BM - Chapter 15 - Behind the Void
A/N: Names are back to normal (Ina instead of Ina'nis)
Ina rubbed the tear streaks off of her face, as her room faded back in from the gray fuzz. She sniffled and cleared her throat, making sure to be as presentable as possible. Her friends would want to know why she had been gone as soon as they saw her.
"Ina?!" Gura's familiar voice yelled from behind her. Ina had not even realized that she was fully materialized in her timeline yet. Quickly turning around in surprise, she saw Gura shoot up from her desk chair.
"G-Gura, what are you doing in my-" Ina tried to give herself a little time to think by deflecting away from the inevitable question. She was interrupted when Gura leapt towards her, tackling her to the ground. The small bruises left over from her fight with the Priest ached when she hit the floor.
Gura laid on top of Ina, pinning her to the floor with her weight. The Atlantean might be small, but she was very dense with muscles. Ina debated on getting up, using tentacles to prop herself up, but decided against it. Gura needed this.
"Why'd you leave like that, you idiot!" she cried into Ina's hoodie. There was a light amount of anger in her voice, making Ina begin to feel incredibly guilty over what she had done.
"It's only been a couple days, right?" she asked, her bottom lip quivering from the guilt. Gura pulled away and let her stand up.
"I mean yeah, but it felt like a lifetime ago. We were gearing up to go back to the Hatchery soon, in case you didn't make it back…" Gura's voice trailed off, not wanting to think about that possibility. Ina sighed.
"I'm sorry that I scared you guys like that…" she apologized.
"Why did you even-" Gura started to ask, but the door behind them opened, interrupting her.
"Gura, is everything-" Amelia walked in and stopped her sentence short. She saw Ina standing in the room next to Gura and stared at her for a moment.
"H-hey, Ame," Ina stuttered. When Amelia began to walk towards her, she prepared to get slapped. However, Amelia instead embraced her and held her tight.
"Oh my god, I am so glad you're back, Ina," she said in a relieved tone. It was obvious that she had been worried about Ina's sudden departure, as well. Ina reciprocated the hug before it was broken up by a loud voice outside.
"Ina's back! Ina's back!" Kiara paraded into the room. Ina was squeezed into another hug by the Phoenix, but this one was strong and short. Ina was glad because she definitely couldn't breathe in it. Calliope and Emersyn walked in soon after, bringing the entire group into one room. They all took their seats on various chairs and Ina's bed. Ina stood in the middle of them all, gathering her thoughts.
"Where did you go, Ms. Ninomae?" Emersyn broke the silence. The question was very direct, so Ina took a deep breath before laying everything out for the group.
She explained that she had gone to see her past, but ended up instead in Amelia's old timeline. This, of course, brought a fair few gasps and a flurry of questions. Emersyn told them all to leave their questions till the end in case Ina answered it in her explanation.
Ina talked about how she accidentally stalked Amelia's Ina and wound up flat on her ass when Amelia's Gura attacked her. She then explained how she wound up at their apartment and provided details on Amelia's old room at the place. This almost brought tears to Amelia's eyes when she heard about how the room was exactly how she left it.
"Sounds like they are together, eh?" Kiara nudged Gura who was sitting next to her on the bed. Amelia flinched slightly, unbeknownst to everyone. Ina laughed awkwardly. "Holy shit they are together…" Kiara realized, her eyes and smile growing wide.
"Kusotori, don't-" Calliope tried to talk Kiara out of it, but it could not be stopped.
"Oh my god, congrats you two! I wonder if that'll happen in this timeline! Hey Ame, did you know about this?!" Kiara bounced around the room, asking several questions to several people at once. Emersyn's eye twitched, sending a wave of bloodlust across the room from Ina's desk chair where she was sitting.
Even if she was still recovering, Emersyn Monroe was still terrifying. Kiara yelped and said sorry before asking Ina to continue. She took a hasty seat next to Gura and Calliope, half hiding from Emersyn behind her Reaper crush.
