The aquarium at night is a much different place than when you were here just hours earlier in the day. Devoid of visitors and with the lights turned off, the display halls have taken on a much more unsettling feel, as though you're wandering around at the bottom of the ocean. You and the others use Soul Gems to guide you to the witch, and the faint specks of light emanating from your jewelled souls reflect back at you from the water and glass that surround you.
"Geez, talk about spooky," Kyouko says, trying to sound calm despite sticking close to Tomoe-san. "Imagine if the witch opened up on us and sucked us inta one'a the displays."
"I imagine the fish wouldn't find you very tasty," you say. "Your meat has too much muscle to make much in the way of a good meal. Now, Mikuni Oriko on the other hand..."
"Are you trying to say that I'm fat, Akemi-san?"
Even the laughter of your teammates at Mikuni Oriko's comment, as the sound echoes in the darkness and surrounds you, only serves to enhance the unsettling feel of the aquarium at night. "Well, you are the least mobile of all of us when we're in combat," you say. "Given the facts, your meat would probably make for the best snack out of us all."
Kyouko grins, and the shadows of her fingers undulate on the walls as she makes an inappropriate gesture in Mikuni Oriko's direction. "And I'll bet Crazy knows all the spots where yer meat's got the best marbling," she says, only for Tomoe-san to interject with a swift flick to the ear. "Ow! What was that for?"
"We've been over this how many times now, Sakura-san? You
know Mikuni-san doesn't appreciate those kinds of remarks about her relationship with Kure-san."
Kyouko fusses, but says nothing in the way of a rebuttal to her roommate, and the party of five continues on its way through the display hall. "How are you coming along with your current rune?" you ask Tomoe-san. "You're studying
Berkano right now, if I'm remembering correctly? How is that going for you?"
"That's right," Tomoe-san says with a nod of her head. "I'm currently working on enhancing my binding abilities, and from what I've been able to see using it so far, I'm doing quite well with my progress. What about yourself? How are you coming along?"
"I think I just made a minor breakthrough with my
Inguz." You haven't had the chance yet to test in combat what you've accomplished, but "I think I've discovered an attack that actually
drains me of Grief."
"My, that is quite the breakthrough. Can you tell me more about it?"
"Not much, I'm afraid, since I haven't really had the chance to test it out. But I think what's happening is I'm using Grief to power the attack, rather than using my own mana." Unfortunately, you don't know what happens to the Grief expelled by your attack;
that's probably something you should look into further before you try to use the attack on a large scale.
"Well, I look forward to hearing more about your progress as you make it," Tomoe-san says. "I hope you'll make something truly grand from your study of
Inguz."
So do you. There's no telling whether you'll one day need the ability to drain Grief from your allies without Archer and Lancer there to make the process go smoothly. "While I have you, I was thinking that it might be a nice idea for all of us to get together on Saturday night. Not for training, but for stress relief. We've been so busy lately, and Sunday..."
Sunday might be your last day alive. "Well, it wouldn't do us any good to go into battle feeling any more stressed then we already are. We'd just be compromising our chances of success if we went into battle with frayed nerves."
Tomoe-san smiles, and says "That's an excellent idea, Akemi-san. I think a little get-together like that would be just the thing to calm our nerves and get our minds into a good place before battle."
Serpentine shadows cover the walls, and your heart stops.
It's not possible, you think, ready to stop time at a moment's notice should the familiars of Elsa Maria notice you.
"You should have told us that the witch you saw here was Elsa Maria," you think to Mikuni Oriko as your party grinds to a halt. Silently, Kyouko holds her hand out in front of Nagatsuki Miyuki, motioning for her to stop as well.
Even a single sound might draw their attention now. "What were you thinking, having us all come out here knowing that?"
"I... I didn't know," Mikuni Oriko responds.
"I didn't see those familiars at all when I looked for the witch. I... I really didn't know."
Great, so now the strongest witch you've faced so far in this timeline has not only come back, but it's also found a way to hide from Mikuni Oriko's precognition.
That ability is a trend which you've come to hate immeasurably.
It takes several minutes of silence and stillness before you hear Tomoe-san's voice asking
"Why aren't they attacking?" inside your mind.
"I'm sure they would have noticed us by now, so..."
