Resetting For You - Chapter 10 - Meeting Once More
Emersyn held open the door for her. Amelia walked into the main lobby. It was nice and very new looking. Either the building had just been built or newly renovated from top to bottom.
"Through here." Emersyn walked past the front desk and through a door on the side.
"This is a little nerve racking," Amelia said with a shiver.
"Ms. Gawr is a very nice girl and even though Ms. Ninomae is fairly shy, she is still nice when you get to know her," Emersyn tried to put her at ease. Amelia questioned the difference in her Ina's and this Ina's personalities. "Ms. Gawr normally likes to sit down here and bother the staff-"
"I told you that you can just call me Gura, Enma!" A familiar voice called out. Amelia knew who it was after the first word came out. Gura was laying on a couch in what seemed like a lounge room. Most of her was hidden from her view, but it was unmistakably the fun loving girl Amelia once harboured a crush on.
"She nicknamed me Enma and now Ms. Ninomae has started to use it, too," Emersyn, Enma, explained as she rolled her eyes. "Ms. Gawr, I would like to introduce you to your new coworker, Ms. Amelia Watson." Emersyn moved to the side to allow Amelia to walk over to Gura.
Gura poked her head over the arm of the couch and her eyes lit up.
Amelia's eyes did not light up. They showed surprise and a small amount of fear. The girl smiling at her was Gura, but she looked wrong. Her teeth were too sharp. The feeling of being hunted grasped her in its iron grip. She felt the overwhelming need to run away. Emersyn saw the harsh reaction and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Whatever happened before, just try your best here," the words were calm and collected. Amelia swallowed her fear back the best she could.
"W-who are you?" she asked shakily. Gura looked at her with curiosity and excitement. Emersyn was confused. Amelia should know this person.
"My name is Gawr Gura and your's is Amelia Watson, right?" she said energetically, as she hopped off the couch and began to make her way over. Amelia stiffened even further as Gura approached. The small amount of emotional resolve she had going into this was gone now. But now, even though she wanted to run, her body was frozen in place.
"Y-yes," Amelia choked out. Gura took notice of how scared Amelia seemingly was of her.
"Hey, you don't need to be scared of me," she pulled back on her lip, revealing the numerous, razor-sharp teeth she had, "I might look a little scary, but I'm not going to hurt you." This did little to calm Amelia. Emersyn squeezed harder on Amelia's shoulder.
"She's telling the truth. You're safe here, Ms. Watson."
"So what makes you special?" Gura asked, walking around Amelia from a slight distance, sizing her up. Amelia slowly turned to Emersyn and nodded for her to explain. She sighed.
"Ms. Watson is a time traveler. She says that she knew you in her previous timeline and that something terrible had happened," she explained. Gura began to put the pieces together.
"Wow! So you can time travel? That's so cool!" Gura leapt into the air with a small hop. "I'm an Atlantean. I'm super fast and strong and can breathe underwater."
"T-that's pretty cool," Amelia said.
"Did you also know Ina in your timeline, too?" Gura asked, causing Amelia to feel bile rising in her throat. If Gura wasn't human here, then what was Ina?
"Y-yeah, I did…" Amelia began to step backwards behind Emersyn.
"What are the chances of that! I'll go get here right now!" Gura ran off towards wherever Ina was currently located.
"Ms. Gawr-!" Emersyn called out futilely to try and stop Gura. Amelia collapsed to her knees as soon as Gura was gone. Emersyn crouched next to her and offered to pull her up.
"That's not the Gura I knew…" she said weakly.
"What do you mean?"
"My Gura was human, not an Atlantean or whatever…" Emersyn saw what was truly overwhelming Amelia during that whole confrontation.
"Was Ms. Ninomae also human?"
"Yes…"
The sound of a door opening interrupted them. Emersyn turned and saw Gura standing in the doorway with a purple glow emanating from behind her. Before she could tell the two to leave, Gura shouted out.
"I brought Ina!" Amelia's eyes found her two "friends" and saw Ina's face peak from around behind Gura.
"Gura, why'd you drag me out here so fast?" Ina's voice was just as Amelia remembered, but just as Emersyn had said, she seemed a lot more shy than the one Amelia knew.
