Where Nemurin makes a choice...
"I've found you at last..." a confident voice declared.
Strutting atop a collection of comfortable clouds in the world between dreams was a distinct-looking woman — a Magical Girl of sorts, like those before her, dubbed in a ten-gallon hat and an attire that seemed to merge the old west and the modern nightlife, one of Nemurin's own making, one who currently wore a half-concerned, half-assured smile on her polished face. She sighed a little to herself as she came to a halt before the image she approached, a wide-open gate. Nemurin had shown her, how these gates were just about everywhere in the Dream World — she knew them like she knew a best friend, going into them and having fun with them before leaving them behind, hoping to see each other again.
Indeed...hoping to see someone again was indeed Beautiful Calamity Mary's attention, as it were.
Now at first, were she to be entirely truthful, she hadn't really been confused by Nemurin's lack of presence at first — after all, going into the dreams of others was largely how her creator had always spent her time, both before and after she began spending all her time in the Dream World, so disappearing for a while was hardly any big deal. Besides, she knew the sleepy Magical Girl; in this world, she was the strongest, the one whose light shone the brightest, enough to create her own forms of life — herself included — so, usually, she would have little concern for instances such as this.
But that was usually — and she would confess, it certainly wasn't very usual to see Nemurin spend so much time in one dream for so long, largely because...well, most people didn't usually dream that long. They were best described as fleeting moments of happiness or surrealism, a ride they'd come along for and then get off of as it met its inevitable conclusion. And yet, the boy whose dream Nemurin had entered seemed to persist, and consistently shift, from the few glimpses of it the dreamlike Calamity Mary had managed to catch.
But what was stranger — and what had led to her previous declaration and the smile that accompanied it — was how difficult it was to get hold of the gate in the first place, especially next to the ones that she had seen before it. Naturally, Beautiful Calamity Mary's curiousity eventually outgrew her, as even her heart grew lonely, and she couldn't help but want to have a look at where it was Nemurin had ended up. Perhaps she would watch, perhaps she would join in and lend her a small hand if she needed or wanted and they'd all have a good laugh like they did when training Little Miss Wonder. Yet, her attempts to find it had been like wandering a maze with a mind of its own, a mind that never wanted you to find the exit — or entrance, in this case — as she'd searched the Dream World for Nemurin's presence, for the boy's, and yet she found herself constantly...blocked, by something. It was like something took hold of her, and forced her path out of reach of the gate, out of Nemurin's range, one she was forced to obey despite her wishes otherwise.
At last, though, she managed to reach it, to get close to it. It stood tall and glinted with a pearly white metal that formed delicate, kind patterns. Such patterns, she'd noticed, were common with people who were sweet in person, who dreamed of sweet things and wanted such things for other people, and Beautiful Calamity Mary allowed her lips to turn up just that little bit more. That was a good sign for her creator, at least~ Though she didn't quite seem to get the sprouting thorns that peered out from the bottom ends, she assumed they were just for decoration, at least for now.
The gate was structured like a mirror, the image reflected in it showing an expansive digital frontier, like some sort of sci-fi game. The frame vaulted upwards and at the head formed what almost looked like a stylised heart with a spiked crown atop it, while the bottom, though initially bare, now bore a circle at the bottom, one blocked off by what almost looked like dust. Upon spotting it, she couldn't help feel her brow raise ever so slightly; odd, considering how pristine things usually were in the Dream World.
Her boots tread along the path of clouds, and they sunk in response to her entry. Eventually, she got close to the frame before her and knelt on one knee, eyeing the bottom of it once again. With a small shrug, her fist clenched and she wiped at it, feeling dust float off her skin and into the endless space below the boundary, to be quickly forgotten about. Once she touched it, however, she felt something almost akin to...illness, beginning to wheel around her stomach, turning it in two; the 'dust' almost seemed to crumble the second she touched it, turning from a pale grey to pitch black, like the remnants of coal or ash. Her nose scrunched up slightly in response, only to look upon the bottom of the frame.