Ina resumed her retelling of events and got to the part about Johnny, making Amelia sigh heavily. She was very glad her brother was still alive and well. Even more so that her friends still remembered who he was and what had happened, even if no one else did.
There were a lot of ooo's and ahh's while Ina talked about her fight with the Priest. Everyone was very glad to hear that both of Amelia's friends had made it out safe.
The story finished with Ina talking about being in the hospital and meeting this other version of Emersyn. Everyone made sure to get in their fair shot at their manager, who just sat and took them.
"That's all of it. I don't think I left anything out," Ina concluded, making a gesture that she could now answer questions.
"That explains the floating book," Calliope commented. It had been obvious since she walked in that the book was the center of her focus.
"It's not really a question, but I get why you felt like you had to go," Gura said hesitantly, making sure to pick her words carefully.
"Yeah, I want to learn about my past, too!" Kiara agreed. Ina gave them a stale smile, thankful that they supported her reasoning, but knowing that it didn't excuse her actions.
"Thanks, guys…" she responded to not seem rude.
"How is my timeline doing, like stability-wise?" Amelia asked. She was mainly curious if Ina had caused any damage by traveling to and from her timeline. Ina shook her head to dismiss Amelia's worries.
"AO-chan made sure to supply the watch with pure energy to avoid any damage. The Droplet is also perfectly uncorrupted. In fact, that picture of you that I mentioned before got better. You aren't faded and Emersyn knew who your brother was. I would say that your timeline is actually healing!" Ina excitedly answered.
"Good," Amelia said flatly, leaning back into the bean bag chair Ina had in the corner of her room. Ina's expression fell, but she tried to ignore Amelia's obvious disdain towards her actions. She deserved it, after all.
"It is good that you did not damage the space-time continuum, Ms. Ninomae. However, you should give the time watch back to its rightful owner," Emersyn said with her usual cold tone. Her manager would be Ina's second biggest critic by her calculations. Ina nodded rapidly and took out the time watch from her hoodie pocket before giving it to Amelia. The time traveler's flat expression remained and she offered no 'thank you' for it. Ina walked back into the center of the room.
"Do you think Johnny will get better?" Gura asked. Ina opened her mouth before closing it. She didn't have a solid answer, only a decent guess.
"He will most likely heal as the timeline heals," Amelia answered for her. She sounded very sure, so no one questioned how she came to that conclusion.
"I'm sorry that you couldn't actually see your past…" Kiara said sadly. Gura nodded. Ina had left her memory flashes out of her explanation in order to streamline the important details.
"That's the thing, during my entire stay there my memories slowly came back to me," she revealed. Kiara stood bolt upright and stared at her.
"What?!" she asked, practically demanding answers on the spot. Calliope pulled her back onto the bed. Gura leaned forwards, also indicating that she wanted to know more about her memories.
"Do not feel pressured by them, Ms. Ninomae. If you wish to keep your past to yourself, you are well within your right's to do so," Emersyn explained. Ina shook her head.
"You guys deserve to know. Plus, Ame and Gura have confessed their pasts to every-" she cut herself off, remembering that Kiara and Calliope hadn't heard it yet, "nearly everyone here," she corrected herself, "and I might need some help understanding some things…"
"If you wish," Emersyn said, gesturing for her to continue.
Ina took another deep breath before beginning the story of her time as a normal human.
Ina's life began in a South Korean hospital in 1960. The country was still recovering from the effects of the Korean War that had only ended seven years prior. It was an unstable time for both the populace and government, leading people to seek refuge with whoever could provide it.
Ina's parents had found a group of people called "Thousand Minds" a couple years before her birth. They understood it was a cult, but they had no other choice if they wanted to remain safe. The cult operated out of a small village deep in the Korean countryside. There they had free reign of the resources and survived completely off the grid. Only when there was a medical emergency, such as a birth, did they venture out to find civilization.
Ina grew up in the village, learning their teachings and worshiping their god, the Ancient Ones. The Ancient Ones were a collection of minds that came together because they all shared the goal of bringing the world to a more perfect state, at least the teachings said that.
