Waking from a dream often brought with it a sluggish warmth, and the cozy blankets, nine times out of ten, made the sleepy dreamer less tempted to leave behind the source of their comfort.
None of that applied to Kurome though; she was freaking cold.
Shivering a lot more than usual, the now separate maiden rose from the cold, unfeeling pavement.
Oh yeah. She thought while prying open her eyes and taking a good gander at the blue sky ahead - actively ignoring the trails of smoke and a little fire. Fighting for our lives...
A bit of an exaggeration seeing as it was more or less just a bit of banter, but Kurome was in no rush to tell on herself; her internal reputation was already bruised from having to spout the almost cotton-candy levels of sweetened dribble just to get Dreamsy to accept their help.
She meant nearly all of it, but she didn't want anyone to speak of it - especially in public.
"Ow, ouch..." Uzume leaned up, rubbing her noggin and popping an eye halfway open. "Who threw that?"
A smirk crossed Kurome's lips, and she leaned down a little to lend her better half a hand. This coaxed a confused expression from Uzume, who after a good squint and the prying open of her second eye, reached up to take it. Being lifted to her feet, Uzume looked down at their joined hands, and then settled her focus back on Kurome's face.
"You're really here, right?"
Tugging her grin just a little further than necessary, Kurome let go of Uzume and crossed her arms. "What do you think?"
"Well..." Uzume stretched her arms above her head, twisting and turning her body as she fought to awaken all the dormant muscles sleeping within. "I think you should work on your delivery. If I were anyone else, I'd try to sock you in the nose over that one."
Kurome rolled her eyes. "As if anyone besides you could lay a hand on me."
"Tell that to Nepsy." Uzume raised her head, and turning around, Kurome followed her twin's line of sight to see Purple Heart closing in.
"Uzume." She called with some cheer, only to have it drop a step as her attention turned. "And, Kurome."
Paying the slightly askew greeting no mind, Kurome returned her attention to the rooftop they were standing on. While not the tallest in Planeptune, it was still one of the larger ones overlooking its central park. The breeze running along its surface from this high up provided everyone with an uncomfortable chill, but with them just having woken up, Kurome reasoned this was due more to their stiff muscles.
With a little bit of movement, they'd be warm enough.
Eventually, and just as Purple Heart touched down on the surface of their recent concrete bed, Kurome spied the individual she'd been looking for about a few steps away and with nothing to hide her, but that hardly mattered; found was found, and nobody cared how easy it was. Making her way over and passing by her copy, drawing said copy's eyes along with her, Kurome looked down at Dreamsy as she continued to sleep. The dark goddess had lost her transformation completely, and laying buck naked on the ground was the spitting image of Purple Heart - albeit with deep blue hair so similar to her own.
"Hey, Nepsy?" Uzume said from behind as Kurome leaned down to brush a few strands of stray hair from the unintended nudist's face. "Do you have a blanket or something we can borrow?"
"No, but I can fly her over to Planeptower ahead of everyone, and get her dressed up there."
"Sounds good." There was a pause, and Kurome could almost hear in the back of her own mind what Uzume was about to question, even before she had. "Listen... about the other me -"
"You don't need to worry." Purple Heart's voice was all too comforting, almost laughingly so. Leave it to that soft-serve to step aside where others would stand firm. "I'll let the others know to leave her alone, at least until you two have worked things out."
"Thanks." Kurome felt a hand on her shoulder, and knowing Uzume was probably waiting for some form of reaction, she stood. "While Nepsy gets Dreamsy decent, why don't we go check on the others waiting for us in the park?"
"There's a chance she'll wake up mid-trip, you know." Turning around, Kurome was presented with the barely askew look of her better self. That uncertainty of what she should do next clung to Uzume like an ill-fitted suit, snuggling just a bit too tight for comfort.
"Maybe." Uzume replied, teasing hints of a pleasant smile. "But I don't think she'll be starting trouble again anytime soon."
She may have been on to something there. Dreamsy acted a lot less... delusional within the other realm, which was ironic seeing as she was spawned from the stuff. Kurome felt it again, traces of that forbidden power. Assuming she may have stolen some away when lashing out at Dreamsy's attempted self-banishment, she expected to feel the dread her powers often bestowed resurface.
