" and snuggled close to the doppelganger of her his subconscious must have been imagining.

Closing the door again, Misty turned back to her surrogate father, who wore an identical expression of utter stupefaction. The sources were probably distinct from each other (and it might have amused her, were she thinking more evenly, that she was far more surprised to hear Toby's first word than to observe him exhibiting superhuman abilities), but there was nevertheless an unspoken exchange between their expressions to the effect of "we tell no one of this."

"I should've known that retiring from Duel Academia wouldn't render my life sane again," Cronos mused with a cartoonishly long sigh. "But then, I suppose that after all these years, I really wouldn't know what to do with a 'normal' life, na no ne? If people are products of their environment, then I'm certainly a product of abject strangeness by this point…"

The night largely ended there, for which Misty was incredibly grateful. Revealing Toby's powers had resulted in a big ball of awkwardness – that much was undeniable – but she far preferred awkwardness to outright rejection.

And after she had put all that out of her mind in anticipation of her own slumber, she'd finally had time to think about exactly what Toby's first word had been, and with that knowledge in mind she slept quite peacefully.

[-]

Professor Cronos' general affectation toward Toby Lola – uneasy but accepting – did not change much as the child aged, though even as he began to speak and read and write (all a few years later than most children tended to learn, but not so much that further teachers ever seemed driven to raise alarm) both Cronos and Misty tacitly agreed that it was best he not be told directly of his powers. As it was they came and went, most often in response to dramatic shifts in the boy's present mood, and since neither had any idea how drastically those powers could expand if he gained conscious control over them they felt it best they put that prospect off as long as possible.

After all, potentially limitless mental might in the hands of a five year-old? Bad medicine indeed.

Misty, meanwhile, ended up graduating university a full year early, able to load up her course schedule as much as possible thanks to the extra time freed up by Toby being at school. Unfortunately, the job market for Classics majors was hardly an easy one, and she hadn't as-of-yet found a place where she could apply her present skills.

On the bright side, however, her modeling "side-career" (as she generally insisted on calling it) finally seemed like it was starting to go somewhere. While she'd have certainly preferred work that was a little more…taxing on her mind, it was impossible to deny that at seventeen, she was an absolute bombshell. It hadn't been something she'd been trying for, nor something she'd ever placed an inordinate amount of value in, but nevertheless she was hardly going to turn away from the opportunity to make some use of it.

She still hadn't managed to snag a shoot for anything more formal than a pet-food advertisement (but hey, at this age, she was going to take what she could get), but at least she'd gotten her hands on an agent after a couple years of less-than-fruitful searching. Mister White was a somewhat taciturn fellow, and she had to admit that his tendency to wear hoodies that constantly obscured half of his face unnerved her sometimes, but he got the job done well enough and that was really all she could ask for. Toby liked him a lot, it seemed, judging by how frequently Mister White showed up in his crude artworks…and Mister White in turn always made the effort to embrace Toby or bring him toys, even as he kept his interactions with Misty strictly professional. Which she supposed was worth something, at least.

One such interaction happened to be taking place about a week before Misty's eighteenth birthday, as she and Mister White discussed at-length a possible opportunity in an upcoming "teen magazine" while Toby sat in a corner, playing with the model train the older gentleman had gifted him earlier that day.

"I do understand the stigma you are dreading, of course, but trust me when I say that this will help your résumé in the long-run rather than hurt it," argued Mister White, tightly clenching the jacket sleeves that matched his namesake hue.

"And you're sure about that?" Misty pressed him, glancing shrewdly at the sample issue he had brought with him and grimacing at the glitzy inanity.

"My dear, I am sure about everything," he answered with a small grin, chuckling low as if enjoying some secret joke.

"Then…alright," said Misty, sighing and proceeding to sign the paperwork he'd provided. "Anything else?"

"Oh, just a few things," Mister White replied, still smiling in a manner that caused Misty to shiver. "For one thing, I'll need to see your guardian and get a signature from him as well, seeing as you happen to still be a legal minor. And for another…"

For the first and last time in all the months she'd ever known him, the enigmatic manager lowered his hoodie, stripping the jacket off to reveal a crisp business suit in precisely the same shade.

What was disturbing about this act, however, was that it did not finally expose his eyes to her. Rather, even when unconcealed, the top half of his face remained enshrouded in some inscrutable darkness…save it seemed, upon closer inspection, for two miniscule pinpoints of light, hidden deep within the shadows but growing ever-brighter the longer she stared into them.

Instinctively she moved to the side to shield Toby from his view, but try as she might she could not avert her gaze from the tiny beacons, which continued to expand wider and wider until her entire field of vision was consumed entirely by gleaming white, and the emitter of the energy spoke again.

"I have arranged for you to receive a new manager in the morning," Mister White told her, his delivery slow and deliberate. "He will be under the distinct impression that he has always been your manager. You, my dear, will be under quite the same impression; indeed, the moment I exit this room you shall forget about my existence entirely."

Then he turned his attention to the diminutive figure of Toby, still drastically short for a boy of nine but no longer the dumb babe he'd been in mind for so many years. Nevertheless, the fixed gaze of the white-suited gentleman was just as effective at freezing him in place as it had been to his sister; the only difference was that an aura of power immediately burst to life around him, raw and twisting. Mister White chuckled throatily.

"Impressive, for a human boy. With a little more training, you might actually be able to resist me with that…but unhoned, a psychic aura means no more to me than a layer of mascara," he stated aloud, for no one's benefit but his own – after all, neither of these whelps would recognize him in less than ten minutes, and he would be free to depart and "arrange" the next great patch in the tapestry of destiny.

"But enough idle musing," Mister White went on, bending down to stare Toby Lola directly in the eye. "Now boy, listen well. As with your sister, all memories of me shall fade once our little…talk here is complete. But I have one addendum for you, child."

Picking up the model train from the floor, he held it up for Toby's observation and commanded, "You will keep this trinket in your bedroom at all times. If asked, you will explain that this trinket is a treasured heirloom of a departed friend. And when this trinket speaks to you on the morning of February 8, 2026…you will be prepared to listen. Goodbye, Misty and Toby Lola."

As a final parting "gift," Mister White proceeded to grasp the toy engine and, with a deep breath, funneled several tendrils of white vapor into its innards. Apparently satisfied, the faux-manager stood back up and walked calmly to the door…only for it to open on his face, revealing the tall figure of Cronos de Medici, laden with grocery bags.

"Who are…?" he began, the sentence fading away into nothing as he gazed around the room – first at his adoptive children, slumped over with blank eyes as their minds adjusted to the long-term memory erasure, and then at the man before him, whose half-face had lost its confident smirk for the first time that day.

