Letters, a hololive fanfic

Letters

"That makes four, right?" Nerissa asked through the bars of her cell, her black hair clinging to her face as she stared across the hall. Shiori looked up from the envelope, nodding.

"Four today," she said, looking back at the letter.

The envelope was black with a red seal holding it together. The guards kept bringing the letters to her, getting increasingly annoyed with the number of trips it took. The letters came randomly, and so far, Shiori had stacked them all on the floor of her cell. Including the one in her hand, they totaled eleven letters, each addressed to Shiori's cell specifically. There was no return address.

"So, are you going to read them?" Fuwawa asked from further down the hall.

"Yeah, it seems like someone really wants to talk to you," Mococo chimed in.

Shiori grinned, her eyes glowing in the dimness of her cell. "Of course, I will." She quickly gathered the letters, putting them on the table in her furnished cell before sitting down. "I wonder…" she began, glancing at the letters. She scribbled the number "11" on the front of the envelope and placed it on the table next to the stack before pulling out the letter from the bottom of the stack. It had the number "1" written on it. She quickly tore open the letter and unfolded it. The paper the message was written on was black as well, and the lettering was a stunningly bright white. The letter went like this:

Dear Shiori Novella,

First things first, are you well? I do hope you and Rissa are getting along. Don't forget to open up to others more, since I know how you can be. I realize it isn't easy to make new friends, but I would like to see you succeed. Always remember that you can turn over a new leaf. Gates don't always close behind you after all. Either way, I'll be looking out for you. Take care of yourself. I know you can keep everything together, even in the darkest of nights.

Sincerely, Red.

Shiori grinned wildly at the mysterious words, reading the letter over and over again. She giggles and kicks her legs back and forth before jumping out of her chair. "Oh my, oh my!" She spins around her cell, holding the letter close. The girls down the hall all listened to her feverish giggling, all looking at each other with slight concern. Shiori held the letter out in front of her and turned it over, she snickered as she looked at the markings on the backside. The curved lines seemed random, but she wasn't convinced. Setting the letter aside, she picked up the next one.

Upon opening the second envelope, Shiori paused as she looked at it, her toothy grin widening at the contents of the black letter. It was yet another letter. Well, to be exact, it was the exact same letter. The words on the front repeated every handwritten letter in the exact same fashion as the first. She quickly flipped it over and saw that more markings on the back. She shook her head and began opening all of the letters quickly.

Just as Shiori thought, all the letters were the same except for the markings on the back. She sighed with a smile. "I do wish that they made it a little harder than this," she said, getting on her knees. She shuffled the letters around, trying to connect the markings like a puzzle. She grinned when the first of the markings connected perfectly. First it was a pair, then the rest soon followed. She stood up and dusted herself off to look at the fully formed message. She tilted her head to the side as she read the word aloud. "Wrong."

She blinked for a moment before grinning again. Nerissa spoke up. "Wrong? Did you mess up?"

Shiori giggled. "I guess it is a little more interesting than I thought," she said, picking up one of the letters. She read the message again. "Hmm," the girl glanced up at the demon. "Hey, Rissa, why don't you give it a read?"

"Um, okay. But, why?"

Shiori handed her the letter through the bars, grinning. "Maybe you'll see something I don't."

Nerissa read over the letter. Once she finished, she blinked. "Uh." She scratched her head before turning it over. "I get that the 'turning over a new leaf' means to turn the page over, but the rest seems pretty normal to me. Although, the wording seems kind of deliberate."

Shiori nodded. "I was thinking the same thing," she said, picking up another of the identical letters. "I do wonder about the 'keep everything together' part." She paused. "Hmm." Shiori walked over to her lamp, flicking it off and sending the cell into darkness. The markings on the back glowed in the darkness ominously. "Interesting."

She flicked the light back on. Rissa looked over. "Find something?" Shiori walked over to her cell bars and stuck her hand through them.

"Let me see that letter for a second," she said as Nerissa handed it to her. She set the letter back on the floor with the rest and rearranged them. "Keep everything together, even in the darkest nights." She stepped back, staring at the word 'wrong' once again. She walked over to the lamp, and turned it off, sending the cell back into darkness. After a short moment in pitch darkness, the markings glowed vibrantly in the dark. She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Hmm," she began, shaking her head. "It still says its wrong."

Shiori flicked the light back on, touching a finger to her cheek as she thought. She paced around her cell, staring at the markings and scratching her head. Nerissa shrugged. "Did you put them in the right order?" she asked.

Shiori sighed. "I believe so. I don't think they go in any other order." She shook her head, her head beginning to ache slightly. Letting out a soft chuckle, she sat down in front of the letters. "I'm definitely missing something."

It had only been a little over an hour since Shiori started with the letters. She moved the letters around, trying to see if there was some combination she missed. She even turned the letters over and reread the letter. Nerissa looked at her friend, fidgeting slightly. "Is there anything I can help with?"