At first, Ina seemed human to Amelia's eyes, but slowly she began to realize what she was really looking at. Ina stepped out from behind Gura and stared at her with curiosity as well.
The golden halo, the small crown, the wings…
The tentacles.
Amelia stood up as fast as she could and bolted out of the room. She looked around as she ran and found what she was looking for. A bathroom. She went inside and immediately began to throw up.
What the fuck was going on? She didn't want to be here anymore. A mixture of tears and vomit fell into the toilet below her.
"Ms. Watson!" she heard Emersyn call out from the hallway. The calling continued until it reached just outside the bathroom. She must've heard the sound of Amelia throwing up and came inside. Amelia continued to vomit her guts out.
"Are you ok? What happened?" there was a massive amount of concern in her voice. It was the first time Amelia had heard that amount of emotion from her. It was nice to know that her manager actually cared for her this much.
"Ina-" she began, but was interrupted by another bout of vomit. What was this day turning into?
Emersyn threw open the stall door. Amelia hadn't locked it in her rush to get to a toilet. She crouched down next to her and put a hand on her back.
"I'm sorry for bringing you here without telling you enough. I just assumed that because you knew them, that they were the same. I was wrong," Emersyn admitted her fault, trying to calm Amelia's emotions. It helped enough so that the vomit stopped. Amelia was able to begin thinking again.
"Ina is a Priestess, isn't she?" her voice was strained and wet.
"Please don't hurt your voice, Ms. Watson," Emersyn continued to show kindness and caring, "But yes, she is. Does this have something to do with the incident you talked about on the car ride here? Just nod or shake your head." Amelia nodded her confirmation. It was a half-truth, but that could be fixed later.
"One of them killed my parents and put my brother in a coma," Amelia ignored the request for her to stop talking. Her voice slowly recovered the more she spoke, "It corrupted my time watch and caused my timeline to fall apart. I ended up here trying to fix everything…" Even though the vomit had stopped, it didn't mean the tears did.
"I'll make arrangements to have your debut delayed then. I'll make sure that you don't have to go through anything like this again-"
"No!" For a second time in only an hour, Amelia lashed out at Emersyn. She shook the hand off her back. Emersyn was at a loss for words.
"I'm done running away."
"Are you sure? It's not wrong to want to avoid what hurts-"
"I'm sure. Running away is what got me into this mess in the first place." Amelia was filled with new resolve. "You said that they're nice people. I'll trust you and face them." Emersyn's look of concern faded in a slight smile.
"Well then, clean yourself up. I'll try to keep them away from you before you are ready to see them again," Emersyn said as she stood up and walked out of the bathroom.
Amelia listened as her manager's footsteps walked out of the bathroom and faded down the hall. She suppressed the urge to vomit even more. There were speckles of it dotting her shirt. She flushed the toilet and wiped off the seat before sitting on it. All of the thoughts she's been avoiding came back to her in waves.
"B-but-" she shakily began to say to herself, "I'm n-not going to *hic* run a-away…" The words sounded strained and lacking conviction. "I-I won't r-run *hic* away." She tried again, but the statement was still shaky at best. The resolve she'd had only a few short moments ago was falling apart.
Amelia wanted to call out to Emersyn so she could come back, but the lack of footsteps made her realize that she was far out of earshot. She was going to be alone for the time being.
'I can still leave or just delay my debut like she said,' her mind spoke to her. It was true. She didn't need to face this if she didn't want to.
"But I want to face this," the conviction in her voice slowly returned, "I want to face them. I won't run away," she repeated to herself.
'Why do I feel the need to do that?' The question bounced around her head for a bit before she came up with an answer.
"There has to be a reason why I'm meeting them again. Whether its divine or just dumb luck, I can't just throw this away. I'm going to figure all of this out." She picked herself up off of the toilet. Her legs were still a bit shaky, but she could still walk.
Amelia walked out of the bathroom when she heard a noise from down the hall. It was coming from the room she had just run from earlier. It sounded like Gura and Emersyn were engaged in a heated argument. As she approached down the hall, the words got clearer.
"But, I want to go see her, Enma!" Gura's voice sounded sad, but didn't shake.
"You can't, Ms. Gawr. Ms. Watson isn't feeling well and needs time to recover," Emersyn responded in a calm voice. If she was feeling irritated she didn't let it show.