However, she felt nothing. The devilish, almost all-consuming desire for death and agony remained lost to her, and Kurome could dig up no more than than her usual bucket of disappointment in terms of absolute negativity. Along with this missing desire to eradicate any and all instances of peace and good, down to the written word like your average gothic poet, Kurome no longer felt the echo of a hollow heart.
The want to become one with her other self no longer clawed at the edges of her rational mind, and in a way, it led her to wondering if she even wanted to anymore. Her entire drive beforehand had been to find and reunify with Uzume... but now she wasn't sure.
And while it irritated her,, there was this sort of complacency to go along with it.
A flash blinded her momentarily, and Kurome got to see the sunny, optimistic grin of her innocent self transformed: the aptly named Orange Heart. A part of Kurome wanted to take in the glory of her superior side's transformation, but the almost fluffy, stuffed animal levels of kindness her appearance emitted made her want to leap off the rooftop.
Orange Heart would just catch her though, and so, when motioned to take the happy heroine's hand, Kurome just sucked it up and followed the unspoken command.
At the very least, the smooth flight was a soothing way to cool down from the drama of before, and the sight of Linda hopping and waving like a fool at least replaced her sickness towards Orange Heart's love aura with insignificant levels of disappointment; for as much as she wished Linda were competent, the regularity of her juvenile acts provided a decent distraction to most things.
Now a little closer to the ground, Kurome let go of her goddess-morphed sister and landed professionally with the same grace afforded acrobats. Rising fluidly, her balance appeared impeccable, and as with all things, Linda just had to ruin it by dashing over and nearly knocking her over with how quickly she got up in Kurome's face.
Attentive eyes leered and peered around every inch of her mug, and Kurome restrained the desire to shove the woman off and remind her of the little attribute of courtesy commonly known as 'boundaries.' These feelings were intensified when Linda plopped both her hands on Kurome's cheeks, squishing and jiggling them around.
"Feels like you..." She mumbled, pulling back and ducking, twisting her head and rubbing her chin as she examined the legs. "Same stiffness..."
Kurome decided, when Linda went to peek up the short legs of her overalls, that enough was enough, and reached down, pulling Linda up by her hood; she wore a nice, comfortable set of leggings, so Linda wouldn't have spied anything, but by trying to do so, the woman had wordlessly admitted to knowing what it looked like down there. Kurome sure as shit didn't recall ever exposing her ass for Linda to see, so that left some rather… disturbing implications.
Either Linda was rummaging around while she slept at night, or the girl was just being a butt and trying to spook her; in the end it didn't really matter, as boundaries were boundaries, and Kurome knew hers.
Rather than react in fear, Linda just squinted, crossing her arms.
"Easily upset; everything seems to be lining up."
"What are you blabbering about?" Kurome almost didn't want the answer, but if she didn't get this out of the way, she'd be subjected to at least several more of the ashy bad-girl's apparent 'observations.'
"You sound right too."
"Linda." Kurome put on an impatient glare, and this seemed to get the point across.
"I'm checking to make sure you're the real deal."
The real... what? This mild case of loss lasted all of about three seconds, and in those three second, she had three realizations. One: Linda had a point; her merging with Uzume hadn't exactly been normal, at least compared to how it had gone before. Two: with how easily she had impersonated her kind-hearted self to break into Planeptower, along with Uzi's very existence, there was honestly a fair chance another imposter could show themselves. Three: Linda's methods of deducing her legitimacy were both woefully stupid, and tediously offensive.
"You know what?" Kurome let go, and the woman fell with a startled 'eep.' "Good luck with that."
Not wanting to bother Linda as she compiled the data of her intricate investigation, Kurome stepped around to meet up with Warechu and the rest of them.
"Once again, you continue to amaze." Boss offered with a polite nod, followed instantly along by Lonk's thumbs up.
"Pretty sweet~"
"Don't say it like that." Despite her tone, Kurome couldn't hold back a grin - well, it was more of a smirk, but who was really asking? "I'm expecting a payout from all this." Not giving any of them a chance to react, she whipped around and set her sight on the skies again. "Saving the nations was supposed to be their jobs."