As her whim to wipe away the fine particles had secretly been hoping for, there had been something behind it, something hidden. It was a simple thing — the bottom of the frame, that which once bore nothing but pearly white, now spoke a single letter — 'X', and an inscription below it.
"Hm...?" Nemurin's redheaded creation wondered, quietly, her head tilting slightly as her eyes narrowed.
The tumbling in her gut persisted relentlessly, one part of her believing it might end if she stepped back now, while the other believed the exact opposite. Gnawing her scarlet bottom lip, she gave a small glance to the side. The boundary was sleepy and peaceful, clouds adrift across its reaches, all for one's own moulding and taking, and she turned her attention again to the 'X'. Why...why was there an 'X' there? Did the person's name start with an X, or have one in it? Perhaps, but something about the sight of it...it put her in a state of unease. As if a little of her old, wild self had managed to touch her, Beautiful Calamity Mary decided to take a gamble; she leaned in and moved to read the inscription to herself.
Before she could even try to, however, the coloured image inside the gate, once like a clear pool, had now distorted into a mess of violet and black violence, swirling with dark shadows threatening to leap out and tear out her throat. Every time she got close, it would lash out at her, swiping and clawing, leaving her with slashes across her skin — ones that healed quickly, but scars left nonetheless. Hissing a little bit, she offered a grin confident and beaming despite the pain.
"Alright, are we doing this the hard way then?~" she asked and was met with the same lashes of darkness.
Grinning, Beautiful Calamity Mary unveiled a pistol with an unlimited supply of ammunition, born of cloud and metal all at once, the sort her real-life counterpart would have adored (and for all the wrong reasons, as far as she was concerned), she shot off a range of fire that banged and racketed off of the edge of the darkness, yet it hardly seemed to dent it — if anything, it did nothing but agitate it further. Bullet after bullet she'd fire into the darkness' flesh, yet it refused to yield, swiping and tearing at her until she was forced to step out of its reach once more.
Staggering backwards, the Magical Girl breathed heavier through her teeth; only for her eyes to meet with a sight that turned her guts to green and her face to ivory. As with each of her steps back, in an attempt to regain herself, she could see it — like veins pulsating blood, blackened vines, ripe with piercing, sharp thorns, circled around the gate constantly like a snake did its natural environment, looking for someone to poison with its venom. Slowly, she approached again, and leaned her body off to the side; only to catch a glimpse of the door's back. The thorns had completely engulfed the mirror's back and were now beginning to try and overtake the front. They waited for her, stared at her, as if asking her if she dared to try and pull it away from its prey, even after her bullets alone had hardly even dented its bulging black shell. But what made the sickness in her stomach worsen was how it moved; the clouded muck grew darker, and the vines would bulge and rattle, letting out an almost inhuman shriek that mixed malice with twisted delight, like a cat as it closed in on an innocent little canary. The vines would continue to take hold of the gate, and that was when she heard it.
The voices. As she listened in, it sounded like a young boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen at eldest, but at the tips, she could hear someone else's. Not old, but definitely older than the boy, perhaps a young man. Where the boy's voice was lighter, the youth's was colder and duller. And sometimes, though she couldn't tell what it was about her that left her unseated from comfort as she heard it, sometimes the voices sounded the same, even though they clearly weren't...
Weakling.
It's my fault...
Embrace it.
That power might have saved them...
Hypocrite.
Are you going to fall again?
He deserves this, you don't, you don't and you know it...
Suffer.
Sleep deeper.
Never open your eyes again.
Wander forever...
I always need other people's help...
You're nothing without them. But you already know that, don't you?
It'd be more peaceful, would it not?
"What...what's going on here..." Beautiful Calamity Mary's voice finally choked out amidst her uncertain stare — unknowingly interrupting the voice.
To continue sleeping, rather than see others suffer?
But I...
Don't bother calling for their help.
What the hell was it talking about?
"Hey!" she shouted out again, as if demanding its attention — and she supposed, in a way, she was, something she emphasised by pointing her gun at the thorns, and the voices halted. Good. "You know it's rude to ignore a woman when she talks to you, right?"
The thorns didn't grow, but they also didn't budge.
