I Am the Resurrection 5.5
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Having Sfira take Miyako and Reiji away.
[X] Shrouding the area around her in darkness, then back-attacking.
[X] Shrouding the area around her in darkness, then back-attacking.
"Get Miyako and Reiji away! Now!" Koyomi shouted to Sfira.
The alien nodded and sped off, grabbing both civilians in each of their bulky shaft-limbs. But then they stopped to turn around and ask, "<Er, away to where?>"
"Teehee, you're too slow!" Freesia said the second Sfira stopped, as she took a toy tiger out of the bag she carried and tapped it with her sword, sending a now real tiger charging at the three non-Hanazakari.
"Anywhere! Just anywhere!" Reiji shrieked out.
Only the retransformed Vasilisa pinning that tiger to the ceiling with her gravity field kept that once-toy tiger from sinking its claws and fangs into Sfira. Koyomi then plunged her quill-sword upwards into the tiger's exposed underbelly, which made Miyako wince even if this animal had just tried to kill her. Only with the tiger being slain did it suddenly revert to its true toy form, clattering onto the train floor.
Sfira resumed their dash till they'd carried Miyako and Reiji to the very back end of the train, screeching to a halt before they could launch themselves right off onto the tracks, if not over a cliff. Miyako took ages to get her breath back, and Reiji even longer to free himself from sheer paralysis. Once she was able to, Miyako asked, "Sfira! If you're Pathragadan, can't you lend me your powers? I-I can't just leave Arisugawa-sama back there!"
"Really? Save playing hero for the stage," Reiji said back the second he could say anything.
"<I'm... afraid that's not possible,>" Sfira said, shaking what would be their 'head'. "<Transference of cultivar powers was unique to Clan Dandelionheart. I'm sorry.>"
"Then, well, launch me back there like a missile, or s-something!" Miyako said.
"Highly tactical thinking, O General," Reiji said as he rolled his eyes.
Meanwhile back there, Freesia reacted to her tiger's death with, "Kitty! How dare you- Oh well, I can easily get another one." She smirked and readied her toy sword again, only to halt when everything went pitch black in a second around her. "Hey, what d'you think I am, scared of the dark?" she said, before she was struck from behind by Koyomi.
"No fair! No fair!" Freesia yelled, banging her fists on the train floor. This left Vasilisa open to lift a whole row of seats up with her gravity field and send them crashing down onto Freesia, the Slayer then tumbling like a ragdoll back over towards Koyomi.
"Now, tell us everything!" Koyomi snarled down at her, sword drawn.
"Everything? Oh my, it's gonna take a real long time to tell you that," Freesia giggled. It was then she took a bunch of toys in her arms, toys who'd once all been passengers on this train, and said, "You've been playing very rough, you might break all my new toys. But you wanna break them so you can turn them back, right? You're so mean, just like the Nice Lady told us a Bad Seed would be."
Vasilisa looked at the toys Freesia held between her and Koyomi's sword, then at where the toy tiger had fallen. "If we break them, they come back dead. Is that it?" she asked, glaring at Freesia.
"Gold star! Your teacher would be very proud," Freesia said and nodded.
"...So be it," Vasilisa said as she drew that enchanted raygun of hers, cranked it a few notches up from just 'stun', and pointed it right at Freesia, "You've threatened the ISS and alien life, doesn't matter who you meant to go after. I'll show your 'Nice Lady' that I mean business."
"Vasilisa, no!" Koyomi gasped as Vasilisa was about to shoot Freesia's hostages. She rushed forth and tackled the astronaut, making the raygun blast instead fly right through the window.
"Ooh, are we playing rugby?" Freesia asked as she sprang to her feet and shoved Vasilisa further, forcing the astronaut right out of a window herself.
Koyomi went pale as she saw Vasilisa tumbling all the way down to the forest below, shards of the window still stuck in her. She was about to scream, lunge, and tear right into Freesia, but not before the tides turned again. Vasilisa's gravity control finally kicked back in, as the astronaut levitated herself back up and onto the now long-halted train car.
That said, Vasilisa didn't look so ready to throw herself back in the fight, her face looking drained from the long flight back up. Her Hanazakari regalia flickering in and out over her work-clothes, she managed to draw her raygun one last time and tell Freesia, "Dosvidanya."
But her Zinnia transformation wore off a moment too soon, as Freesia poked her with her sword and said, "Tag, you're it!"
One puff of smoke later, the human Vasilisa was gone, replaced with a space-age action figure of herself.
"Change her back!" Koyomi rasped sword in hand, "Now!"
"Careful! You wouldn't wanna scratch a rare collectible like this, would you?" Freesia said as she picked the Vasilisa figurine up. "I know the Nice Lady would like to talk with you, so if you wanna play with my new astronaut doll again, how about you come visit her place, hmm?"
"Your Nice Lady sends a Slayer after me, but now she 'just wants to talk'?" Koyomi seethed.