"If she's a time traveler then I'm sure she has all the time she needs!" This remark surprised Amelia enough to get a small giggle to leave her mouth. The other two continued to bicker back and forth for a bit longer until a new voice joined in.
"She doesn't want to see us, Gura," Ina's quiet voice was hard for Amelia to hear, but she was almost to the door by this point.
"What do you mean? She was just afraid of how we look," Gura explained with false confidence.
"I can't disclose why she isn't feeling well, but rest assured it will only get worse if you go see her." Emersyn stated harshly this time. A slight bit of agitation rose to the surface of her words.
"Gura, she might be afraid of how you look, but it was different with me," Ina's voice trembled as the words left her mouth, "It's just like how it's always been…" Her voice fully trailed off at the end.
"Ina that's not true. Everyone is only scared of us because they don't know who, or what, we are," Gura spoke in a lighter voice this time. A light sigh emanated from someone in the room.
"Ms. Watson will talk to you both when she feels better," Emersyn's voice softened from her previous tone, but it was still evident that she wasn't going to back down. Amelia took this as her cue to enter the room. She pulled the door open slightly.
"Enma," she called out, focusing on only her manager's figure. Her eye's begged to turn and look at Gura and Ina, but she wouldn't let them just yet.
"Amelia!" Gura called out and Amelia saw rapid movement in her peripheral vision. Gura was running towards her at a frightening speed. She didn't think it was out of maliciousness, but she had to fight the urge to slam the door shut and run again. Her eyes continued to fixate themselves on Emersyn
But suddenly, she was gone. Amelia hadn't blinked or looked away for even a moment, but Emersyn had completely vanished from where she had been.
In the next moment, a loud clanging noise pulled her attention towards it. She saw Emersyn standing in between her and the charging Gura. The katana she'd kept on her hip was drawn and blocking a strike from Gura. How had she moved so fast to get there?
"What the hell do you think you're doing Ms. Gawr!" Emersyn was now incredibly angry towards the Atlantean, who in turn also looked incredibly angry back at her.
"You always said I should make friends with people, and yet here you are trying to stop me from doing just that!" Gura stood with her hands pulled into a claw shape, ready to strike at any point.
"I think you are mistaken. I never told you to aggressively pursue someone who hasn't shown any interest in being near you yet." Emersyn stood in a fighting stance as well, her katana's blade pointed straight at Gura's chest.
"Well then let's ask her shall we?" Amelia felt her entire body seize up as she realized what was going to happen next. "Hey Amelia, do you want me to talk to you?" Gura asked in a strained voice, trying her best to suppress her anger.
"I-I," Amelia began, but faltered out of fright. She had accidently let her vision wander towards Gura's face. The Atlantean's eyes weren't the blue they had been before. Instead, they were a crimson red and they were staring straight into her soul. Now Amelia felt malice coming from her.
"Ms. Gawr, back up or I'm going to be forced to make you," Emersyn commanded. Gura's eyes shifted back towards her manager. They widened suddenly and shifted back to the ocean blue they had been before.
"I'm so sorry. I'm not Primal, see? I'm fine and in control, Enma," Gura begged Emersyn. Her stance also shifted into one of scared defense. Emersyn noticed these changes and lowered her katana. However, she didn't not put it back into its sheath.
"Ms. Watson, I don't believe that now is a good time for you to speak to either of them," Emersyn spoke to her without turning. Her focus was still on Gura.
"I want to talk to Gura," Amelia said as clearly as she could. Now Emersyn turned so she could see Amelia.
"Are you sure? Ms. Gawr might be dangerous right now." Emersyn's eyes burned brighter than they had before. Amelia looked at her with confusion.
"I thought you said they weren't dangerous?!" Emersyn sighed.
"I'll accompany both of you to a conference room," Emersyn addressed Gura and Amelia before turning to look at Ina who was in the very back of the room. "Ms. Ninomae, do you also want to talk to Ms. Watson after Ms. Gawr is finished?" Ina seemed to try to shrink into herself when she was spoken to.
Amelia let her gaze turn to the Priestess, much to her stomach's protest. She felt it lurch when she focused on Ina. Her best friend turned into one of those things. Only one thought poured through her mind as she looked at her.