Of course. You berate yourself for not noticing it sooner. "It's okay, everyone," you say as you're finally able to breathe freely again. "It was just some eels in one of the displays." The sounds of relieved sighs encircle you as everyone but Nagatsuki Miyuki comes down from the alert. "You four are a real gang of troublemakers, you know that?" you say to the eels in the display. "You gave us all a good scare."
"What the heck was that for?" Nagatsuki Miyuki asks. "Why'd you stop us over some silly old eels anyway?"
"It wasn't the eels themselves, Nagatsuki-san," Tomoe-san says. "But rather, it was their shadows. In the darkness, their shadows looked identical to the familiars of the witch that appeared two weeks ago."
"Is that the one that killed six-hundred people at once?"
Tomoe-san nods in response to Nagatsuki Miyuki's question. "The very same. I thought for sure we had taken care of all the familiars back then, but seeing those eels' shadows just now was..." The four of you who were there to witness Elsa Maria's arrival all shake your heads in unison. "I can't impress upon you how terrifying it was without you having been there to see the witch for yourself."
Everyone looks to Mikuni Oriko, who says "Fortunately, I have yet to see anything which would indicate us having to fight that witch again."
"Ain't that a fucking relief," Kyouko says. "But where's the witch we're s'pposed ta be looking for?"
"Just a bit further ahead that way," Mikuni Oriko responds, pointing towards the back-end of the display hall. "Out that door and down the hallway, and it should be hiding out somewhere in the cafeteria if it hasn't left the building yet."
"Right."
Suddenly, as your team of five sets out once more, you find that the aquarium at night isn't quite as scary as it had been at first.
After a scare like that, what's there to really be afraid of in an aquarium at night? "Hey," Kyouko says, stepping up beside you as Mikuni Oriko, with her emerald Soul Gem shining brightest, takes the lead. "So, like, what the fuck did ya say ta Blueberry the other day that's get her so pissed at ya?"
"It's... Personal," you say. "I'd rather not go into the specifics with you, but it's very much my fault for her current mood. I shouldn't have told her what I did, and now..." You sigh;
you've seen Sayaka get moody towards you so many times, across so man timelines, for it to be something that bothers you, so why...? "I know it seems like I ask too much of you already, but would it be too much to ask you to be there for her?"
Kyouko counts off on her fingers, saying "Alright. I won't charge ya this time, 'cause I was gunna keep my eyes out fer Blueberry no matter what ya wanted from me."
"Thank you," you say. "I'll do my best to make amends to her, but until then I'm glad there's someone like you to be there for her." Kyouko nods, advancing towards the front of the pack now that her nose - and her Soul Gem - have caught the scent of prey, and you fall back to the trailing member of the party. "How are your friends holding up?" you ask Nagatsuki Miyuki. "Did you give them any of the Grief Seeds from the other day?"
"We've each got three," Nagatsuki Miyuki says. "I'm the only one using magic heavily, so I figure one cleaning a day no matter what our Soul Gems are like, then on Sunday we're all ready for Archer and Lancer to come by and clean our Seeds for us." She shakes her head, adding "That's not to say we're all in the best place, even if we've got our Grief Seed rationing squared away. Akira, she... She's taking this all in stride, but even back then it was like nothing could get to her. Nothing except Komaki's death, but..." Nagatsuki Miyuki sighs. "Well, you know what that got us. Koito-chan's not doing so great, though. She's trying her best not to show it, but it's really hitting her pretty hard that she wasn't able to avenge her sister."
"Even after Mikuni Oriko's demonstration?"
"I think... I think that made it worse, actually. Because she knows she can't even go through with the thing she gave up her normal life for. It's eating her up inside; and then there's me..." Nagatsuki Miyuki sighs again, and says "Even though she would have hated me if she ever found out how I felt about her, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't miss Komaki... I don't know how stupid that makes me, pining for a dead girl who wouldn't have returned my feelings anyway, but I... I could use a drink."
"Alright, the witch should be in here somewhere," Mikuni Oriko says as she leads the five of you into the aquarium cafeteria, a multi-story circular complex with food stalls ringing the outer edges and a glass tower filled with water and sea life at the cafeteria's center. "Now, to find it..."
"Yeah, I don't think we gotta look too hard fer anything," Kyouko says. "'Cause I'm pretty sure it just found us."
It's faint at first, but the sound of flesh slapping against glass increase in volume with each passing second. That's when you see the bloodied hand prints on the inside of the glass.
[ ] Wat do?