There were no other kids her age in the village, so Ina spent most of her time with her parents. They lived in a small home on the outskirts. The cult didn't like them much, due to Ina's mother giving birth and forcing them to seek help from the outside world.
Ina always felt guilty that she was the reason her parents weren't liked. Her parents told her it wasn't her fault, but she never really believed them. Every second of her life was spent trying to find some way to be useful to both her parents and the cult.
And she found one.
A few months after her thirteenth birthday, she grabbed a plate from the shelf. But when her fingers gripped it, the plate slid through them. It quite literally melted onto the floor, becoming misshapen in the process.
That was the moment Ina's latent talent for magic was revealed.
Her parents were extremely happy for her. Humans developing magic was very rare, especially in modern times. They experimented with the things she could do with it, coming to the stark realization that she was using corruption magic.
Corruption magic specialized in transforming the matter around the user to their benefit. It was also the magic that the Ancient Ones were known to use. This news finally made her parents reveal to the cult what their daughter could do.
Ina's parents left early one morning to talk with the leader of the cult, known as the Elder. Once you became the leader, all your previous identities were removed and you became only known as the Elder. You had no gender, no ethnicity, no prior relationships. You were born again as a perfected being. Once you felt your life slipping away, you would sacrifice yourself in the name of the Ancient Ones. All of this was all in an attempt to bring the Ancient Ones back into this realm.
The Ancient Ones hadn't been seen in millennia if the legends were to be believed. At some point they simply vanished. The cult was devoted to finding a way to bring them back. The sacrifice of the Elder was supposed to allow the Ancient Ones to possess them, creating a Priestess or Priest. However, they never came back no matter how many people died.
Ina's ability to use corruption magic could be the key that the cult needed to bring them back. It would also give her family a massive amount of power within the cult. Ina was incredibly excited to finally be useful.
But when armed men busted down her door instead of the Elder, she was terrified. They took her from her home and beat her. Her parents were restrained for telling lies and locked away. Ina wouldn't see them again for a long time.
She was then given a choice, either leave or be killed. She chose the first option and fled to civilization. Once she found a major city, she collapsed from the lack of food and water. A soldier found her and nursed her back to health.
A medical professional visited her one day and said that her sister had been looking for a child to adopt. Ina didn't want to leave, but she knew she had nowhere else to go. She accepted the woman's offer and was sent to the United States.
Ina first met her new godmother at the airport when she landed. The woman was tall and incredibly beautiful to Ina. But she never learned her name or her face. They both seemed to escape her memories, falling just beyond what she could recall.
They lived in a small apartment, very similar to where Ina had been staying in the other timeline. Her godmother fed and cared for her amazingly. Ina wished she could spend the rest of her life in her care.
She went to school and learned english and found a passion for drawing. She was planning on going to college to pursue a degree in Art and Design. Everything in her life was going perfectly. Even the trauma given to her by the cult was beginning to fade.
Until her parents found her.
Once they had been released from the cult's possession, they too fled in search of Ina. For the last five years, they had searched all over South Korea and then the United States to find her.
Ina didn't know how to feel about meeting them again. She both loved them for trying so hard to find her and hated them for letting her get hurt. She also had no idea why she was wanted. Wouldn't it just be easier to forget about her and live a normal life?
Her parents talked with her godmother privately and came to a mutual understanding.
They wanted to still use Ina's magic, but this time it was to destroy the cult that had hurt them. With a mutual enemy, Ina and her parents were finally able to reconcile.
Her parents explained to her the true reasoning behind Ina's exile. The cult did believe that she had corruption magic, but it scared them. It was possible that the Ancient Ones could be contained and controlled by someone who wielded corruption magic. The cult didn't trust Ina and so had her exiled to avoid this happening.
Ina, her parents, and her godmother poured over old legends and ancient texts to find a way to take revenge on the cult. They eventually found it in an old manuscript that detailed a ritual a person with corruption magic could use to bring them out.
The plan was simple: trick the cult into letting Ina summon the Ancient Ones and then take them for themselves. The largest problem was that Ina was probably going to be killed by the cult afterwards, so they would have to go about this quickly.