Why?
"I-I think she doesn't want to talk to me…" Ina trailed off, noticing the look Amelia was giving her. Emersyn turned to Amelia.
"Do you wish to talk to Ms. Ninomae?" A simple yet loaded question. Amelia swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
"Yes, I do." Emersyn nodded and looked back to Ina.
"O-ok. I want to, too." Ina attempted a smile towards Amelia. Amelia let her face soften as best she could, as well.
"Alright, Ms. Gawr follow me, but don't approach Ms. Watson," she told Gura before walking over to Amelia who was still looking in through a gap in the door. "Ms. Watson, if you walk down the hall to your left, you will find room 105. Go in there and sit in the seat farthest from the door." Amelia nodded at the instructions her manager gave her.
Room 105 was easy enough to find. After entering, Amelia saw it was a conferencing room. A large table with at least a dozen chairs sat in the middle of the room. A projector and screen were also contained inside. She sat in the chair farthest from the door.
It was a couple minutes before the door opened to reveal Emersyn with Gura just behind her. They both sat down a fair distance away from Amelia with Emersyn sitting right next to Gura. The Atlantean stared blankly at the table, refusing to look up at either of the other people in the room.
"You don't need to sit so far away," Amelia said with a frown. Emersyn shook her head.
"Unfortunately, this is necessary for your safety at the moment." Amelia furrowed her brow in discontent with the situation. Couldn't Emersyn see how sad Gura was?
"I thought you said you were more humane. Don't treat her like an animal, Enma," Amelia spoke with a surprising amount of conviction. It surprised Emersyn a little bit. Gura's gaze moved up for the first time and met Amelia's. A look of gratefulness shown through them.
"As you wish," Emersyn said reluctantly and moved a few chairs closer to Amelia. Gura followed suit. Now they sat nearly straight across the table from each other.
"Are you ok, Amelia?" Gura broke the ice first. Amelia saw that Gura's gaze had shifted back to the table, probably out of embarrassment or regret.
"I'm fine now," Amelia half-lied another time that day, "You and Ina just surprised me. It's a lot to take in all at once." Emersyn's expression shifted into one of guilt for a split second. She hadn't learned enough about the situation and caused a lot of strife.
"Are you scared of us?" Gura asked another question. Amelia hoped this conversation wouldn't be like this the whole time.
"I guess I am," Amelia saw Gura's lips curl and she looked ready to cry. Quickly Amelia tried to change the subject, "Back in my timeline, the you I knew was human." Gura snapped her head up and looked at Amelia, causing Emersyn to move her hand to her katana. Amelia helf a hand up to Emersyn to calm her. Tears were in Gura's eyes, but it didn't look like she was going to cry or attack. They were wide with surprise.
"I was human?" she asked, confused. Amelia felt a light smile spread across her face as she thought of her timeline's Gura.
"Yeah. We went to highschool together with Ina. Us three were an unbreakable group." Gura's face also fell into a slight smile, having heard Amelia.
"So Ina wasn't a Priestess then. She'll want to hear about herself." When the word 'Priestess' came out of Gura's mouth, Amelia still flinched. Gura noticed this.
"Yeah, she wasn't. I don't want to get into that right now, though." Gura wanted to push Amelia for details, but it just felt wrong right now. She held herself back and instead asked another question she had.
"So what was it like in your timeline?"
"It was just like this one, except I never saw any Atlanteans and Hololive didn't exist." This piqued Emersyn's curiosity.
"Did you just never see any of that or did it not exist," she asked.
"I had heard of the lost city of Atlantis, but it was just a myth. Technically it could've existed I guess, but Hololive definitely didn't exist." Amelia brought a hand up to the side of her head to scratch it.
"I bet it existed," Gura said, "I guess I just wasn't born there." Amelia thought pretty hard about that circumstance.
"Yeah, pretty weird coincidence."
"Mhm, especially when you think about how much older I am now compared to a human high schooler." Amelia looked at Gura with confusion.
"How old are you then?" Gura gave her an exaggerated offended look as a joke.
"Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a girl about her age?" she couldn't help but giggle halfway through. Amelia also laughed at her sarcasm. "I'm well over nine thousand years old by now, probably closer to ten thousand."