"I did not see you coming, human. Why did I not see you coming?" he demanded, more of himself than of the stunned Professor Cronos, who had dropped the shopping bags out of shock. "We were, of course, fated to meet this day…but not here, and not for several hours yet. Unless…"

Completely ignoring Cronos as he rushed toward Misty and Toby and hurriedly took their pulses in turn, Mister White continued to mutter to himself, "Ah yes, that must be it. The signature is unmistakable. You've spent quite a bit of time around that blasted Supreme King, after all; it's really no wonder that a little bit of whatever blocks him from my sight rubbed off upon you."

"…Who are you?" Cronos finally managed to finish, now that it was clear that Misty and Toby hadn't been physically harmed. "Were you the one who did this to my children?"

"As your species counts time, the answer to the former would take at least forty years to answer fully, so I shall focus on the latter," the white-suited gentleman responded simperingly. "In short, yes, they are currently catatonic because of my machinations, but do not fret – they shall be fully recovered in but a few minutes. The same, I am afraid, cannot be said for you."

"I swear, if you touch another hair on either of their heads…" warned Cronos, spreading out his arms to shield the unmoving children. None of his usual "quirkiness" escaped the expression he wore in that moment; while he still did not know the identity of this invader of his home, this was precisely the reason he had taken in kids of his own in the first place, so soon after leaving the students of Duel Academia. Children needed defenders, and men like this needed someone to teach them lessons…the hard way, if necessary.

"What do you expect to do with me, exactly?" Mister White queried, tilting his head to the side in bemused interest. "Duel me? Fight me off with your bare hands? You may have been in close proximity to Judai Yuki for longer than most, but that hardly qualifies you to be a hero yourself. Now, why don't you run along – we have a schedule to keep in precisely four hours, nine minutes, and nineteen seconds, and I detest being kept waiting."

Cronos, however, wasn't responding to any of these jibes; rather, he was staring deep into the overwhelming darkness that hid away the other man's eyes, and with their powers not currently being "active," he was able to keep control of his faculties long enough to gasp low in recognition. "I…know you…" he murmured, horror dawning across his face. "But…but you can't be…because that means…"

"Cease your babbling," Mister White ordered coldly, grasping Cronos tight by the throat and lifting him several feet. "I am weighing my options, and I do not appreciate the distraction of your useless prattling."

Cronos choked and sputtered, his arms flailing about until they caught the straps of the Duel Coat he was currently wearing and, in a desperate attempt to escape the other man's vice-like grip, released them.

For a plan improvised on the spur-of-the-moment, it worked quite well – the heavy mechanism detached from the former professor's jacket and crashed straight into Mister White's face, sending him back several feet and forcing him to release Cronos' neck.

"My inability to predict your course is fast becoming…irritating," he breathed dangerously, returning to his feet with the detached Duel Disk in his hands. To Cronos' dismay, there was not a scratch upon him.

Now truly incensed for perhaps the first time in decades, the man in white advanced upon the already-winded Italian, dissolving the Duel Disk into dust with a touch as he did. Unfortunately, Cronos was a teacher, not a fighter – and dropping the heaviest object he had on his person directly onto his opponent's face had been pretty much the full extent of his combative ingenuity.

This feeling of despondency was quite short-lived, however…because a moment later he happened to look back at Misty's and Toby's limp forms, and with renewed resolve, he stepped back up to face the intruder.

"I don't know why you've returned; I don't even know why you're still alive," said Cronos, fists clenched tight. "And you know what? I don't care. Because I do know one thing: you are going to leave."

"Mortal, you have long-since passed the threshold of my amusement," Mister White shot back, not breaking stride as the two men continued to slowly approach one another. "And while you would normally be safe until the moment I am destined to kill you – four hours, six minutes, and forty-seven seconds as of now – I think it has been demonstrated quite thoroughly that we've crossed into one of fate's little 'blind spots.' Nothing prevents me from snatching away your life right this instant."

"Then I suppose I have nothing to lose," Cronos spat, and that was when the first punch flew.

The former professor's technique was wild and clumsy, but at close-quarters such as these that didn't prevent the vast majority of his blows from connecting, eventually forcing Mister White to catch each of his fists in his gloved palms and, with one swift motion, shatter them utterly. This was followed almost immediately by the man in white's own fist, which sent Cronos flying across the room.

"To challenge me, in full knowledge of my true nature…or at least, as close to full knowledge as you humans have ever approached. If I valued bravery in any way, I would commend you," whispered Mister White as he bent downward, speaking softly into Cronos' ear even as he painfully twisted off one of his arms. "But unfortunately for you, I do not. All it means now is that your death will be far more painful than it might otherwise have been."

The white-suited gentleman punctuated this by effortlessly cracking several of Cronos' ribs, and the wrinkled former professor spent the next several moments choking-up blood, trying and failing to speak several times as his body writhed in blinding pain. Finally, he managed to utter a barely audible, "Please, don't…don't hurt them…"

"Is that what all this irritating obstinacy was about?" Mister White replied callously, contorting his face into an expression that might have involved a rolling of the eyes – with only half of a face, it was hard to tell. "In that case, I shall indulge you in your final moments. No, I do not intend to kill either of your…'children' at any point in the future, near or distant."

Smiling again as Cronos' blood-soaked face briefly brightened at this news, he then swiftly added, "Of course, that isn't to say that both of them won't be dead by the time their roles in your world's grander destiny are fulfilled. I simply won't be the one pulling the trigger."

Mister White gave him a moment for the full effect of that statement to sink in, and once he was satisfied with the expression of pure, broken horror on the meddling interloper's face, smashed his ribcage with his heel.

"Well, this operation was certainly…messier than I was intending for it to be," commented the man in white, snapping his fingers a few times to reset the room back into order. "But at least it's all finally done, and with time to spare."

His attentions than turned to the bloody mass that had just moments ago been Cronos de Medici, and he grimaced slightly; with this having been his first opportunity in quite a while to engage in "physical activity," he'd evidently gotten a little carried away with shutting up the impertinent mortal, fun as it had been. But that was no great matter; one more snap and the bones, blood, and sinew came back together good-as-new, leaving a dead but still perfectly intact corpse for the children to find later.

"One last thing: Cronos de Medici suffered a heart attack and perished while the two of you were away from home," he told the still-unconscious Misty and Toby Lola, completing the façade. "You were informed of this by a trustworthy medical professional, and so an autopsy will not be necessary. You will grieve in the manners you each see fit."