"I thought so~" Beautiful Calamity Mary remarked before her eyes turned to the mirror image again. "Whoever's dreaming in there...I don't know what you've seen, not even your name, but you're not a nobody, not if Miss Nemurin's stuck around you. And whoever's telling you all that, you know what you should do? Tell 'em to back off! Where do they get a kick out of telling you if you can ask for help or not, huh?!"
I...
"Listen, kid. Hold it together; if I know Nemurin, she'll be back for you. But until then, I'll tell you — I don't know if that voice is yours or somebody else's, but don't listen to it. Is it you?"
No.
The vines began to shrivel, even just slightly, repelling back as their hold over the mirror became less tight.
"Then, don't listen to it! Trust yourself, just as you would trust your friends, got it?~"
I've...I've got it.
Just when Beautiful Calamity Mary had managed to catch her breath, however, another curveball was chucked straight in her direction; quite literally, in fact. A shadow abruptly appeared over her head, and a weighted figure dropped from above, a shroud of violet appearing and disappearing as it dropped the figure off. Acting quickly, she held her arms out, feeling them be tugged down by the weight of someone else before adjusting. Her orange eyes widened at the face she was met with — Nemurin's.
Hands off.
That was the youth's voice, for sure, not the boy's. Her eyes narrowed, and she shouted, "Hey, wait!"
But she was swiftly rebuffed; the layer of violet thickened and blocked the image before her. Even if the thorns of doubt weren't entangling the dream as they had before, they weren't gone completely, and even if they didn't seek to attack her as they had before, they remained all the same. Calamity Mary took a step forward, banging slightly against the surface of the wall — and sure enough, it didn't budge. She was being locked out, as was Nemurin now, from the looks of things.
Accept your fate.
"Oh, you be quiet." the cowgirl huffed, looking towards her creator with eyes wide as saucers and just as delicate.
Know this. If your friend interferes once more, the steps towards her prison will be far from painless.
"I said, be quiet!" she barked again, swiftly turning her back and stepping a few feet away from the gate — still, she kept glancing back, in case it tried to force her back into the maze again, and something told her she didn't want to leave it as is either.
In alignment with her thoughts towards helping Nemurin, who lay alive but unconscious in her arms, she strode towards a comfy sofa of clouds that had formed in front of her, on which she placed the girl down.
To tell the truth, she'd be lying if she said her current appearance didn't worry her; when she'd seen Nemurin last, every part of her had been full of life, even if she expressed feeling more tired lately, the strength of their kind had emanated off of her like cinders off of an everlasting bonfire. But now Beautiful Calamity Mary could see that fire beginning to crumble in on itself — she knew it for sure, she knew it by the humanity that was sinking into the girl's features, the fading colours of her clothes and her hair, the subtle shift in her dramatic Magical Girl costume to a far more normal silhouette, the pyjama sleeves, though still long and droopy, beginning to shift to the shape of a hoodie's instead. It sounded mundane, for sure, but the mundane wasn't exactly supposed to be in the same repertoire as...well, anything to do with being a Magical Girl.
Now, Beautiful Calamity Mary didn't exactly know what Nemurin's human self would look like, but a part of her suspected she was a brunette — it would explain the usually magenta-coloured ends of her hair turning to such a simple colour, and it also seemed to be peeking its way into her roots of well. As the cowgirl thought to herself, she allowed one of her hands to rest on her cheek, the woman walking back and forth slowly as she pondered the situation, awaiting for Nemurin to regain her senses. Her state, combined with...whatever demented thing had just happened to that dream gate, left her nerves sitting at the edge of her mind's cliff, ready to fall off into the dark, even if they weren't quite tumbling just yet.
Sighing a little to herself, she turned her attention back to Nemurin, having noticed her gentle face beginning to stir. Allowing herself to smile again, she greeted her softly, "Well, good morning, Nemurin~" she said.
"Ohh...Beautiful Calamity Mary?" Nemurin greeted her, groggily. "It's you...!~" she said, cheerily, albeit not with much energy.
Then again, Nemurin hadn't been particularly energetic from the start...
"Hmhm~" the Western Magical Girl nodded. "I see you've been having quite the adventure, hm?"