Amelia's laughter stopped instantly. Gura also stopped laughing, worry filling her eyes in an instant.
"H-how? You can't be that old right? I mean, you still act like *hic* the Gura I knew," Amelia tried to reason with herself. Gura shook her hands out in front of her defensively.
"I'm sorry-" she began, but was interrupted.
"Don't apologize Gura," Amelia said more assertively, "It just is a lot to take in. You do act the same as her, though." Gura saw the change in topic and went along with it.
"How did I act? Is there anything that I kinda do differently now?" she asked. Amelia let out a slight laugh.
"You were happy all the time. Nothing seemed to ever get under your skin. You definitely didn't have those sharp teeth, though, or a tail." Gura suddenly felt self-conscious about her tail and lowered it below the table.
"Yeah, I am pretty different from a human…" Amelia saw the sadness creeping onto the Atlantean's face.
"That's not a bad thing. You're still the same," Amelia hesitated slightly, "person I knew back then." Gura's expression lightened upon hearing Amelia call her that.
"Thanks, Amelia."
"Call me Ame, Gura." Gura's face broke out into a massive smile.
"Ame, Ame," she tried the nickname on her tongue, "Ame, I like it. Sounds cute!"
Amelia's heart skipped a beat. Gura's smile was just so pretty.
"Anyways," Gura turned her head to face the door, "I think someone else wants to talk to you soon." Amelia also turned to look at the door, half expecting Ina to be peaking in on their conversation. But no one was there that she could see. This timeline's Ina was definitely more shy than her own.
"Yeah," Amelia said hesitantly, "I guess I should…" Gura gave her another concerned look.
"Are you afraid of her, too?" she asked. Amelia pulled her hand into a fist and tightened it underneath the table.
"Do you know how Ina became…" she trailed off, unable to say what her best friend was now.
"A Priestess?" Gura shook her head, "No, we don't know. Her memories aren't all there. She'll explain the rest for you." Amelia didn't know if this made her feel better or not. She turned to Emersyn this time.
"If you're afraid of Gura being dangerous. You have no idea how dangerous Ina is." It almost sounded like a threat coming out of her mouth. Gura shrank into her seat a little bit.
"She is in control of the Ancient Ones. They possess no control over her," Emersyn explained. Amelia tightened her fist even more, coming close to drawing blood with her nails.
"That's not true. You can't just contain them." Amelia looked frantic. Gura tried to calm her a little bit.
"I thought the same thing, Ame. But Enma is right, Ina is in complete control no matter how much AO-chan hates it." Amelia's fist came out from under the table and slammed on top of it. This startled both Emersyn and Gura.
"That's not true! One of those things killed my parents! It's not pos-" she was interrupted by a blast of wind. There were no windows open, so how did that happen? Looking around, Amelia saw Emersyn standing up with her katana drawn. Her swing had kicked up that much wind?
"How about we talk to her before we make assumptions about what's true and what's not, Ms. Watson," Emersyn said sternly. Amelia nodded weakly as her manager put her katana back into its sheath. "Good. Wait here."
Gura stood up and left the room with a reassuring smile. Emersyn returned very quickly without Ina. Amelia was confused by this.
"Where is Ina?" she asked. Emersyn sat down across from her again.
"Ms. Gawr is getting her. I just wanted to ask you a few questions before she comes in here." Amelia gulped. "Are you completely sure you want to see her?" Amelia leaned back in her chair, the front legs nearly lifting off the ground.
"I do," she said with as much conviction as she could muster. Emersyn continued to eye her down.
"Why do you hate Priestesses so much?" Amelia gritted her teeth and dug her nails into her palms again. Memories of her parent's last moments flooded back to her. Her brother's messed up voice rang in her ears.
"One of them killed my parents and injured my brother. It spoke to me through him, too. His eyes and blood were a deep purple. It even fucked up my time watch." She dug into one of her pockets and pulled out the broken time watch. Even though she always carried it, she tried to avoid looking at it.
"That looks like corruption magic," a quiet voice wandered its way into the room. Amelia snapped her vision to where it had come from. Ina stood in the doorway pensively. Emersyn waved to the Priestess to sit down next to her. Amelia set the time watch down on the table and put a hand over her stomach.