On the day of Ina's twenty-first birthday, the Ninomae family flew back to South Korea. It was a tearful goodbye between Ina and her godmother who, despite not remembering her face or name, Ina cared so deeply about.
They later arrived back at the village and presented themselves. The cult accepted the offer for her parents to be reintegrated into the cult if they sacrificed their daughter to summon the Ancient Ones into the current Elder.
Ina accepted this, pretending to care about her parents and the cult's cause above her own life. The cult believed that Ina's increased age meant that she had seen the truth and was really trying to help. That could not be farther from the truth, but Ina lied perfectly around their questions. All of the research they had done back in the United States gave them perfect ammo to trick the cult.
Ina went to the Elder's chamber late that night and knelt before him. Her and her family began the ritual to summon the Ancient Ones. It was long and arduous, but they got it right in the end. With a mixture of some blood soaked rags, multiple incantations, and several artifacts that the cult possessed, a dark purple portal opened in the middle of the chamber.
As soon as it opened to reveal a deep void, Ina was shot in the stomach by the Elder. They had been hiding a gun behind them the whole time, never planning to let Ina live a moment beyond the end of the ritual.
Ina's parents were shot as well, making their fates unknown to Ina.
Just as the darkness began to creep into the edges of her vision. Several purple tentacles crawled out from the portal. The Elder presented themselves to the awakened Ancient Ones.
But they were blasted aside.
The Ancient Ones instead slithered their tentacles around Ina's limp form and picked her up. They were choosing her over the Elder.
Just as her vision faded completely, she heard them speak to her.
'We will make you whole again, Priestess.'
"After that, my regular memories come in. I woke up on muddy ground somewhere in South Korea and wandered around until I found civilization. I was taken in by the Foundation shortly after and then I ended up here," Ina finished her story.
Everyone in the room just continued to stare at her even after she stopped talking. They were all trying their best to take in what they had just been told. To be fair, it was a lot, but Ina was starting to get creeped out by it.
"That's a pretty hardcore origin story," Calliope finally broke the silence. Everyone's attention turned to her, giving her multiple looks of disgust and 'wtf was that dude?'. "What, did I say something?" she replied, obviously not understanding the looks.
"You socially oblivious moron! Ina needs our support right now! She just found out that her parents are missing and there is a godmother out there that is probably looking for her," Kiara chastised her friend. Gura nodded, agreeing with what the Phoenix was saying. Amelia, though, looked back over at Ina.
"Speaking of that godmother, you said you couldn't remember who she was or what she looked like. Why is that?" she asked Ina.
"Like I said, it is like they are just escaping my memory. Maybe I just lost them to time," Ina attempted to explain. It still didn't make sense…
"Out of everything you could forget, the woman who took care of you, who loved you like her own child, would be the last thing on that list. I just can't imagine that you would just forget," Amelia put her frustrations out for everyone to see. Kiara agreed with her.
"I know my memory isn't perfect either, but I remember important things like that!" Calliope nudged her.
"No you don't." Kiara pouted and playfully hit Calliope's shoulder a couple times.
"Are you sure your memories are fully back? Maybe it just hasn't been unlocked yet," Gura attempted her own explanation. Ina shook her head.
"I know that all my memories are back. I can't feel any void that would indicate otherwise. I guess I'll just have to put some pieces together to find out who she was," Ina said, sounding slightly disappointed. Her godmother had meant a lot to her, so it was upsetting that she just forgot who she was.
"Well, the other important issue is how the hell my Ina got ahold of that book." Amelia pointed at the floating purple book just behind Ina.
"Yeah what is up with that? I can't imagine that it was a coincidence. Not after what your brother said…" Gura looked over at Amelia.
"Like I said, it was just there." Ina was also puzzled by its existence. It was clearly put there with some intention. What that intention was wasn't clear at the current moment, though.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was probably me," Amelia said, gaining the attention of everyone in the room.
"Why would you think that?" Emersyn, who had been silent until now, asked her. Amelia put her hands up and shrugged her shoulders.