For one last time, Mister White laughed low and cold, pleased that matters here had proceeded relatively well despite the multiple unforeseen setbacks. Then he snapped his fingers once more, and where he had once stood there was only the cold corpse of Cronos de Medici, his pale skin tinged with the overwhelming scent of sulfur.

[-]

The funeral was small, but heartfelt; most of the attendees were former students or staff of Duel Academia, along with a smattering of business associates. The present administration of Academia Island had apparently been unable to secure the necessary time-off for the trip, but had sent flowers and their condolences.

Misty, for her part, didn't pay much attention; for the second time in her life a parental figure had been wrenched from her within the space of a night, and she had loved this one deeply. She hadn't even noticed when she'd bumped into a brunette man with a crimson jacket, so absorbed was she in her fresh sensations of loss.

Indeed, it was taking all her mental fortitude merely to stay standing, for Toby's sake – he appeared to have shut down completely, carrying around a toy engine and holding it close to his chest throughout the processions, and she needed to show strength to him if she wanted to keep the poor child sane. After all, she hadn't yet seen the effect that grief might have on Toby's powers, and finding out the hard way wasn't a risk she was willing to take around so many people.

The following days had involved a whole lot of paperwork and time spent with Cronos-sensei's lawyer. At seventeen-going-on-eighteen she wasn't going to be above the age of majority for two years yet, but her manager (a rather amicable fellow named Mister Ginger, who had quite a knack for always coming through for her in a pinch) had worked with the attorney to argue a strong case to the Equal Employment, Children, and Families Bureau that she was capable of acting as Toby's primary caregiver. Cronos-sensei had willed her a sizable inheritance and her modeling career was finally beginning to stabilize, which, taken with the clear maturity evidenced by her early acquisition of a college degree, had convinced the bureaucrats that she would provide a better home for her brother than any new foster parent would.

They had decided to remain in Cronos-sensei's apartment for the time being; it was spacious and well-within their present budget, and although Misty had initially been a little worried that Toby might be disturbed by the hanging specter of their surrogate father's death, sitting around the room in which Cronos-sensei had died seemed to actually make the boy seem…peaceful.

It was a morbidly curious sight, but it was far-preferred to Toby bringing down the building with a sudden burst of psychic fury, so Misty didn't question it.

Still, the frequency with which the child had now taken to sitting in Cronos-sensei's old chair and staring at (apparently) nothing for hours on-end, doing little else but clench that damned toy train, was starting to worry her a little bit. It was on one such night that Misty sat down next to her brother, offered him a cup of tea which he politely waved away, and said, "I miss him too, you know. It's…okay to talk to me about it."

Instead of responding to this directly, however, Toby looked up at his sister with slightly puffy eyes and hugged her tight. "Did it feel like this for you," he eventually asked, somewhat throatily, "when mom and dad died?"

Misty involuntarily flinched. Like the existence of the powers that had caused them, she (and Cronos-sensei as well, at least tacitly) had decided a fair while ago that the precise nature of her parents' fates was a detail of which Toby was best kept in the dark. Though no sane person would've been capable of blaming him for it, she knew Toby well enough to know that he would have done so…and that was a burden she could never ask him to shoulder in good conscience.

Speaking of which…

"It's my fault he's dead," Toby declared hollowly.

"It was a heart attack, Toby. There's nothing either of us could have done," Misty argued, continuing to embrace him.

"But at least you had an excuse!" Toby exclaimed, wrenching himself out of the hold. "You had work that day, but I…I can't even remember where I was! Think about that for a second: my father dies, and I'm off somewhere I can't freaking remember a week later! At least if I was a home that day, I…"

He broke down here, tears streaming from his eyes. "…At least I could have said goodbye," he finished, turning away from her as the sobs increased in intensity.

"Toby…Toby, please…" Misty attempted to console him, but he shrugged her off. "Come on, please. I'm here for you; I'll always be here for you…"

"Will you?" Toby suddenly demanded, the tears abating for the moment even as the remainder of his face contorted in distress. "Mom, dad, Cronos-sensei…everyone around me ends up dead, sooner or later. What if you're next, sis? What if…?"

"Shhh…" Misty cut across him. "Calm down, Toby. I'm not going anywhere. So long as you draw breath, so will I – that is our bond."

"Do…do you promise?" Toby blubbered, wiping one his eyes with his sleeve.

"I promise," Misty responded, meaning every word.

[-]

When Misty Lola looked back upon the seven years that followed Cronos-sensei's death – and she would spend the time following her own demise doing little else – she tended to see it far more as a collection of disparate events than as one continuous narrative.

She would remember helping Toby blow out the candles on his tenth birthday cake, the sole invitee to both that party and all that would follow it.

She would remember dropping him off at school on the way to a photo shoot and, upon hearing another student deride her brother as a "faggot-ass retard," jumping right out after him in order to deliver the bully a…stern talking-to.

She would remember attempting to teach him cooking and a few other things she'd had to become self-sufficient at over the years, out of necessity if nothing else – he'd been a poor talent for the art, perhaps, but always an eager student.

She would remember dueling and dancing, football games and karaoke, sitting out in the park with their feet uncovered in the summertime and throwing snowballs at each other in the winter. Helping him out with his homework, sharing large piles of fried chicken over the holidays, going out for ice cream as a special treat whenever his grades went up…

Most of all, however, she remembered a particular conversation they'd had shortly after he'd turned fourteen.

"Sis…can I ask you something?" he opened, pulling up a chair on the kitchen table as she finished drizzling sauce upon her freshly fried platter of takoyaki. She did a mental double-take on his presence for a moment, being that it was just past noon…but then she remembered that this was the month he had off for summer vacation, and so offered him the snack with a smile.

"Of course, Toby. Anything," she told him brightly.

Taking one ball and popping it in his mouth (with his index finger and pinkie, as he was wont to do when nervous), he sighed low as if steeling himself for something and then asked, "Why can I do stuff other people can't?"

"I'm…not sure what you mean by that, Toby," Misty answered, not altogether truthfully. As the boy had grown older and wiser, she'd been firmly in denial over the inevitability of this day. That is, if he even was talking about what she had a bad feeling he was talking about…

Toby took the opportunity to remove all doubt from her mind, however, by grimacing as he pointed to one of the battered snacks and sent it flying a meter in the air. "That's what I mean," Toby murmured, burying his face in his hands immediately after he did.

"When…when did you find out about that?" Misty blurted out without thinking.

"Well, I…hey, wait," said Toby, switching gear mid-sentence as his eyes widened in realization over her precise wording. "You knew about this already, didn't you? And never bothered to tell me?"