She felt an immediate urge to throw up again. The sickening purple glow coming off of her once best friend sent waves of nausea around her body. Ina sat across from her, looking at the table in a similar fashion to how Gura did. The slightest bit of pity manifested in Amelia.
"Are you scared of me, too?" Ina asked without looking up. Amelia's nausea started to fade slightly as empathy replaced it. Even though she was a Priestess now, Ina was still her friend. She needed to explain herself and get to know her.
"I am," she started. Ina sank into her seat even further. It was evident that she no longer wanted to be here. "A Priestess killed my parents and injured my brother. It forced me to leave my timeline. I don't want to be around you right now. However, I knew you in my timeline." This caused Ina to look at her. Amelia avoided eye contact.
"You knew me?" Ina said with sadness and curiosity. Amelia nodded.
"Yes I did. You were my best friend and got me through some tough times. That's why, even if I'm not ready just yet, I want to eventually get to know you and be friends." Amelia only now dared to make eye contact. Ina had put her hands over her mouth in shock. Her eyes glistened with tears. "If that's ok with you." Amelia finished.
"Of-of course." Ina almost sounded desperate. Like she hadn't met anyone even willing to talk to her for a long time. Amelia broke eye contact before her stomach decided to flip again.
"Gura mentioned something about you not having many memories," Amelia provoked a topic change. Ina seemed to think for a moment.
"Yeah, I don't really remember anything from before I became this," she gestured to herself, "So what was I like?" Amelia now thought for a moment, recalling all of the good memories she had with her Ina.
"You were calm and collected. No matter what emotional problem was thrown at you, you could deal with it no problem. That emotional stability is the reason I'm here." Amelia felt a slight weight come off of her. She had never vocalised her incredible appreciation towards what Ina had done for her. Probably because she had never had anyone to talk to.
"Wait, you keep mentioning timelines and two different me's. Are you like a time traveler?" Ina realized the ridiculousness of what Amelia was saying.
"Yeah I am, but I'm more of a stranded time traveler," she gestured to the broken time watch on the table, "You said something about magic when I brought it out." Ina nodded.
"Mhm, what you described was corruption magic. It can change the properties of something to whatever I can think of. However it must still be physically possible for the object to do or be. I can't make a dog into a cat, but I can make a dog meow." Amelia laughed slightly. The explanation made a little sense, so maybe she could fix the time watch. "If you want, I can see if I can fix it," Ina offered. Amelia squeezed a fist slightly.
"S-sure, just try to not break it or corrupt it further," Amelia answered. Ina nodded and suddenly a purple mist appeared next to her. A tentacle shot out and grabbed the time watch, bringing it over to Ina for her to inspect it.
Amelia felt her stomach lurch. She put one hand over her mouth and another on her stomach, trying not to throw up. She bent over to the side and stared at the ground. This earned her a concerned look from Emersyn. Ina noticed this as well and mumbled something. A trash can suddenly manifested in front of Amelia on the floor.
"Sorry…" Ina apologized the best she could. Amelia waved a hand up over the table, still bent over the trash can.
"I-it's fine. Just d-don't do that so suddenly ag-gain." She heard Ina sigh out of guilt. "But thanks for the trash can," Amelia offered her gratitude. Ina didn't respond, but it was clear that she appreciated it.
She continued to look at the broken time watch intently. Amelia eventually sat back up in her chair after she felt better. It was a few minutes of awkward silence later that Ina finally spoke up.
"This is really nasty corruption. Like it shouldn't even exist right now." Amelia widened her eyes.
"So does that mean…?" she began.
"That I can't fix it like this," Ina finished. Amelia slumped in her chair in defeat. She was never leaving here. It was all for nothing. Tears began to well up in her eyes. "It's not impossible to fix though!" Ina called out suddenly. Amelia glanced up at her.
"What do you mean? You just said you couldn't fix it," she questioned.
"I can't fix it, but AO-chan says that there is a place we can take it to get it fixed." Now Amelia was intrigued. But something was off about this.
"AO-chan told you this? As in the Ancient Ones?" she said with mild disgust. Ina didn't seem to take offense to this tone.