Shiori looked up, thinking for a second. "Let me bounce some ideas off you." Nerissa nodded and Shiori continued, spelling out her thought process. "So, it says here that I can 'turn over a new leaf.' It's a leap in logic, but it doesn't say that I should. If the wording is really as deliberate as it seems, then I have to take every word literally." She holds the letter out in front of her as she looks at the words on the page. "I just don't know how many of these 'clues' are really red herrings." She gets up and turns the lamp back off, taking a letter with her. She watches the words glow as vibrantly as the markings, allowing her to read the letter in the dark. She shook her head, rereading the words once more. She narrowed her eyes. "Hang on." She walked over to the other letters, flipping them all over to reveal their glowing words. Slowly, the glow began to fade. Shiori beamed at the breakthrough and excitedly sat down, looking over the new information.

After a few moments, the letters were all laid out. Shiori giggled like a kid as she looked at the letters. Each page had an assortment of certain letters from various words that glowed while the rest of the words had faded. The first letter looked something like this in the dark:

Dear Shiori Novella,

Sincerely, Red.

Shiori smirked at Nerissa. "Alright. Now I'll use your help." Shiori sat next to her cell bars and Nerissa sat next to hers, the two went over the letters, looking for any pattern in the highlighted letters.

The demon looked up at the grinning girl. "Um, it looks like there's only five letters that lit up on my end. Is that the same for you?" Nerissa asked.

Shiori nodded. "Yep. N. G. W. O. R. Is that what yours has?" The demon nodded and Shiori shook her head. "Well, it's either grown or wrong, and something tells me it's not grown."

"So, did we mess up somewhere?" Nerissa asked.

"I don't know. I can't tell if these are dead ends or not, but it feels like we're close." The girls leaned back against the walls of their respective cells and sighed, thinking. "So, either it's a dead end placed by the author, or…"

"It's a clue?"

Shiori nodded. "Maybe." She thought for a moment. "W. R. O. N. G," she spelled. She quickly glanced back at the letter. Nerissa looked over as she scanned the words. "First things first." She grinned for a second. "Hey, Rissa, tell me what glowing letters are the first in their words."

The demon looked through the letters, listing off each word in the order that she saw them while Shiori made notes of each one. There were a handful of doubles, but all in all it totaled nineteen words, including duplicates, between the eleven letters. The two girls collected the letters and Shiori grabbed one, highlighting the words from her list. The two of them stared at it for a moment, slowly trying to piece everything together. The new letter now looked like this:

Dear Shiori Novella,

First things first, are you well? I do hope you and Rissa are getting along. Don't forget to open up to others more, since I know how you can be. I realize it isn't easy to make new friends, but I would like to see you succeed. Always remember that you can turn over a new leaf. Gates don't always close behind you after all. Either way, I'll be looking out for you. Take care of yourself. I know you can keep everything together, even in the darkest of nights.

Sincerely, Red.

Shiori giggled as she read out the words. "Novella, well, Rissa, getting, open, others, realize, new, would, remember, over, new, gates, way, out, of, of, nights, Red." She shook her head. "It sounds like its talking about a way out, but the words don't really make sense."

Nerissa tilted her head slightly. "So, if the letters really are a clue, and if the message on the back earlier said 'wrong,' then, that makes that a clue too, right? I mean, they match up now."

Shiori nodded. "Yeah, it seems like it, but what does it mean?"

Bijou finally spoke up from down the hall. "Why don't you try spelling it? With the words."

Nerissa looked over at her. "Biboo, there's a lot of combinations. We don't know what the right one is."

Shiori grinned, shaking her head. "No, she might be right." She looked up, giggling a little. "First things first, right?" She leaned over and grabbed her highlighted page. "If we spell it out in order, only focusing on the ones that match, then…" She read it over. "Well, Rissa, open, new, gates."

Mococo spoke up. "That doesn't sound right."

Fuwawa nodded. "Yeah, it sounds off."

Shiori looked over at Nerissa. "Rissa, try it." The demon nodded, and put her hands on her cell door, shaking it lightly before it swung open. The horned woman blinked as the cell door clattered into the bars of her cell, stunned that it worked so well.

"What?" she said, stepping out. "I know I've tried that before…"

Bijou shook her cell door violently for a moment before wearing herself out. "How come Rissa gets to go free?"

Shiori shrugs, shaking her door as well. It doesn't budge either. "Hey, Rissa, try mine, please?" Nerissa opens Shiori's cell door with ease, letting it swing wide. She stepped out and grinned. "I guess that was the magic phrase."

Shiori walked to the big gate at the back of the hall as Nerissa freed Bijou, Fuwawa, and Mococo. Soon, the five stood in front of the gate. "So, who do you think helped us?" Fuwawa asked.

Shiori shrugged. "I dunno, but they certainly know their way around magic," she says, glancing back at the girls. "Hey, doggies? Can you use your claws now?"

The twins grinned, showing off their claws. "Bau bau!" they barked in unison.

Shiori grinned, spinning to look at the girls. "Alright, first one out gets to decide where we go first. Okay?"

The girls grinned as Nerissa placed her hand on the gate, focusing before an explosion rang out in the prison. The girls all scattered and ran to the exits.