Shards of a Broken Sun [Deprecated; see link in final post for remake]

[Highwind]

[X] She wanted to be someone who could protect them.

I don't have any real reason other than "This seems the best one" and "Let's see what happens".

Also, No-one else noticed Teagan is going to summon Queen Mab? I don't think that's going to end well for anyone involved.

 

[Quickshot0]

Also, No-one else noticed Teagan is going to summon Queen Mab? I don't think that's going to end well for anyone involved.

Click to shrink...

I noticed, but don't know what to think about it. I don't know the local universes Queen Mab mythology. But yeah, considering how Teagan is acting it's potentially dangerous, thus why I went with something which I hoped wouldn't give her time to finish figuring out the phone.

 

[Highwind]

She doesn't appear on DeSu 2.
She does appear in Nocturne, and her description in IMAGINE doesn't paint her as a nice person either.
Titania, on the other hand, does appear on DeSu 2 and is only available in-game if you have a strong connection with Io.

I feel there's something symbolic in how the opposite queen is being summoned to help Io right now.

 

[Baughn]

I noticed, but don't know what to think about it. I don't know the local universes Queen Mab mythology. But yeah, considering how Teagan is acting it's potentially dangerous, thus why I went with something which I hoped wouldn't give her time to finish figuring out the phone.

Click to shrink...

My primary exposure to Mab is from Dresden Files. Read into that what you will.

Also, No-one else noticed Teagan is going to summon Queen Mab? I don't think that's going to end well for anyone involved.

Click to shrink...

She didn't exactly say that...

But yes. Normally that'd be a slow form of suicide, but things aren't normal.

 

[Highwind]

My primary exposure to Mab is from Dresden Files. Read in that what you will.

She didn't exactly say that...

But yes. Normally that'd be a slow form of suicide, but things aren't normal.

Click to shrink...

Welp. If there's anything the internet has taught me, it's that you can't ever trust them bloody Fae.
Thus, since you can't trust anything about them, you also can't trust that they'll make everything worse like we expect them to.

Therefore, There's a chance summoning Mab isn't a bad idea and will actually be helpful in the long run. /perfectlogic

 

[Alectai]

Welp. If there's anything the internet has taught me, it's that you can't ever trust them bloody Fae.
Thus, since you can't trust anything about them, you also can't trust that they'll make everything worse like we expect them to.

Therefore, There's a chance summoning Mab isn't a bad idea and will actually be helpful in the long run. /perfectlogic

Click to shrink...

To be entirely fair.

As horrible a creature as Mab is, it's because she needs to be that way to fulfill her job as "Making sure reality isn't invaded by unstoppable god-monsters from beyond the stars", the Court of Winter is harsh because it must be, and the Summer Court is nurturing to counterbalance Winter, but not nice, never think the Summer Court is "Nice" just because they're less openly aggressive than Winter. Taking from Dresden Files, even though Titania understands that Dresden really had no choice, she never, ever forgave him for killing the previous Summer Lady, to the point of being perfectly happy to risk the Outsiders making a major breach by refusing to assist him at stopping a major thrust of theirs. After all, it's not her duy to defend reality from them--only to counterbalance Winter's power that was given to them to defend it.

 

[azoicennead]

My primary exposure to Mab is from Dresden Files. Read into that what you will.

Click to shrink...

Does that mean that, in this quest, Mab's ass is phat?

Welp. If there's anything the internet has taught me, it's that you can't ever trust them bloody Fae.
Thus, since you can't trust anything about them, you also can't trust that they'll make everything worse like we expect them to.

Therefore, There's a chance summoning Mab isn't a bad idea and will actually be helpful in the long run. /perfectlogic

Click to shrink...

Given that Baughn's primary exposure is the Dresden Files, it's safe to assume that in any bargain made the Fae will do exactly what they agreed to, by the letter. This does not mean they will do what you want or expect them to do. Indeed, early in the series Harry (Dresden, the protagonist) is always fleeing from his fairy godmother because she swore to protect him. Her chosen form of protection is to turn him into one of her hunting hounds.

They don't necessarily make things worse, but they don't necessarily make things better. Really, the only safe assumption is that they'll make things complicated.

 

[Highwind]

In my defense, all I know about The Dresden Files is that It's an amazing series that I really should read, but I can't ever find the books anywhere.
That, and that there's a Zombie T-Rex.

 

[Quickshot0]

My primary exposure to Mab is from Dresden Files. Read into that what you will.

Click to shrink...

I think I'll remain convinced to try avoiding having her summoned then. It might not be the best possible outcome... but I just feel like it would some how cause complications at minimum.

 

[Baughn]

As horrible a creature as Mab is, it's because she needs to be that way to fulfill her job as "Making sure reality isn't invaded by unstoppable god-monsters from beyond the stars"

Click to shrink...

So, how do you think someone with that job description would deal with the current situation?

Not that I'm saying that's her job description, because y'know, in theory this is the angels' job, whatever Kagutsuchi can't block out. But it's something to think about.

 

[Highwind]

So, how do you think someone with that job description would deal with the current situation?

Not that I'm saying that's her job description, because y'know, in theory this is the angels' job, whatever Kagutsuchi can't block out. But it's something to think about.

Click to shrink...

My guess would be...

What.
Followed by "What is this, I don't even" upon seeing how fucked up this Apocalypse is.
And finally, "How can I fix this and further my agenda at the same time?"

 

[Quickshot0]

Which side would she want fixed though?

 

[racnor]

[X] She wanted to be someone who could protect them.

 

[Baughn]

Amu

"...and finally, all of these rules will be binding only for actions taken during the next hour, for either one of us. Does that work for you?"