Misty opened her mouth, but no sound came out; she'd never been able to lie to Toby easily, and she was quite sure that her present state of mind was written all over her face. So instead she merely sighed as well and responded, in a very small voice, "Yes…I knew."

"So how long, then? How long have you been going behind my back with the fact that I'm some kind of…of freak?" Toby bellowed, grabbing the front of her shirt and shaking it a bit.

"Toby! You're not…I mean…don't say that kind of thing about yourself!" Misty cried out, somewhat frenetically. As much as part of her had always known that this day was coming, she was feeling remarkably unprepared for it.

"Answer the question, sis," Toby insisted, narrowing his eyes.

Misty bit her lip, blinking uncomfortably at the increasingly irate teenager, before uttering in a register barely over a whisper, "Most…most of your life, Toby. Ever since you were a baby, you've always been able to do that kind of stuff. It's just come-and-gone, that's all."

"…But you've got to understand!" she added anxiously, as his face contorted in the horror that accompanied betrayal. "Cronos-sensei and I were always planning on telling you once you were old enough to control your powers responsibly, but then he died and…and everything's just been so…"

Misty couldn't come up with a suitable way to complete that sentence, so it just hung in the air as Toby reached for another ball and swallowed it whole, more to fill the silence than anything else. Eventually, however, he asked in much quieter tones, "So he knew about this too, then? What…what'd he think?"

"He said, and I quote, that his life 'was a product of abject strangeness' and that nothing could shock him anymore," Misty recalled, a sort of sad smile playing on her lips. "Toby, he loved you and he accepted you. I love and accept you. You should do the same."

"I'd agree with you, onee-chan, if there was a single other person like me out there," Toby rejoined bitterly. "Do the math – if there's just one guy on Earth who can toss shit around with his mind, he's a freak."

"But that's just it, Toby!" Misty exclaimed. "Cronos-sensei mentioned others he had met, demons and aliens and vampires and things…"

"Vampires? Seriously?" Toby questioned with raised eyebrows.

"My precise reaction, I assure you," stated Misty. "But whether or not you buy all of that, he knew exactly what to call what you can do: psychic powers. And there're other people who have come forward about similar abilities; I know, I've checked. Yes, some of them are likely frauds, but others…"

"Yeah…I guess, then. Maybe…" Toby muttered, only the slightest bit of hope creeping into his wider tone of dejection. "Look, I'm sorry for taking all this out on you at once – it's just that pretty much my entire life has changed within a couple of days. I mean," and here he chuckled nervously in-spite-of-himself, "can you imagine how I first felt when I tried to grab the TV remote yesterday and it flew across the room? It took maybe an hour to get it down on command once I knew I could do it."

"Probably the same way I felt when I first saw you unconsciously changing the colors of your blankets or lowering the temperature of your bedroom," Misty replied, now sporting a very small, almost wistful smile.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments after that, instead busying themselves with finishing off the takoyaki. Eventually however, as Misty began to wash the platter off in the sink, Toby clenched his teeth and proceeded to ask, "Hey sis…you know how I was going on a few months ago about how cool it'd be to be a famous explorer?"

"…Vaguely," Misty quipped, smiling a little more broadly; after buying that wilderness survival book for him on a whim a while back, she'd spent a full week or two being verbally deluged by what sounded like its entire contents. "What of it?"

"Well, after we talked, I thought about it a bit more and decided it'd be silly to go off exploring 'uncharted lands' or any crap like that in the twenty-first century," he explained. "But these powers, or whatever you wanna call them…they've given me a lot more to think about. If I can do this much with just a day or two of experimenting, well…maybe there's something bigger I could be doing with my life."

As he spoke these words, the teenager's mannerisms gradually became more and more excited, until finally the anxiety in his tones had faded entirely, replaced instead by a sort of feverish zeal. "Just think, onee-chan!" he cried out, multicolored sparks flying from his fingertips as his enthusiasm rose. "So many problems in the world – people dying, children missing, villages starving – that I could solve, just by being there! I'd be like…like a superhero!"

"Err…don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourself, Toby?" Misty responded after a few beats of silence. "I mean, I know what you can do right now is impressive, but…"

"That's just it, though!" Toby argued back. "If I started traveling the world, meeting new people, training hard to use these powers for something really great…Hell, maybe I'd even run into some of those 'others' you said Cronos-sensei mentioned! I've got it now – the point of my life! My destiny! My purpose!"

"Well…maybe…" said Misty, unsure of whether or not to be happy with his fairly sudden shift in demeanor. But then, celebrating his abilities was a far cry better than hanging his head in shame of them, she supposed…

"I just wish that it was easier to find others like me, ya know?" Toby continued to muse. "It'd be cool if we had – I dunno – a support group, or some crap like that. Telekinetics Anonymous or something, am I right?"

He chuckled quite a bit at this notion; Misty did not.

One would think, given that day's events, that she would have learned that keeping secrets from Toby would only hurt him in the long run. But the consequences of failing to inform the teenager of his burgeoning powers had been remarkably short-lived, and indeed he would never come to learn of his role in their parents' "passing," to apparently no ill effect. So there was really no reason whatsoever for her to learn her lesson that day, in retrospect.

Still, she would regret until her dying day – and in fact, well beyond it – that she did not take that opportunity to inform Toby of just such a "support group" she had discovered in her years of casual and not-so-casual research, to warn him away from it if nothing else. Instead he was left to discover the organization for himself, with no knowledge whatsoever of the horror stories floating around the back-alleys of the internet, straight from former staff and students alike…

Those two unholy words…

[-]

Arcadia Movement Exonerated by Security in Latest Investigation

By Angela Rains

February 8, 2026

The investigation of the brutal murders of three college-age girls in December, the tenth of which to implicate the lobbying group and support center Arcadia Movement, LLC in just under a year, concluded yesterday with no useful information.

The Public Security Maintenance Bureau could not be reached for comment, but Arcadia's President and Chief Executive Officer, under the alias "Divine," had this to say…

"Onee-chan!" called out an excited voice from the other side of Misty's bedroom door, followed swiftly by a lad of sixteen, still bedecked in his crisp school uniform. "Onee-chan!"

"Toby!" Misty answered back with a smile, putting down the newspaper and attempting to clear her mind of the ugliness contained within for the moment.

"Here you go," Toby went on, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small box. "It's your birthday present!"

"Oh, my! Thank you, Toby!" Misty responded brightly, taking the box and shaking it a little bit – more to elicit a giggle out of her brother than anything else. "Can I open it?"

Toby nodded, and so without further ado Misty pulled up on the box's hinges and peeked inside.