Nemurin's body shot upright, only for her to wince, letting out a small wheeze, a hand falling to her chest. "Agh...hmhm, yeah...I was," she admitted, her long twin tails trailing to the ground. "I was with this boy, Sora...we were working together to stop these monsters called Nightmares, and we were going from world to world...~" she explained. "When I...well, we got pulled out of it. Me and Ideal Top Speed, I mean~"
The other girl's brow rose in curiousity. "Oh, Top Speed? Did you need her help with something?"
"Yeah...we kinda needed someone fast in the air...~" Nemurin clarified, offering a somewhat apologetic look.
"Don't worry about it," Beautiful Calamity Mary assured, her voice still bright — it was fortunate that we were dealing with this Calamity Mary, and not the real one, or a mention of Top Speed likely would have made her flip her lid. "Are you okay...?" she asked her.
Nemurin's hand went to her head, rubbing it slightly. "I think so...well, mostly..." she answered, her eyes looking down at her chest, as if she could see what held it so tight, what made her breaths just that more difficult to manage. "I think that issue I brought up before's starting to be a real problem, and I don't even think it's the worst one, y'know...?"
Calamity Mary's brow furrowed at that, her mind turning back to the gate and its demented thorns. "The worst one?"
"Well, with me losing my powers and that...I thought it was just something like how I started...you know, a bit before you came along, right?" Nemurin trailed off, fiddling with one end of her hair, stretching back across the sofa with an uncertain sigh. "But now I'm not so sure...I don't know how, but I think it's something else...something bigger than what I thought..."
The Magical Girl standing across from her nodded dutifully, listening to each word, her mind screwing into thought. "...I hate to be the one to tell you this, and I promise I'll cook something for you once this is all over in exchange, but...I think you're right," she begrudgingly agreed. "In fact...I can show you."
With a gesture of her head for her to follow, Beautiful Calamity Mary began to slowly walk off the platform, and onto another. After a few seconds, Nemurin plodded off the couch and walked behind her; and the two were soon in front of the shadowed dream gate again. A chord of familiarity strung inside of Nemurin the moment she laid eyes on it, the moment she felt which one it was; it was Sora's. She didn't need to speak for her companion to figure out that it was from here she had just been thrown out, that it confirmed the fears that had been toiling away in their minds only moments before.
Nemurin gaped at the sight of it, before turning to her again; "I knew something wasn't right with this one..." she stated, rubbing her arm now, averting her gaze. "I should have figured the second Sora got blocked from leaving...I should have figured the more that guy started showing up..."
"That guy?" the cowgirl repeated, eyes widening slightly.
"I guess I didn't bring him up either, huh...?" Nemurin acknowledged, shaking her head in self-embarrassment. "Yeah. He's this jerk who first showed up about the boundary-"
"Wait, in the boundary? Not inside a dream?"
"Somehow, yeah..." Nemurin confirmed with a sigh. "He rattled off some weird stuff to me, something about...being forced to return to the waking world, before disappearing. Then he showed up again in one of the worlds me and Sora had gone to, and it was pretty similar both times...he was after Sora for some reason though...I actually found him at first after he got knocked out by something after a friend of his got tricked into bringing him to that guy. Then in another one, he requested for this guy who was trying to go after the two of us to keep him alive, and the same thing in the second one we went to..."
Beautiful Calamity Mary looked at the engraving again, the one of the 'X'. "That's...creepy...it must have been awful, having a creature following the two of you like that~" she responded, sympathetically. "Whatever he's trying to do, it must have something to do with this dream and this gate, and this...this world. It's like he's gaining control over it, or trying to..."
"That...that would explain a lot, actually," Nemurin responded, her eyes glimmering in at least the smallest bit of realisation. "At one point, I tried to get Sora into a different place — it seemed to work for me, but then it blocked him out and then just...disappeared, and I couldn't try it again. And just now, it was like me and Top Speed just got deleted from the last place we were..." she continued, her hand reaching out for the mirror image; only for it to flare up with shadows, and as if given an electric shock, her hand retreated backwards.