"Think it'll be good, chu?" Warechu paced over to them. "We don't exactly have the best of reputations with that lot."
"No, but they won't be able to get away without giving up something." Kurome knew better than to expect anything overly extravagant, but Histoire was nothing if not professional. Actually, Kurome soon discovered she had many more memories supposedly from Uzume's side than she'd previously claimed ownership over. The gas blob from the void mentioned splitting them apart; perhaps it was by his hand that she now retained a complete timeline of events; a history previously lost to her.
Or it was a complete accident that occurred randomly when they separated… What? She couldn't give him too much credit.
"Think we can ask for it?" She pondered his idea for a second, until his voice scratched her ears via an unnerving… was that a moan? Shooting him a look, she'd caught Warechu as he began to drool, with his expression singing of peace, and nothing more. His eyes were shut, as if basking in the sunlight during an evening nap, which only made what he salivated over all the worse. "M-maybe I can get my beloved Compa to give me a kiss; just like the knights in the stories~"
And that, she decided, was enough of that - again.
Once more abandoning a friend, Kurome reasoned it would do well to check up on the last two of their apparent group - technically it was three, but Chuko was busy drilling a murderous gaze through the shield of Warechu's daytime fantasies. She looked between the brother and sister pair, starting off with a casual question.
"How are you two holding up?"
"Perfectly fine." Sonya nodded as he spoke, letting his gaze flow around them at the apparent destruction. "The invaders appeared to vanish during her transformation, and from my understanding the civilians we'd been asked to aid were previously moved to a checkpoint a little further east before our arrival, so it was merely the act of waiting we were caught up in down here." His voice clicked for a second, and he corrected himself. "Well, along with dealing with these two."
Stepping aside, Kurome got to see the twins sitting back to back on the ground. That's right, she recalled them being caught up in the fight as well. But that was while she was bleeding out...
Shaking her head, Kurome stepped forward to get a better look, only to see the girls apparently asleep. While she could confuse herself all day and night trying to rationalize why the pair would choose to nap on the battlefield, Kurome decided to let it be. Chances are, they'd been exhausted from the fight before with Dreamsy, and most likely clocked out right when the giant vanished and began her whole banishment arc.
"They're not sleeping." Uni popped in from behind, leaving Kurome no time to wonder how she'd gotten there so silently. "They're trying to scare you."
"Excuse me?" Kurome heard a groan, and turning back, she saw both girls on their feet. The pink one had her arms crossed, whereas the blue was just downtrodden.
"Way to spoil the fun." The Ram whined, uncrossing her arms with a huff as she whipped around. "Come on, Rom. Let's leave these losers behind and go check on Blanc."
"But I want to see Miss Uzume."
Ram held her bravado for a little bit, before shoving out a sigh and allowing her shoulders to droop. "Fine."
The pair passed by calmly, with Rom surprisingly giving Kurome a tiny nod. Unable to discern what she was supposed to make of that little action, Kurome lent her attention to Uzi. The woman looked torn between pouncing on her, or Uzume - who was busy being hounded by the twins now about what it was like to be inside another girl, and yes, it was just about as awkward as you can imagine. Apparently, the ultimate fangirl made her choice, wrapping her arms around Kurome.
"I'm glad you're okay!"
"Easy." Sonya chastised. "You'll crush her."
"Ha!" Uzi popped her face free from Kurome's torso, smirking hard, and yet shadowing her previous worry and a few bygone tears. "Kurome's too tough for that."
Humming, Sonya teased a little smile, crossing his arms and handing out a falsified sigh. "That is correct. I suppose my worries are unfounded."
"Are they always like this?" Uni popped back into the conversation, tapping Uzi carefully as if she were a volatile explosive.
"Unfortunately." Kurome replied, and she watched as Uni shook her head, only for the girl to eye her up and down. This got another question out of her. "What? If you have something to say, then say it."
"You're different." The candidate of Lastation put it simply. "You haven't once spouted anything about "torturing the selfish masses of Gamindustri" since you got here." Her eyes narrowed a speck. "Are you really the Kurome we're all familiar with?"