The gift was, it turned out, a musical locket…and even with just the placeholder image inside, the sheer craftsmanship was inarguable. "It's lovely; thank you," she told him, clasping it briefly between her palms before slipping the thin gold chain around her neck. "I'll put in a picture of you and treasure it, okay?"

Toby laughed lightly in response while accepting her proffered embrace, but she could tell by the slight fidgeting in his overall demeanor that her present hadn't been the only reason he had wanted to speak with her today. "Oh, that's right, onee-chan!" he exclaimed, confirming her hypothesis. "I met another person with the same powers I have!"

"With the same powers as you?" Misty repeated, her face tensing in suspicion.

"Yep!" said Toby, his face positively beaming. "Her name is Aki Izayoi. I bet she's the most skilled psychic in the whole Arcadia Movement!"

That was not what Misty had been hoping to hear. "The Arcadia Movement…?" she repeated again, her tone doing all the job her words couldn't in conveying her reaction to this piece of news.

"Hey, don't get the wrong idea!" Toby added, growing immediately defensive. "It's not the kind of place everyone seems to think, sis! I want my powers to benefit everyone…and Master Divine has promised to help me do just that!"

"Master Divine?" Misty questioned incredulously, one uncomfortable eye glancing back to the unfinished article now lying upon the coffee table. "Why do you call him that?"

"It's just a sign of respect, sis. Nothing more than that," Toby explained, sounding almost as if he was pleading with her to understand this point. "Every person in the Movement owes their life to Master Divine – he's who I wanna be, someday. A selfless soul who brings together outcasts from all walks of life and unites them in a common purpose: the betterment of all mankind."

"But how did you even find out about these guys?" Misty pressed on, hoping that her word choice wouldn't give her away this time.

"I…I'm not really sure, to be honest," Toby admitted, shrugging broadly. "I just woke up this morning, and somehow, I knew…"

"And you don't find that at all…suspect?" asked Misty, lightly grasping one of his arms.

"You'd understand if you could meet him, onee-chan," Toby maintained, his fists clenched in sheer enthusiasm. "Maybe my sleeping mind just picked up a psychic signal from one of the workers there, or something. But does it really matter? Point is, I've finally found others like me, after all this time! And they're all so friendly, and kind, and strong…"

"So…is that where you were all this morning?" Misty interjected, trying a different tact for the moment.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry for missing part of your birthday, but I knew you'd be out working most of the day…" Toby replied, shuffling his feet guiltily. "Definitely an eye-opening couple of hours, though."

"Can you…describe it for me, then?" Misty inquired delicately.

"Oh, sure!" Toby shouted out, probably under the impression that he was finally starting to bring her around. "They have this great big tower – you know the one, over near all those cafés – and it's packed with pretty much everything a person like me could ever need. Classrooms and training centers, a huge library, a couple residence halls…plus a huge dueling ring, of course."

"And that's where you saw…?" Misty checked, the utter joy in his voice sending a chill down her spine.

"Yep, Aki Izayoi!" Toby confirmed. "She dueled ten people in a row, and beat every single one in three turns or less! Oh God, you should've seen the way she handled her Synchro Summons…"

He was actually blushing a little as he related these details, but nonetheless he continued, "Anyway, right after all the dueling was done, I came up to her and asked if there was anything I could do to be more like her. And so Aki-san just looks down and says, 'Divine will tell you how; just do as Divine tells you.' So…well, I figured a guy as busy as him wouldn't be able to see me just like that, but I went to his office and his door was open, and his secretary told me that I should just go right in. And Aki-san was totally right – Master Divine was so cool! He performed some limited clairvoyance for me, and that's supposed to be hard as Hell even for regular psychics. He and Aki-san are really on a whole 'nother level."

"And what did you learn through this…'clairvoyance'?" Misty demanded, a little more forcefully than she had been intending. But the amount of extolment her little brother was lapping upon these people was making it harder and harder for her to respond with calmness and understanding.

"What else? That he foresaw me joining the Arcadia Movement next week," stated Toby, rather matter-of-factly. "And you know what? I think he's right."

"Wait, what?" Misty yelled out, taking a step back. "To go and check out an organization like that is one thing, but to consider joining them…"

"Well, why not?" Toby shot back, looking confused. "Master Divine heard out all my ideas about what I could be doing with my life, and he's gonna do whatever he can to make them a reality! He's already promised to get me in contact with some of his agents in Africa and the Middle East; just think, I could actually be saving people's lives with my powers in a couple of months!"

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people, of course," Misty attempted to assure him. "But are you really so sure you want to do it by getting mixed up with people like…like that?"

"You've probably just been reading too much anti-psychic propaganda. Master Divine says it's everywhere," said Toby dismissively. "People fear what we can do, so they make up stupid stories about us committing crimes or whatever. But Master Divine and Aki-san aren't like that; no one in the Movement is. These are my people, sis…and I trust them all."

"Come on, Toby, see reason," Misty implored, starting to grow a little short with the stubborn teenager. "The Arcadia Movement is bad news, and you should be staying the Hell away from them if you care at all about your own safety. I should know, I've done the research."

"Sis, you just can't…wait a minute," Toby interrupted himself, and Misty blanched as she was vividly reminded of the last time he'd extended that same betrayed look her way. "Why would you have done research on the Movement before I ever brought it up? Unless…"

His face looked quite conflicted as he softly spoke these words, part of it contorting in heavy suspicion and the other seemingly ashamed for even carrying such suspicions in the first place. Apparently the former eventually won out, however, as a few moments later he struck out a palm and gazed intently at his sister's eyes, his own beginning to radiate with power. "You did know," he hissed, his voice teeming with disbelief. "You knew exactly where there were others like me out in the world, and you never told me. And don't try to deny it, sis; I can see everything."

"You can…you can read my mind?" Misty couldn't help but ask, even as she tried – and rather distressingly, failed – to avert her gaze from his. "But that's…that's…"

"…Only a small sample of what I could do as part of the Movement," Toby finished for her, his tones growing increasingly resentful. "But you're no stranger to reeling in my potential, are you? Nah, now that I'm actually peeking in here for the first time, it's all starting to make some fucking sense…"

"Toby, that's enough of this!" Misty ordered, the amount of sheer violation she was feeling right now dramatically lowering her patience. "You're never going near the Arcadia Building again, nor any of its members. And that is final!"

"You think you could stop me if I really tried, sis?" Toby retorted. "I could probably kill you with a thought if I wanted to, you know. But I would never do anything like that, of course," he added hastily, "since despite everything, you're still my sister and I still love you."

Then his eyes narrowed as he appended, "I'm just wondering right now whether or not that feeling is truly mutual."