"My best guess is that we're going to cleanse that book of the Ancient Ones and I'm going to put it back in Ina's apartment for you to use. That would explain why it was there, I was trying to protect her… I am going to protect her…" Amelia got hung up on the tense of her words. Time travel made that kind of thing confusing.
"But wouldn't that cause a self-contained loop in time?" Calliope asked studiously. The Reaper was decently knowledgeable about time and how it worked, so it wasn't too big of a surprise she would see that. Amelia again shrugged.
"I just don't see any other way," Amelia sighed before suddenly perking up. Everyone looked at her, waiting for some sudden realization. However, she calmed back down and offered no such words.
"Let's get some rest. I know I need it," Emersyn said over the silence. Everyone noticed how tired they actually felt and agreed with their manager. With a few hesitant goodbyes, they all went off to their rooms.
However, Ina and Amelia stood silently in place, the silent tension between them having not yet been resolved. Emersyn watched the door close, deciding to let them talk it out alone.
During Ina's entire story, Emersyn was trying to not criticize her use of the time watch. She knew that a formal dressing down was needed, but not while she was emotionally vulnerable. However, an informal talking to by Amelia could work.
Ina knew her friend was waiting for her to speak. She slumped her shoulders, getting ready to start some kind of conversation. The time traveler simply stared at the ground, keeping her breathing slow and steady.
"What was up with that loo-" Ina started talking as she turned to face her, but a loud slap spun her head back the way it came. For a moment, she didn't want to turn her head back around.
"You have got to be one of the stupidest, most ignorant people I've ever met, Ina!" Amelia screamed at her. "I would've thought that my experiences were scary enough to make you think twice about using that stupid watch. But, you just keep surprising me." Ina only developed the courage to face Amelia after a long pause.
The blonde girl had tears dripping from the edges of her eyes. She grabbed both of Ina's shoulders and gave her a strong shake.
"Don't you understand how much we all care about you? How much I care about you?!" Amelia stared straight at her, not so much as blinking to break eye contact. Ina felt herself shriveling away from Amelia's firm grasp. "We were so worried when you vanished and then I couldn't find my watch. It was the most anxious I've ever been because not only could I have lost my one way out of this timeline, but I would've lost you. a friend!"
"Y-you…" Ina was at a loss for words. She still wasn't used to people using that f-word around her. Amelia had also never been this aggressive towards her.
"I, out of all people, get what you were going through. An unending curiosity of what-if scenarios and you think you have to tool to figure it out." Amelia brought out the time watch and held it up for Ina to see. She only gave it a quick glance, feeling the guild inside her rising. "But you don't!" Amelia threw the time watch onto the bed, being both aggressive with it while making sure it wouldn't be damaged. She still needed it in one piece.
"I-I could've destroyed e-everything…" Ina felt the weight of her actions being to fully press down on her. Amelia nodded sternly.
"You could've destroyed everything here and in my timeline. I-I don't even know what I would've done then. Everything I sacrificed to keep them safe…" Amelia's tears streamed down her face, but she kept a hard expression.
"I'm so sorry…" Ina's own eyes began to well up with tears. She fell forwards into Amelia, grabbing at her own heart. Why did she think it would be easy to handle? This guilt, this betrayal, was never going to be easy…
"But most of all, you could've gotten lost," Amelia finished her rant, holding Ina's sobbing form in her arms. She tried her best to keep her own tears from becoming overwhelming.
They stood there, crying together, for what felt like hours. In reality it was only a few minutes before their tears began to dry. Ina picked herself up and wiped her eyes. A few sniffles later and she was ready to speak properly.
"I should've never done that…" Amelia let her expression soften a bit, providing Ina with slight comfort.
"I'm just glad you're alright," she replied, wiping her own tears away. "But never do that again. Got it?" Ina nodded furiously, making Amelia crack a slight smile. The Priestess blinked a few times and took some deep breaths, allowing herself to fully settle down.
"Your Gura and Ina are waiting for you," she said, looking at the watch laying on the bed. Amelia broke up the hug and walked over to pick it up.