"Mhm, it's what I've called them for a while now. What's wrong about that?" Amelia clenched her fist harder.
"Are you really in control of them? How are you in control of them?" she asked with hostility. Ina waved her hands in front of her.
"I-I don't know why I can control them. They've never been very happy about it either. But I promise I can and they bend to my will no matter what I ask," she explained her current situation. Amelia didn't buy it.
"Even though you act differently and sound differently. There's nothing saying that you aren't just a really good faker, AO-chan." This remark did cause Ina to flinch. Amelia felt a little bad about what she just said, but it needed to be said.
"Ms. Watson," Emersyn interjected, "Ms. Ninomae is a trusted member of our agency. Even though you do not trust her yet, I would appreciate it if you didn't accuse her of being deceitful." Emersyn clearly defended Ina with her words. Ina looked at her manager and smiled. Amelia let her body loosen from its defensive position.
"I'm sorry. Fallacy of opposition and all that…" Amelia mumbled near the end of her statement. "Hopefully, you can show me how trustworthy you are. Then maybe I'll take you up on the whole 'fixing my time watch' thing."
"It's actually not your time watch that's unfixable. It's just the Droplet inside that's corrupted." Amelia furrowed her brow in confusion.
"Droplet? What's that?" Ina peeled away the tape that held the face of the time watch onto its body. This revealed the cracked, purple crystal on the inside.
"This," she pointed at it, "is a Droplet of Time. It is a fragment of a larger piece left by the Warden of Time." Amelia shook her head, trying to comprehend everything that was being thrown at her.
"What in the world are you talking about, Ina? Can you try to dumb it down a little?" she pleaded. Ina sighed and thought for a moment before speaking again.
"I'm not sure that I can explain this easily right now…" Ina sounded upset at her inability to help Amelia understand her current situation. Emersyn chimed in.
"I, too, believe that you've taken in enough information already, Ms. Watson." Amelia put a hand to her forehead. She probably did need a bit to take in all of the new information that was being thrown at her.
"Yeah, you're right," she sighed. Ina looked depressed with this last remark. Emersyn stood up from her chair.
"Well then, I will show you to your room, Ms. Watson. Ms. Ninomae, you may leave whenever you want." Ina immediately stood up and began making her way to the door with impressive speed. She didn't want to be in the room for any longer than she had to. Even though Amelia seemed to be really nice and understanding, it just didn't feel right just yet.
"Ina!" She stopped just before she opened the door to leave. Turning around, she saw Amelia walking towards her.
"Ms. Watson," Emersyn called out, seeing what Amelia intended to do, "you do not need to push yourself this far!" Amelia's pace towards Ina only quickened.
"Wha-" Ina was cut off when Amelia grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. She was initially hesitant towards hugging back, but it only took her a moment before she collapsed into Amelia. Tears sprung into her eyes and she felt a few of them roll down her cheeks.
"Hey," Amelia asked lightly, "do you like making really shitty puns?" Ina pulled back far enough to see that Amelia was also on the verge of tears. Ina smiled one of her rare genuine smiles.
"Yeah, I love Inacent jokes like that." Amelia pulled her back into a hug and began to cry as well. Emersyn watched for a moment before making her way out of the room, squeezing past the two crying friends.
She opened the door and saw a blue blur try to make itself hidden around a corner. Sighing, she called out to exactly who she knew it was.
"Ms. Gawr, I know I didn't specifically tell you not to eavesdrop. However, I thought it should just go without saying that you shouldn't." The small Atlantean poked her head out from around the corner, a pout plastered onto it.
"I just wanted to know what they were talking about," she whined. Emersyn rolled her eyes.
"You know you can just ask your friends about what they talk about?" Gura's expression changed to one of revelation. Emersyn sighed, as she knew exactly what she was about to say.
"Amelia's my friend now?!" Spot on there, Emersyn.
"Yes, she said it herself if you could think for yourself." Gura's face turned back to a pout.
"You know I'm not good with social situations, Enma."
"Well, it seems that Ms. Watson is at least somewhat socially competent. At least I won't be alone in this struggle anymore." Gura smiled a toothy grin at her manager's struggles.