"She says there's two ways to stop a Bad Seed from ruining everything. Either they join our club, or you unalive them," Freesia said, then suddenly curtseyed. "Oh sorry, I've been rude by not greeting you yet. Everyone calls me Minakata Kurara, except when they call me Freesia in Full Bloom of course. I'm with the Earthly Purified, who the Nice Lady's in charge of."
"So, you're with a cult? Oh sorry, 'new religious movement'," Koyomi said, then sighed. "Take it I'm one of these 'Bad Seeds' then, whatever they are. And we have to convert or be killed, those are your terms?"
"A Bad Seed is a person who does one of the five worst things ever," Freesia said, holding out her fingers. "There's unaliving your daddy, unaliving your mommy, unaliving a Dandelionheart," Koyomi tensed up hearing that one, "hurting the Nice Lady, and making all of us Hanazakari mad at each other. Once we beat all the Bad Seeds, only then does the Nice Lady bring all our friends come back."
"...You're talking about the Resurrection," Koyomi muttered.
"Yup, that's what some folks call it. Nagoya's the big city nearby, how about you and the Nice Lady meet there? And don't worry, you'll know our place when you see it. TTFN!" Kurara beamed before she took off down the structural ribs of the bridge below. "Oh, and it's okay! Me and my new doll will have tons of fun! She's even still thinking there in her head, even if I gotta move all her parts."
Those last words were the nail in the coffin for Koyomi, she would've felt more at ease if those in Freesia's clutches were at least unconscious in toy form.
First though, Koyomi had to find where Sfira had taken Miyako and Reiji though. But instead in the depths of the train they found her. "Arisugawa-sama, I can't leave you!" Miyako wailed out as she ran up to her, only to look around to ask, "Oh, the fighting's all over? Then wait, where's Mirova-san?"
"Captured," Koyomi said. "Turned into a toy. Being held hostage by some cult. Say they just want to talk, but really they want me to convert or die."
"Hanazakari and cults, huh? Knew our country would combine the two sooner or later," Reiji sighed once he caught up. "So, what do they want you for? Not that I'm expecting the soundest reason from a cult, 'corrupting the children' or something?"
"They seem to label people 'Bad Seeds' for five things," Koyomi said, trying to parse through Freesia's babytalk, "Patricide, matricide, killing a Dandelionheart, wounding their self-proclaimed saviour, or creating a schism among the Hanazakari. Don't need to be a student of religion to tell where they got those from. So, either they figure I've caused some schism, or..." she stopped, then seethed, "they somehow found out about Emet. Found out what RUNE said they'd keep secret."
"You mean Hoshizora told them?" Miyako gasped. "Like, as payback for Blue Lotus getting free?"
Koyomi shook her head. "No, if Yumemi wanted me dead, she'd do it herself. It's not like her to leak to some cult so they'll send some toymaker after me. Either these 'Earthly Purified' infiltrated RUNE, got someone in RUNE to cave, or..." she said, breathed out, and slowly realised, "or one of them saw Emet die that day at Sekigahara. Most Hanazakari in Japan were there back then- wait, no, that doesn't explain why they'd wait so long before siccing a Slayer on me. Unless their cult took that long to get off the ground."
"<Pardon me, but... what's a cult?>" Sfira had to ask.
Looking at them, Koyomi said, "Better learn fast, cults like it when you don't know."
"Er, they're like a church but really nasty. Well, nastier," Miyako said, giving what she'd heard about some churches. "Whole bunch started springing up over Japan since at least the Frost Decade. Wait, does this mean there are no cults on Pathragada?"
"I take it either no cults, or one big cult," Koyomi muttered.
"<No one who'd call themselves such, no>" Sfira said.
"Also, big picture here. If Mirova-san's been captured, that means it's not just a cult we gotta worry about. This is Russia we're talking about, imagine how they're gonna react if they find out a Japanese cult's captured one of their ISS cosmonauts! And er, turned her into an action figure," Reiji burst out as it dawned on him. He then sighed, "Why couldn't it have been an astronaut from a country not on our doorstep?" which earned him a glare from Miyako.
Article: Koyomi then decided how to face this cult:
[ ] "I'll go alone, it's me they want. I'll arrange transport for you three back to Hinodeharu first."
[ ] "Sfira, you can come with me, your superspeed and illusions could be a real help. But anyone without powers, stay out of this."
[ ] "You can all come with me, better for you to be where I can see you."
[ ] "I'll contact RUNE, much as I don't want to. I can at least count on Yumemi to not stand for someone else leaking government secrets."
[ ] "I'll try teaming up with other Hanazakari. There'd be more than a few in Nagoya, at least some would have a score to settle with this cult."
[ ] "...I'll contact the Russian embassy. Maybe they won't hold it against Japan if we're also the ones to tell them about this?"
[] "I'll just leave Vasilisa to her fate, she was nothing but a nuisance."[Koyomi has too much Heart to say this.]
[ ] Write-in
Hopefully Koyomi is a good enough judge of character not to acquire a mole in the group, Nagoya's magical girl community is likely compromised by this cult.