Tilting her head, Mary looked between the image reflected by the gate and Nemurin. "Is it rejecting you...?"
Trying once more, Nemurin winced as the same result sparked up, and this time worse. "Yeah...it seems like it, anyways..." she admitted, her brows slanting downwards and her mouth forming a worried frown.
Beautiful Calamity Mary's gentle features once again creased in thought, falling silent before pointing out; "If that's the case, it seems like this guy you mentioned doesn't want you involved in that dream. One way or another, you must be getting in his way!"
"Well, at least I've been doing something right then..." Nemurin commented, a mirthless smile appearing on her face before disappearing. "I really don't know how, but I guess I must have,"
"Actually...there was another thing from here." the redheaded Magical Girl added. "I heard these...voices earlier. It was a real mix of people, and I didn't know any of 'em. But the ones that stuck out was this kid's voice — youthful, a bit bright, even if the stuff being said...wasn't — and the other was a bit older. Maybe our age, maybe a bit more, who knows? But it was cold, like in this constant monotone. It actually spoke to me at one point, just after you dropped in — something about 'if your friend interferes again, her prison won't be painless', some junk like that..."
Nemurin blinked, her look almost deadpan as she said, "Cryptic as always. I guess I shouldn't be surprised..." she folded her arms, her head tilting down slightly. "But yeah, if you're asking if it's that guy, it sounds like it could be. I just...I get the whole taking power thing, which is probably why I'm not as strong and he's able to pull this stuff, but for what reason..."
"Nemurin!" a gentle, saintly voice sparked up from high above their heads.
The two of them turned around, and were graced with the sight of three familiar faces; Ideal Top Speed, driving her broom, and the Ideal pair, Sister Nana and Weiss Winterprison, both seated behind her. Nana's face was creased by worry and Weiss' with her usual stoicism.
Landing beside them, Nemurin let out a puff of relief, "Phew...I'm glad you're okay, Top Speed..." she said, gently.
"We're glad to see you're okay, Nemurin...! We came as soon as Top Speed told us...!" Sister Nana explained, the distress in her voice apparent.
"We're sorry you went through that. You did what you could for 'Tron'." Weiss stated, though not unkindly. The name was obviously unfamiliar to her, but clearly, Top Speed had at least given her a basic rundown on what they'd been up to before getting spat out back in the cloudy boundary.
"Yeah, don't worry about me, Nemurin~" Ideal Top Speed waved casually before her face hardened again. "What...what the actual heck was that earlier though...!? Like one second, you and me were tryin' to help that kid, the next, bam! Gone and slapped back here...!" she questioned.
"That's just what we were trying to figure out..." Nemurin gave the only answer she could, and Calamity Mary nodded behind her.
Ideal Sister Nana stepped down from the broom, approaching with her hands clasped as though she were in prayer. "Perhaps we can help?" she offered, smiling angelically.
Winterprison nodded behind her, her way of saying she too was available for the task. Nemurin smiled gratefully, her hair decorations floating behind her head as she nodded, "Ah, thanks~ I've really been asking your help a lot lately, huh...?"
Top Speed strolled over to her, and to the dream gate, flinching back upon laying eyes on it. "Geez, the heck is this!? It's like some horror movie...y'know, like that thing with A Night Terror on Birch Road or somethin'!" she baulked. "Is this...is this what that kid Sora's dream looks like?"
"If it is, then I'd be worried for him," Winterprison warned, severely, as she knelt down, finding the inscription from before that Beautiful Calamity Mary had been interrupted from reading and reciting it out loud. "As your flesh bears the sigil...so your name shall be known as...that of a Recusant...?" she recited, her brow furrowing as she stared.
"What does that mean...?" Nemurin questioned, the obvious concern that had been building up beginning to clearly overflow. It was in subtle things — her eyes, the strength of her frown, the gnawing of her lip — prompting Calamity Mary to gently rest a hand on her shoulder, giving an assuring squeeze.
"A recusant..." Winterprison repeated quietly to herself, "The hell even is that...?"