"I…wait, what?" Misty exclaimed, momentarily rendered speechless from shock. "Of course I love you! If you insist on digging through my brain like this, you might as well grab all the evidence that tells you that, at least!"

"Oh, I know you think you love me, sis," Toby countered, now holding back tears. "Hell, I believed it myself until about ten seconds ago. But you know what? I'm starting to think I'm just an annoying little kid with freaky magic powers to you. All my life, you've babied me and coddled me; never once treating me as an equal. For 'my own good' you lie to me, keep secrets from me, go behind my back…that isn't fucking love!"

"I…I just want to keep you safe, that's all…" Misty murmured, tears beginning to well up in her eyes as well.

"But at the price of what, huh?" Toby practically screamed, the very air shaking a bit as the power he had summoned earlier to scan her mind flared back up again. "Here I have a perfectly good opportunity to go out and live my dreams, fulfill my destiny…and you go and stamp it out, just like that? With mom and dad, with Cronos-sensei, with just the two of us, it doesn't matter…you've never really respected me, or what I was capable of. God, would you prefer it if I never even had these fucking powers?"

"…I don't know how to answer that," Misty eventually mumbled in a very small voice, unable to look her baby brother in the eye. As much as he was dead-wrong about her not loving him, his other allegations were succeeding rather well at hitting…close to home.

Toby, however, looked as if he had just been slapped in the face. "I think you just did," he uttered throatily, before tossing out an explosion of raw psychic energy that incinerated a nearby vase and tearing straight out the door, fresh teardrops flying behind him.

[-]

"Alright, now just tilt your head a smidge to the left, 'kay darling?" requested the photographer, and without really paying much attention Misty Lola obliged. This was the last set of photos she needed to take this evening, and the sooner she got out of here the sooner she could track down Toby and start trying to make amends.

Since their…altercation on her birthday, Toby had apparently decided to disappear completely, answering none of her calls or texts or e-mails. His room and stuff were undisturbed, so Misty was pretty sure he wasn't just sneaking around and avoiding her; the only possible conclusion, unfortunately, was that he'd gone to live at the Arcadia Building for the time being. He had mentioned residence halls there, after all…

As such, she really hadn't wanted to perform a shoot right now, but she had her obligations; Mister Ginger had managed to acquire her a few pages in Vogue, and that was an opportunity no model on Earth could afford to turn down, regardless of her present situation. While at twenty-five she had already made a decent name for herself within Japan, this was the gig that could propel her onto the world stage and beyond.

"Hmm…yeah, I think we've got all we need. We'll be in touch, Miss Lola," said another one of the Vogue team, rapidly typing out a message to his editor on his handheld. Sighing in relief, she bowed and shook hands as quickly as possible without coming across as rude and then bolted from the studio, flipping open her phone to see if Toby had returned any of her twenty messages yet.

To her surprise, however, what waited for her was a message…but not from Toby. The sender, instead, was the Public Security Maintenance Bureau.

Listening to the message provided little more illumination than the identity of the caller had – all that had been left on her phone, around two hours prior, was a callback number and a case ID. As such, she spent the next thirty minutes or so on hold, occasionally speaking to one receptionist or another for a few seconds before getting transferred to yet another department. Clearly, she internally mused, the current Director's promise to streamline the police force like a business had gone horribly awry somewhere down the line.

Finally, however, she managed to reach an off-duty officer who was, she guessed, putting in some unpaid overtime to make up for this utter quagmire of a phone system. "This is Officer Soichi Kazama, with the Department of Special Investigations," read out a light male voice; he didn't sound much older than she was. "How can I help you?"

"I'm just trying to return a message I received at 18:49 this evening," she repeated for the fifth time in the past hour. "The caller was a Miss Mikage Sagiri, and the case ID given to me was 52-7384."

"Alright, I think Miss Sagiri left the notes for that case on Tetsu's desk…just give me a sec…" answered the officer, and Misty could overhear him shuffling through a large number of papers as he searched for the one that, somehow, must have involved her in some way.

There was a long pause – during which, Misty guessed, he was reading the enigmatic case notes – before Officer Kazama came back on the line, sounding rather more somber than before. "Ma'am, are you related to a Toby Lola in any way?" he asked.

"He's my little brother, and legal dependent," Misty told him, instantly growing worried. "Why? Has something happened to him?"

Another pause. "Well…ma'am, this isn't the kind of thing that I prefer to say over the phone, but I guess we don't really have much of a choice," replied Officer Kazama, sounding as if he was choosing his words very carefully. "You…may want to sit down."

Misty did not comply with this suggestion, too engrossed in her rising feelings of panic to bother…but she felt quite thoroughly as if she should've when the officer proceeded to inform her, "There's no easy way to tell you this, but…your brother's body was found in the Daimon Area downtown earlier today. He's dead, ma'am. I'm so sorry."

That Misty managed not to drop the phone was an impressive accomplishment; if anything, it seemed as if she'd been rendered so completely stunned by the officer's words that even expressing her shock was beyond her present capabilities. Every inch of her body frozen in place, she stayed on the line for about a minute longer, hearing various other details such as the estimated time of death and the lack of evidence pointing to a clear cause. Numbly, she took it all in, until finally Officer Kazama gave her instructions on what she needed to take care of vis-à-vis paperwork and such, and concluded with another expression of utmost sympathy.

More-or-less operating on autopilot, Misty heard herself thank him and then hung up before entering her car, locking the door behind her, and weeping softly for about an hour.

Part of her brain was having trouble even processing the news she'd just been dealt, but another, far more influential one could instinctively determine its veracity. Misty had no idea how, nor did she at all want to…but she knew for certain that everything the officer had just told her was the cold, hard truth.

She'd envisioned this day, on occasion, in her very worst nightmares, but her vague imaginations seemed so utterly ephemeral in the face of the real thing. There were some realities so harsh that, unless confronted with them directly, could simply not be comprehended; the sinking realizations that she would never again touch Toby's hand, or hear his voice, or buy him those little chocolate bon-bons he loved so much for when he got sad or lonely.

Had he merely ran away permanently to join Arcadia – as she'd been dreading in the back of her mind for the past few days – Misty wouldn't exactly have been happy per say, but at the very least she would've been assured of his continued safety. Reconciliation between them, and apologies for the mistakes she'd made, might not have come easy…but they still would've been possibilities, somewhere down the line.

She continued to weep.

[-]

If it ever occurred to Misty that a fashion studio parking lot probably wasn't the best place to completely shut down in a sea of grief, then it clearly wasn't affecting her actions. This was the place where all the meaning she had ever felt in her life had withered to nothing, so what point was there in moving?