"I am." She said nothing more, as there was nothing more to say. Uni was correct about that: she really wasn't the same as she'd been back then. Had she still possessed her delusional rage, she would have fried the woman clinging to her in an instant. But no, here she was letting the near-perfect copy fangirl of her heroic self get all her hugging out.
Kurome had grown soft, and she'd known it... Although, she couldn't quite claim to resent this change.
"So!" The unfettered and brash nerve sparking cheekiness of that voice alone could belong only to one person, and letting her eyes follow it, Kurome earned her confirmation: Neptune, the human one. Sheepishly, the woman approached. "You, uh... you remember me, right?"
"I remember you betrayed me." This got a grimace from the woman, and through a smirk, Kurome added, "but yes, I do. Contrary to what might be popular belief, I try not to forget my friends."
The larger Neptune froze up on the spot, only to thaw over the course of a hard minute. The heat started from her face, via an ever expanding smile of raw glee, and then extended as she visibly rumbled on the spot. Before Kurome knew it, she was being strangled by two women, as opposed to one.
"I knew we had something between us!"
"Yeah yeah." Kurome made a small attempt to struggle free, but gave up almost immediately. There, now nobody could say she hadn't tried. "Try not to cut off my oxygen, okay?"
"Gaw!" Big Nep buried herself deeper into what little of Kurome she could. "I knew you couldn't stay mad at me!"
She really couldn't, could she? Looking around, and seeing everyone conversing, Kurome found trouble in the idea of pushing away even one of them. And as her eyes passed over Uzume, she once more noticed the missing sense of longing which had long made up her individual heart. Unifying with Uzume may have been her goal, but for some odd reason, a wave of sadness overwhelmed her at the thought of no longer being able to interact with the idiots she'd surrounded herself with.
That stupidly sentimental word, friendship, no longer felt so foreign or grotesque on her tongue.
"Guys!" A shout from above had just about everyone looking up, and the little spark falling quickly introduced a newcomer to their apparent picnic. "I'm here!"
Nepgear landed harshly, stumbling a bit as she tried to get her bearings. She was huffing and puffing, seemingly tired, although no one could blame her; from the looks of it, she'd been pumping iron to arrive as quickly as possible.
"Nepgear?" Uni was the first to respond, and by setting her hands on her hips, it appeared as though it wasn't a friendly one. "Where were you!? We've been surviving on our own for the entire battle."
"I'm sorry." Nepgear was on her knees before the awesome might of Uni, who stood towering above. Pitifully, the candidate of Planeptune chanced a remorseful gaze upwards. "Histoire had me delivering reinforcements to blockades all over Planeptune. I wanted to come, I really did, but she said four goddesses and three candidates were enough already."
Taking a look around now, Kurome couldn't exactly argue with that logic. But then again, she was not the one who needed convincing, and so her opinion on the matter was invalid. Uni, the intended recipient of the excuse, hummed firmly, crossing her arms and clenching her fists.
"Fine." Well, that was easy. So Lastation's candidate was a pushover; good to know.
Rather than watch them babble all day long, Kurome removed herself from the loosened hands of her captors and made for Uzume, ready to incite the necessary spark that would get things rolling. Despite wanting nothing more than to put this whole fiasco behind her, Kurome knew there was still one more trip to make.
"I'm ready to head out." She put forth a hand, which Uzume appeared to study for a second. "If you are."
It should not have taken her twin so long to just grip the bloody thing, but Uzume seemed a little bewildered with the act, despite the fact they'd gone through this just minutes ago on the roof. This was one of those times where Kurome had to question whether being the more generally accepted person came with the drawback of mild idiocy. With her study session seemingly over, Uzume took the hand, and grinned.
"Yep. Let's get to it; before Histoire has a fit."
Uzume had mumbled that last part, but Kurome caught it nonetheless.
Yep, that proved it: stupidity was an added detriment to approachability.
Author's note
...
We're nearing the end now - just one more chapter I think, or maybe two if we're pushing it.
A little quick, maybe, but there really isn't much more to do other than tend to Dreamsy and Kurome. Yeah, the goddesses might not be all that comfortable leaving them be, but is that really going to stop our resident blue rascal? Hardly. The pair are together, finally, but separate in person. How will Kurome handle being around Uzume, and vice versa?
You'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, that's it for this time.
See you later.