Sister Nana's feet shifted from one to the other, averting the gazes of the others, something only Nemurin was beating her at right now. "A recusant...I think I've heard of that. I may be wrong, but I believe it's the term for someone who refuses to submit to some form of authority. The closest comparison for our purposes would likely be 'heretic' or 'dissident'."
"And sigils are obviously symbols of something," Winterprison joined the conversation.
"And they apparently have magical power sometimes," Ideal Top Speed added. Upon feeling the others' eyes fall on her, she continued, "Sometimes, anyway. They're considered to, but that's just from what I've heard,"
The four Magical Girls remained gathered, their trains of thought still chugging away down their own tracks as they attempted to decipher the cryptic inscription, all of them feeling their hairs stand on end the more they considered, even as it led them to nowhere.
"Okay, let's take this apart piece by piece," Beautiful Calamity Mary suggested. "Start with the 'flesh bearing the sigil' bit. The sigil is the 'X', right? So, does that kid have any 'X' on him?"
Nemurin shook her head, "Not on his skin, no..." she began, only for her to remember the distinctive marking across the boy's shirt. A large cross. A large 'X'. "Wait...! His shirt did have one though, and I noticed it stuck even when we went to the Grid, even though the look of that world was completely different, that stayed."
"So, it's like he's marked...?" Sister Nana inquired, eyes fragile and shaky.
"Sure sounds so..." Ideal Top Speed agreed, her brow crumpled, arms folded.
Nemurin rubbed her temples, and her frown remained. "Still...all that really tells us is that they've marked him for something, but not what...that's the scary part,"
"What about the next part? The name being known as a recusant?" Winterprison continued, hoping to make some progress in their interrogation of the peculiar engraving. "I guess if it's a symbol of one, it'd be like a mark of heresy or opposition to whoever's put it on them, right? And if it's got magical properties, then it could explain why the gate looks like this. It could explain why you two got thrown out."
The three girls nodded, considering the logic sound in nature. But what Winterprison had to say next was far more severe, and she looked Nemurin dead in the eyes for it.
"But those magical properties aren't like the stuff we've dealt with before. He's taking power over this place to do whatever he's planning to do to that kid, and he's taking it from you." Winterprison declared, and it was hard not to feel an ominous aura clouding her words — but they hardly felt wrong either. "Nemurin. I remember when you called on Nana and me, you said you needed help. That you were fighting those Nightmares that were helping take your power away. But what's that kid doing around here anyways? He has to know something's wrong, it's obvious from a mile away."
"Well...I remember, at the end of the worlds we've been to...at least, the ones I was able to stick around for to the end, he'd use his weapon to unlock this Keyhole that would appear. I think he called this place the 'Sleeping Worlds' too..." Nemurin recounted. "He said about 'awakening seven worlds from their sleep'...I think that's the ones we've gone to so far, and so far we've been to three."
Ideal Top Speed blinked, "Huhhh? Man, that really is crazy stuff...honestly, if I hadn't seen ya on that adventure in that digital place, the Grid you said it was called, right?" a nod of confirmation from Nemurin followed. "Then I might not have been sure it was even real! Not to mention that Weiss and Nana said they've already joined you for another one, the one that looked like France you guys said?"
Ideal Sister Nana and Ideal Weiss Winterprison bobbed their heads, and the dialogue continued between them all; "So, it sounds like Sora came here with a specific purpose then. People he wants to help," Beautiful Calamity Mary chimed in, helpfully.
"So even if he's not a Magical Girl the way we are, the goal's the same with him as it is with us, right?" Sister Nana added, softly. "He still wants to help and save people...! And that's probably why he's still in this place — even with all of this..." her gloved hand brushed past the thorns, those that still crept up from behind the dream gate, retracting slightly at her holy touch. "He still stays because he wants to finish what he came here to do..."
"But if these take over, then..." Beautiful Calamity Mary began, uncertainly.
"Then he's got no chance of doing that, not doing it and making it back out of here again." the Ideal Winterprison observed, grimly. "If I didn't know any better...I'd say this hooded freak wants to keep this Sora kid here, for...whatever reason, but that's the one thing blocking us from putting this together. We don't know anything about this guy — does Sora know?"