Ultimately, however, it hadn't ended up being her decision. The parking lot closed at 23:00 sharp, and though the security guard had appeared amenable to her obvious distress when he came around to check her car, he'd been emphatic about his inability to make an exception. As such, she was back out on the road less than an hour after the phone call that had killed her in every sense of the word but the literal, but she supposed it couldn't be helped. Driving was a fairly automatic thing this late at night, after all…

Sitting or standing, driving or eating or working – it was all the same to her at this point. Without Toby, life blended into a useless gray mess…and soon enough, so did the road and the night sky.

Sis, you feeling alright?

"T…Toby?" breathed Misty, unable to believe what she had clearly just heard.

Sis, it's going to be okay. We're going to play again real soon. We'll be together forever and ever.

"Then…then you forgive me? For everything?" Misty asked of the hallucination.

Everything, onee-chan. Everything…

"Everything…" Misty repeated blissfully, closing her eyes briefly as the wind rushed across her face.

She never even saw the guardrail.

[-]

"She's critical! We need to prep the OR, now!" screamed an intern as several orderlies wheeled the body of Misty Lola into the Intensive Care ward, heavy towels being used at various points along her skin to stem the systemic bleeding.

"Kid, I've seen quite a few other patients in this girl's condition," the attending physician told him disinterestedly. "There's nothing we can do at this point, so let's not waste the time."

"But Doctor Goat!" protested the intern. "I know a specialist; one of my professors from med school! He's got a clinic in Satellite right now, but if we sent a copter over immediately…"

"You talking about that hack Lewis Schmitt? I told you, I don't want to waste time," Doctor Richard Goat replied with a roll of the eyes. "Besides, you know Security policy. Grabbing anyone from the Satellite would mean my ass if we got caught, and I'm not risking that on any one patient."

"But…but she…" the intern continued to plead, though he seemed to realize soon enough that it was a lost cause. So instead he and the orderlies did their best to plug-up the bleeding, hooked Misty up to a breathing machine, and hoped for the best…but all of them knew there was little they could do at this point but try to make her passing as peaceful as possible.

Misty, for her part, felt no pain. She was, vaguely, aware that she was dying, but what remained of her rapidly fading mind regarded that fact with less trepidation or panic than a simple, numb detachment. Perhaps she'd have felt differently on any other day, but as of now there was so very little death could take from her that she had not already lost.

Would she see Toby again, after all this was said and done? That was the only question occupying Misty's thoughts as she slowly slipped into oblivion. She'd never been a particularly spiritual person, and her impending demise didn't appear to be affecting that perspective sharply one way or the other, but…well, she supposed she'd find out soon enough. Or not.

But why settle merely for reunion with your brother's spirit, when you could instead revenge his demise?

The voice was loud and booming, but with a distinct edge to it, like a hiss. It was also impersonal, which could only be said to be disconcerting; even her earlier hallucination of Toby had at least come with a facsimile of his body as well as his words.

I am not a hallucination, Misty Lola. I am a God.

Misty did not answer this assertion; in this dim and endless blackness that had surrounded her ever since blood loss from the brain had robbed her of her sight, she wasn't even sure if she could speak at all.

Yes, Misty Lola…you may speak. This is a realm of the mind and the spirit, not confined to the bothersome restrictions of mortality.

Testing these statements with the same detachment she had afforded toward everything else in this "place," Misty soon found that indeed, speech here required only that she believe she be able to speak. The same went for vision, though she regretted deciding that she should be able to see the very instant she had done so, considering the sight greeting her newly reawakened eyes was a skyscraper-sized lizard, its massive tongue lapping back-and-forth with unmistakable hunger.

You do not fear Me. An unusual reaction for a mortal, I must say…but encouraging. I knew that I chose well.

"I simply have no fear left within me to express," Misty intoned flatly. "Only sorrow remains."

And rage?

"No," said Misty, completely deadpan.

Then your priorities are skewed, Misty Lola. Vengeance was the greatest invention your species ever produced on this Earth; it would be a shame not to exercise it when the opportunity is so very ripe.

"What…what do you mean by that?" Misty asked, her facial expression changing for the first time since she and her car had hit the water.

Your brother mentioned her name, several times. He was in awe of her, inspired by her…willing to do anything to witness her power in action…

Then, as if in demonstration, the enormous lizard extended its tongue to its utmost, ranging perhaps thirty meters and flowing about Misty in a swirling spiral of pitch-black. And upon the appendage, flickers of what looked like television static began to appear, echoes of some broadcast Misty might've seen ages ago surrounding her.

"Massive property damage struck the Daimon Area once again…"

"Illegal street-dueling…"

"Security baffled…"

"Witnesses reporting an unbeaten female duelist calling herself the Black Rose Witch…"

"The Black Rose Witch…"

"The Black Rose Witch…"

"The Black Rose Witch…"

"The Daimon Area…" Misty whispered, realization dawning within the dim recesses of what remained of her mind. "Then this 'Black Rose Witch,' she…?"

I have already given you every hint necessary to determine the Witch's identity, Misty Lola. As well as the horrific deed she has exacted this day.

"Aki…Izayoi…" Misty pronounced through clenched teeth, finally understanding. "A psychic duelist…that was why Security couldn't figure out a cause of death…"

Indeed. She has taken your brother from you, Misty Lola – murdered him in cold blood. And worst of all? She doesn't even remember his face.

So I ask you again, Misty Lola: do you desire retribution?

"How could I not?" Misty demanded of him as a sudden, burning fury flared up within her mind, rapidly consuming all else. "But it is impossible. I have already followed Toby to the grave, and…"

Are you so sure?

Misty was silent for a few moments following this booming utterance, before finally inquiring, "What exactly are you?"

I am Ccarayhua. An ancient God of the darkness, and a bargainer of souls. The lizard whose wrath is all-consuming. The entity which now wishes to share Its wrath with your own.

For you see, the boundless might wielded by Aki Izayoi is not purely natural. Rather, it is derived from the Mark of her Master, the accursed Akaki Ryu – the sworn enemy of all My brethren. And as I believe you humans are fond of saying, the enemy of My enemy…is My friend.

"…So what exactly are you suggesting?" murmured Misty.

Though the Crimson Dragon may be Our hated foe, the potency of some of Its…stratagems cannot be denied. Ten millennia ago, It achieved Its masterstroke by endowing a human "hero" with a fraction of Its power and compelling him to fight by Its side – transforming him into history's first Signer. And in the centuries since, new generations of Signers have continued to be chosen, wielding the energies of the Gods with no regard for the "lesser" mortals that might be hurt. Aki Izayoi is one such individual.