The door to the conference opened again and Ina and Amelia stepped out. Streaks of tears were still visible on their faces, but they hardly cared. Gura ran over to the other two girls and pulled them into a hug. This one lasted shorter than the previous, but it was just as enjoyable. Emersyn sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day.
"Ms. Watson's room is number 308. Ms. Gawr and Ms. Nimomae, I assume you can show her up there?" Gura's face peeled away from the group hug.
"You got it, Enma!" she yelled out before immediately diving back. Emersyn walked away and left them to it.
This generation was going to be a handful. Maybe she should get a few more managers to help her?
Amelia flopped onto her new bed. It was significantly more comfortable than her old one, she decided after only a moment. Sleep threatened to take her right there, but a loud voice from behind her kept her awake.
"Ame, are you reeeally a time traveler?" Gura asked from her doorway. Amelia rolled over and stared at her 'new?' friend.
"Do you think I'm not one?" she answered the question with another one. Gura walked over and plopped down onto the bed next to her.
"I mean, you haven't really done anything to suggest you are one," she answered, laying down on her back.
"Then check this out." Gura sat back up and saw Amelia's arm raised into the air.
"What am I supposed to be lo-" she stopped short once she saw Amelia's real arms still at her side. "What the!" Amelia began to laugh.
"I can do all kinds of weird things. Like try to hit me," she egged Gura on. Gura tilted her head to the side.
"What are you really fast like me, too?"
"You'll see. Just try." Amelia sat up and gestured towards herself. Gura shrugged before throwing a light punch at her. She was careful so that it wouldn't hurt her even if it did connect.
But it didn't. Her arm passed straight through Amelia, who now looked a little fuzzy compared to her surroundings. She retracted her arm and Amelia's figure came back into focus.
"I guess, maybe, you might just be a time traveler." Gura giggled a little bit at the exaggerated nature of her sentence. Amelia continued to laugh. "Has Ina seen that?"
"No, but she's probably asleep by now." Ina had immediately gone to her room when they all had gotten up to the third floor. All of their rooms are on the same floor, only a few rooms apart.
"Yeah probably," Gura had a topic on her mind, "So, about that place Ina was talking about…" Amelia rolled her eyes a little.
"I still don't trust AO-chan one bit." Gura placed a hand onto her shoulder.
"But you trust me right?" Amelia thought for a moment.
"Yeah, I think I do," she stated.
"I know what she's talking about. I can take you there."
"Tomorrow," Amelia said as she laid back onto the bed, "I'm dead tired and need some sleep." Gura laughed slightly.
"It's gonna take a little longer than a day to prepare for a trip like that, but we'll go sometime soon. I need to go back there eventually, as well," Gura said with a distant look in her eyes.
"Where would we be going?"
"The 'lost' city of Atlantis, of course," Gura said with a smirk.
Author's Note: Resetting For You, the first part out of five in the Corrupted Timelines series, is finished. Now, as promised I will explain what actually is going to happen going forward.
I still have 10 chapters until this version is caught up with the one on AO3, but the updates might slow a little just so I don't run out too quickly. The next part, Shattered Reflections, is the second and shortest part at only six chapters. After that, the parts get much longer. The third part, Broken Myths, is planned to go well over twenty and the two after that won't be any shorter.
Shattered Reflections will be focusing on "our" timeline's Gura and Ina. Just a little warning, due to the nature of Gura's abilities SR is going to be pretty brutal in terms of gore and dark themes. I have kept most of the descriptions vague, but it still isn't very nice to imagine. Besides that, SR is going to backtrack a little, so it will be a few chapters before we see Amelia again. Also, still no Calliope or Kiara yet. I promise the wait will be worth it when they show up in BM.
Actually talking about this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it. When I was writing it, the length just kept getting longer and longer. I think I only just beat it in terms of word count recently. This was a massive deal for me, finally being able to finish this story. Finishing projects has never been a strong suit of mine, so actually finishing this one was a massive confidence booster to my writing.
This timeline's Gura and Ina are much more familiar. An Atlantean and Priestess who are mildly socially awkward. Like I said before, Calliope and Kiara will show up in BM, but I think these two should be enough for now. I like to develop my characters with time and through their actions. Gotta give these two the same wonderful treatment as Amelia.
Next Chapter: Gura's Past
Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!