"Hm..." Nemurin thought a little, before drooping. "No, not really. He said something about recognising the black coat, but not the guy specifically who's been bugging us."
"Why don't you try to find out more, Nemurin?" Calamity Mary suggested. "Who knows what other adventures he's had before now, after all — perhaps it'll give us a clue~"
"She makes a good point. Not knowing anything about the enemy is the biggest problem right now, and even a bit of information about what they might be up to could save the both of you," Winterprison agreed, her face slowly loosening itself of the cold severity it previously carried.
"We can hold the fort down for ya too!" Top Speed chimed in. "We'll watch over this bit, make sure it doesn't run away from us again and then if anything happens, we can help out from the outside~"
"And perhaps my powers could enhance yours; they could be enough to get you back into the dream as you were hoping...!" Sister Nana added, eyes brightening as much as the cross-shaped lights in her eyes.
Nemurin's smile became genuine as she looked at them all; she was happy to have their dream selves here by her side. "Well, listening to others' adventures is what I do best, right?~" she giggled. "Okay! That sounds like a plan to me...~" she nodded, a resolve flaring up her energy, at least compared to before. "I'm a Magical Girl, and it's only right I help...especially when he's working hard to help people too..."
"Ah, c'mon, Nemurin!" Top Speed laughed, a hand resting on her hip as she gave her a catlike grin. "Ya don't need to hide from us. We know you're worried about the kid, I could see it in your eyes the whole time we were in the Grid~"
"Was it really that obvious?"
"You bet!"
Moving a determined step forward, Nemurin turned towards the dream gate in front of them. "Okay...~ Let's do this," she said.
The image shown in the glass had shifted; to one of a large funfair, a dream come true for any chaotic child, or any child, really. In contrast to the digital monochrome palette of the Grid, it was a rainbow of colour, even brighter than Traverse Town, like a wild circus.
"Definitely looks spirited~" Ideal Top Speed commented. "Hopefully it gives you and Sora a break!"
"Here's hoping~" Nemurin responded, lightly.
Taking in a breath, Ideal Sister Nana knelt down, holding her hands together tightly. Her eyelids lowered and then closed, and her head hung slightly as she called upon the magic within her, magic shared with Nemurin. Like a flower coming back from the edge of wilting's beginnings, Nemurin's silhouette glowed a pale blue, and even if, for a moment, the rush of magic seemed to flow through her like a machine bursting back to life after years of misuse. Nemurin pressed forward, bolting for the image revealed to her; at first, she could feel it pushing back against her, resisting her, and she suspected the tidal wave that fought her now likely would have overturned her had she been in the same state as she was when she first ended up back in the boundary between dreams, she wouldn't have been able to force her way through.
Maybe it was her determination, maybe it was Sister Nana's magic, maybe it was both, but something got her through.
Back to the dream, back to her friend.
A/N: So, fun fact, this is another chapter that I wasn't expecting to get done as soon as I did! Basically, I finished the second half of Chapter 22 and because I still felt the brainrot for this, I ended up busting this out too! This actually looked a lot different in the outline originally, but I ended up altering it after I completed the last chapter and I honestly think I like this turn of events far better, at least for the purposes of this particular story. I was gonna just keep the Ideal/Dream Magical Girls as cameos to liven up the action, but the chips fell differently and I'm happier for it, now that they have the purpose of holding the fort, and some other stuff I'm thinking of later~
Now, for the reviews! I'm glad I was able to have another arc end to your liking, Captain Imaginat! I was actually a little surprised reading yours, simply because I didn't really consider CLU too deeply, as my only real plan was to try and make him more like his film counterpart, since he's just kinda...there in 3D and is just...kind of a dick? In hindsight though, I do see your point — if things had been different, we likely could have been spared a lot of the stuff that happened but alas. As for Hekkasi, I've definitely been thinking a fair bit about the other Magical Girls, and I'm definitely conjuring up ideas for the others, for Unmarked but also for other arcs like Restart and Jokers! I can't say much more because I don't want to spoil it, but I hope you enjoy it when the time to show it comes around!
With all that said, I'll see you all in the next chapter!