But I now offer you the unique opportunity to settle your score with the Black Rose Witch. Two of My fellows – the spider Uru and the monkey Cusillu – have followed the Akaki Ryu's example and taken on avatars of Their own to assassinate their counterparts. They have been dubbed "Dark Signers."

You are uncommonly astute, for a human; it is one of the many reasons I have chosen you, out of the billions of other mortals who have ever suffered death. You know exactly what I intend to offer you.

"I can gather the gist, yes," Misty answered breathlessly. "But if I become as they did – if I agree to host your spirit, and your mark, in exchange for rising again – what do you ask in return?"

Nothing whatsoever, but the swift and painful death of Aki Izayoi…as well as the destruction of the "Black Rose Dragon" she holds in her possession. The servants of the Crimson Dragon, and eventually the entity Itself, must all perish from this plane – and if you will only consent to assist in that noble goal, then I shall allow you to sample the immortality of the Gods.

"But it wouldn't really be immortality, would it?" responded Misty. "If what you say is true, I'll be restored to a half-life, one dominated solely by revenge. Killing Aki Izayoi would be my entire world."

And is that not the only thing you truly require?

This question struck Misty's disembodied psyche to its core, and she puzzled upon it for quite a while. But eventually, after all was said and done…

"Yes…I suppose it is," Misty told the God, and the last thing she remembered of her human existence was its eager tongue softly caressing her form as it wrapped tightly around her.

[-]

Misty Lola's eyes shot open.

She was, she could guess from the "company" surrounding her in all directions, currently housed within the hospital's morgue. She was naked, but otherwise she appeared to be in precisely the same condition as she had been upon waking that morning. At minimum, this told her two things: that her autopsy had yet to occur, and that, more to the point…

That hadn't just been a feverish, dying dream. Ccarayhua had done it.

A real mirror wasn't readily available, but Misty made do with the stainless steel of the body racks, reflecting her new form back to her magnificently. It wasn't, Misty noticed immediately, a particularly dramatic shift, but the few changes that had occurred were rather jarring once Misty set out to look for them.

For one thing, her eyes were now black – not the irises, which would've at least made some biological sense, but rather the sclera, so that it looked almost as if her eyes had become photo-negatives of their former selves. Small but intricate tattoo-like markings had also appeared beneath them, set in a dull burgundy.

The far more noticeable changes (at least, from her perspective) were more inwardly focused, however. It was in the way she moved, or how her weight shifted, or how her muscle and sinew seemed so much more flexible than they ever had before. Everything was…off, somehow, as if her skin was no longer a part of her body, but rather a suit that was at least a size too large for her.

…It took her a few more seconds to realize that she also wasn't breathing.

Do not fret, My host; life-after-death takes some getting used to, even for the strongest of souls. Though I am pleased your resurrection went smoothly, nonetheless.

"Err…Ccarayhua, is that you?" asked Misty, so thoroughly floored by the day's events that a disembodied voice in her head no longer even fazed her at this point.

That is correct, Misty Lola. We have united completely, so that We might better effect Our mutual desire for Signer blood. If you will check your…'deck' at the next available opportunity, you will even see My own glorious self, incarnated in physical form so that We might do battle directly with Our foe…but that is a way's away, yet.

For now, My host, be alert – Uru has just informed Me that Its own avatar is on his way to…greet you.

"Uru's a little slow on the uptake, then," drawled a heavy voice from the morgue's doorway, followed swiftly by a burly man in a hooded robe with deep-red trim. "And before you ask, yes, I can indeed hear your conversations with your Jibakushin, even when no one else can. Just one of the perks of my…present condition."

Smirking broadly, the man peeled off the outer layer of his robe and handed it to her, which she accepted graciously. Offering his hand immediately afterward, he then added, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rudger Goodwin, instigator of Zero Reverse and emissary of the Gods of Death. I am going to be your – well, let's go with mentor – as you begin to…'adjust' into your current state of affairs."

"Misty Lola," she answered his greeting, timorously accepting the handshake. "So you are a…Dark…Signer, then?"

"Quite the same as you, yes," Rudger replied with a low chuckle. "It's been quite some time since one of the Earthbound Gods chose a new host; indeed, this day is cause for celebration. Especially as you are quite a bit lovelier than our family's last…acquisition."

"I heard that," called out another male voice from the hallway.

"And if you would stop skulking in the doorway and take a look at our newest member, you would agree with me," Rudger shot back, his lip curling.

"Someone needs to keep an eye out – the coroner could come back at any time," the man retorted, dipping his head into the room just long enough to demonstrate that he was wearing the exact same uniform, but trimmed with yellow instead. "Demak Kera, by the way. Wielder of the monkey birthmark," he added shortly, before returning to his task as sentry.

"Err…charmed to meet you both," Misty said, somewhat awkwardly. "I'm sorry, but this is all really new to me. A few hours ago, I was just…just a model…"

"Don't worry, my dear," Rudger attempted to console her, though the hand he placed atop hers unnerved her far more than it helped. "We've all been where you are today. To become a Dark Signer is to reach the depths of hatred and despair, and yet not to run from them. To have the strength of will to absorb the darkness of your own heart and harness it into a weapon, and prove to the Gods of old that you are worthy of carrying on their mission. Misty Lola, welcome. Welcome to our family."

Misty was at a loss for words at this, so Rudger took the opportunity to append, "Incidentally, is this yours? We took it from the attending physician when we killed him. I suspect he may have lifted it from your…well, for lack of a better term, 'corpse.'"

Nodding curtly, the dark-skinned man reached into his pocket and handed her Toby's locket, which Misty cradled wordlessly in her hand. A reflexive flick of her finger later and it was open, displaying the photo she had slipped in after the siblings' final argument: the two of them huddled together, beaming widely from the simple pleasure of being next to each other.

"I suppose that that is a yes, then," declared Rudger after a few pregnant beats, filled only by the soft tinkling of the musical locket. "So, in that case…shall we set off for headquarters?"

Misty took one last look around the room, her eyes running across each and every body-bag and without any conscious thought, imagining Toby's tiny face within their folds. Her grip on the locket tightened considerably, and for the first time she noticed another tattoo-like marking, burned vividly into her right forearm: a long, thin lizard.

The mark flickered slightly, and for an instant she perceived the image of a redheaded young woman with a similar one – except in the shape of a dragon's claw – lying dead upon the ground. Misty's hands were clenched tight around her throat.

Misty smiled, though there was no humor in her expression; only determination that the vision must come to pass.

Holding back tears even as the smile remained upon her face, Misty Lola finally returned the Dark Signer leader's nod.

And with that, the trio departed the chamber together.