"Did this thing really send you there?" Amelia asked, flipping it over in her hand. Ina nodded lightly.
'After it recharges in the coming days, it will send her straight to what is left of their apartment,' the Ancient Ones stated.
"Give it some time to charge and you'll be on your way. Although you might need to find where they are…" Ina remembered how most of the apartment had been destroyed. Hopefully they will find a new place soon.
"Then I've got some time to make a decision then, huh?" Amelia flipped the watch over again before shoving it into her pocket. "Too bad I already know what I'm going to do."
"Yeah… It's not like anyone here can stop you…" Ina looked at the ground, expecting the worst. Amelia suddenly grabbed her shoulders again, making her look up again. Her friend's eyes were wide with confusion.
"I'm not leaving, Ina! How'd you get that idea in your head?!" she asked wildly. Ina took a slight step back.
"But, you can just leave. There is nothing keeping you here…" Ina trailed off. Amelia shook her head and released Ina's shoulders.
"Calli and Kiara need me here to help them out and after what we went through, I think I want to help them. After that, I think I'll figure out a way to travel back and forth before I leave. That way I'll be able to have a job here and visit my friends. Maybe I'll even get some new time watches so they can visit here when they want to," Amelia's face grew a nice smile, as she imagined the possibilities.
"Are you avoiding them?" Ina's next question wiped the smile off her face.
"Did they tell you and you just left it out of your story?" Amelia asked, hesitantly.
"Just like how you left it out of your story?" It was now Amelia's turn to try and shrink into a ball. "They didn't tell me explicitly, but I can assume that they got together in a previous version of your timeline."
"But they didn't tell you everything?" Amelia became conflicted. She had been expecting Ina to know everything, but she didn't. Was there any reason to tell her then?
"I know there is even more than just that, but I won't pry if-"
"I'll tell you," Amelia made the snap decision to just tell the truth. "You're my friend and deserve to know." This would also make decent practice with telling Gura.
"Y-You don't have to, Ame."
"I had a massive crush on Gura back then, "Amelia started telling her story before Ina had any more chances to back out, "I was stupid and naive and I almost let my feelings for her destroy my entire timeline."
Amelia told Ina how she had witnessed their secret relationship and how she had tried to get with Gura first. When that all failed, she relented in her pursuit and 'gave' Gura to Ina. It was easier than she had expected, only having to suppress tears once.
"Do you still like her here?" Ina asked the obvious question. Amelia glanced at the closed door.
"Probably, but I haven't really let myself think about her that way," she replied in a hushed voice.
"Well just so you know, I don't have any attraction to her and I don't think she has any towards me. Heck, I think you have a decent-" Amelia put a finger to Ina's lips to quiet her.
"Let's just put a pin in that," she said quickly, removing her finger. Ina giggled slightly, seeing how childish Amelia still was about her feelings towards Gura.
"Alright, alright. Who else knows, if anyone?" Amelia sighed.
"Calli kind of figured it out, but Kiara and especially Gura don't know anything." Amelia tapped the tips of her fingers together. Hopefully they didn't know anything…
"For some reason, I think that Phoenix is going to figure it out sooner rather than later. Gura on the other hand is plenty dense enough to not suspect anything. I won't tell her a word about this." Ina made an 'X' with her index fingers just in front of her mouth.
"Calli basically made me promise to tell her before I go, so I guess that's another reason I can't leave yet," Amelia laughed anxiously. This whole feeling-talk thing still wasn't the easiest.
"Then I'll hold you to that, too. I'll also let Calli know that I know sometime." Amelia groaned.
"Please don't plan anything. Just let me deal with this on my own," she pleaded with the Priestess. Ina put a finger to her chin, mocking deep thought.
"No promises," she said with a mischievous smile. Amelia looked at the ground and shook her head.
With their talk now finished, both girls turned in for the night. Ina changed out of her blood stained clothes, that she had completely forgotten she was wearing, and into fresher ones.
However, being a night owl, she stayed up for a bit longer. Her mind was busy trying to decipher the language in the book she had brought back with her. It bothered her that she couldn't read it properly.
"Hey, AO-chan?" she asked her patron. She felt them adjust slightly in her mind to listen to her request. "Could you help me figure out what is going on with this book?" They were silent for a moment.
'How would you like us to investigate?' they asked a question in response. Ina took this as them accepting her request.
"Do you have any idea why it follows me around?" The book seemed to be tied to her with an invisible string. No matter how fast or far she would move, it would follow her with no more than a few foot gap.
'There is a link between you and the book. It most likely developed when it absorbed your magic, but not all of it.'
"So it is still hungry for my magic?"
'It is unlikely that after devouring an entire version of us that it still has room for us, too. The link is likely just a remnant of that first absorption.' Ina thought about it, but decided to just accept that the link was here to stay.
"Well, can you figure out how to read it?" This was her real issue with the book. She wanted to know what it said, if it held any secrets that could be of use to her, but the language seemed to be indecipherable. The symbols shifted each time her eyes even so much as twitched.
'We experience a similar effect as you, Priestess. Instead of using sight, we will look into the magical side of the book. The link appears to be bidirectional, so we will use that to our advantage,' the Ancient Ones replied. Ina nodded to herself, exhaustion finally hitting her.
"Thanks, AO-chan."
Ẁ̸̬ͅh̴̲̼͉̾́ạ̴̊͜t̴͉̮̝̂̂̿ ̵̰̮͊d̶̤̮̅̀ŏ̵̡ ̵̘̾y̷͈͗o̷͕͎̕ư̴̬̾ ̸̩͉̇͆w̴̼̐̊a̶̛̞̠ň̷̜̕t̸̡͇͛ͅ ̵̦̾͝w̸̗̔́ị̴̔t̵̫̕̚ẖ̵̥͆̒̕ͅ ̴̬̹̆͌ư̶͇̱̿̃s̶̯͙͉̀͒͗?̷̤͌͠
Ẁ̷͙ẹ̶͐͑ ̷͉̺̤̆̎͋ḫ̵̼̙̓͐ă̸̧̟̺v̴̢͊͛̊e̵̘͌̌͘ ̷̘͊̅ȁ̴̙͑ ̴͕͙̂p̴̯̜̜̀l̷̛̲̬̫ä̵̦͈́n̵̛͚͔͉̾̌.̶̞͚̌
Ị̵͐t̵̜̫͂̍͛ ̴̠̮̈́͐͘i̵̍̒́ͅn̵̖͑v̵̻̩́̀o̴͉̳̎̒́l̶̛̖̭̀̕v̴̢̝̒͘̕ͅe̴͎̩̯̅̄ś̷͚̩̥͆ ̵̡̧͍̔͋u̵̟̬͉͆̏ś̸̯̯͆́?̸͍̀̒
Y̶̧̛͍͖̭̱͗̽͝ȩ̵͉̲̗͍̑͆̈̓s̸̞̙̞̩̾̈́̅͊͆
Author's Note: The 'Ina Interlude' is finally finished. It was a bit longer than just an interlude, though... That's what its called in my notes at least.
Sorry for the slight delay in this one. I promise the schedule will come back during this next arc. I've learned my lesson (for the 8935625039th time...).
During the initial confrontation between Ina and the rest of HoloMyth, I wanted them to talk about her bloody clothes, but I just couldn't find a natural way to do it. It was either, bring it up quickly and then drop it (adding nothing to the conversation), or have an extended conversation that leads into her talking about the fight before she explains everything else. It's hard to do a recap for the characters in the story while maintaining any source of pace. Most of the time it is just a cut to when they finish, but all the girls (especially Kiara) have something to say. I rewrote that beginning part at least 3 separate times over the past couple weeks, so this was the best I got.
The stage is now set for the penultimate arc of the story, as we enter the endgame (kind of). There is still plenty more story to tell afterwards, but the climax is almost here and I can't wait for you guys to read it!
Next Chapter: Once More, back to the Hatchery!
Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!