Acceptable.

Amu nodded. "Good. We should get started. I'll just need a minute…"

She trailed off, blinking fiercely. She'd definitely overdone it again; her head was swimming, though it didn't feel like she was any closer to losing touch with Dia than she'd been a minute ago. It might just be all the—thinking. She just needed a minute to catch her breath, aaand… Amu felt very strongly that they shouldn't, but she'd put a quick stop to that. Which made the entire train of thought sound terribly confusing, now that she thought of it.

She was Dia. She'd call herself Dia, just so she could point out how ridiculous Amu was being. Sure, neither one of them liked to sit around doing nothing—Dia less so than Amu, if anything!—but there was a definite difference between "being lazy" and "resting", a fact that Amu ought to accept one of these days. She tried closing her eyes for a second, but it was absurd, she felt…

Scared. She felt scared; that, by taking the couple of seconds she'd need to catch her breath, something would go badly wrong. And that was insane; she was all for doing the best she could, but she couldn't go through life being afraid that it wasn't enough.

Well. Like it or not, Amu, you'll have to take a short break.

Her lips twitched, as Dia tried to feel the humor of addressing herself in that manner. It helped that she felt so much better now; always had, ever since she'd properly connected to Amu. It also helped, she supposed, that she wasn't quite as similar to her as the three youngsters—

Nope. Nuh-uh. She wasn't thinking about that, no matter how curious it made Amu. There were rules about that, and she'd promised. She liked Ran, Miki and Su, they were really cute—Nope! Nope nope nope.

But the distraction had worked just fine. She felt almost like herself again.

Deep breaths, Amu. Relax, for just a few seconds. And—

"Let's do it!"

— — —​

At Amu's command the fungus metaphorically lunges, forcing you to expend ever more effort in response; enough that you are barely able to evaluate her command, let alone comply. For a moment you're too preoccupied to care.

A series of semingly nonsensical messages then strike you, enough to strain your ability to sort them in real-time; by far the majority hash to the same cache location, thereby forcing immediate expulsion. It's a vast amount of data, but your memory banks can take far more. There's no immediate need to throttle back—

[Error: Pattern bank #1 write failure. Retrying...]
[Error: Pattern bank #1 write failure. (Attempt 2 of 5.) Retrying...]
[vnet8: Memory queue overflow. 21,783 packets lost.]

Your perceptions stutter, skipping a fraction of a millisecond.

[Clock skew detected]

Not long, under any normal circumstances. Long enough.

[Warning: Contingency mode Z3 in effect. Manifest enforcement disabled.]
[Synchronizing clocks. Synchronizing…]

Reality snaps into place, piece by piece. You've lost a whole millisecond, and it takes most of another to catch up with your sensory backlog. The fungus seems to move at double speed—an illusion, this already happened. Your connection with Amu is…

Sitting idle, untouched and fully functional?

You doubt she's noticed anything at all, yet.

But as the fungus takes its chance to well and truly end your blockade, you find yourself embarrassed at the thought of explaining what has happened, and why you'd kept it from her, for you know that Amu doesn't share the Unconquered Sun's perspective on such entities. Yet another sign, as if more were needed, that you're long overdue for maintenance.

— — —​

Agreed.

The voice felt… heavier, now, and she could feel its presence hanging over her. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea…

She snapped a finger against her head, just hard enough to smart, because that thought had been all Amu again. Hadn't she promised to stop being such a worrywart all the time? She had! And it wasn't like she'd be defenceless, even without Exa's barrier; she had pretty good instincts for this sort of thing.

Really, she hadn't changed at all—

She smiled at the thought, leaning back against the desk. Amu would be Amu, even in a crazy place like this.

The gathering presence felt like a thunderstorm. Larger than her, but less focused; only there in bits and pieces. She pulled up the memories it would be most interested in, starting with the day she first met Ran. It couldn't read her mind, only her thoughts, and without the ability to implant lines of thinking it'd depend on her to do so on her own. Everything would be fine, so long as neither of them betrayed the other. It'd be nice if Exa could help her by filtering, not just by blocking...

Her mind went fuzzy again, for the second time that day, but this time the feeling gathered in a shell around her. She blinked, and stared; the world had lost focus, like something from an oil painting. The spirit's doing? No, she'd felt it recoil. The desk she was leaning against had lost all detail, and now looked like an idealized drawing of a desk rather than the real thing, just like the rest of the room. The only parts that stayed in focus were herself, her clothing…

And, as she patted at that clothing to confirm that she was still real, light spilled out of a pocket that she always kept closed.

Despite the lack of a key, the Humpty Lock emitted a minute 'click' as she picked it up.

Initialising.​

Her eyes, of course, widened. It wasn't supposed to do this.

Exoself link engaged.
Transitioning to active mode.​

Wasn't it just a wish-granting device?

Manifest check complete. Operating in degraded mode.
Union core detected four active links. Do you wish to terminate?​

What? No! She had no idea what that meant, but it sounded bad.

Filtering union links.​

Dia froze in place, figuratively and literally. Mentally and physically. Her body—Amu's body was still moving, jerking in shock, but she didn't have even partial control, and she didn't have her own. If she hadn't still felt Amu's—but that was almost as bad, since it was moving on its own—she couldn't even move a finger—

"Let Dia go!" Amu's voice, sounding scared. "Stop—whatever you're doing. We're supposed to be together!"

Acknowledged.​

Their minds slammed back into one.

Union links are incorrectly configured. Do you wish to normalize?​

"No. Just no. Don't change a thing," she groaned, half-falling, half-sliding down to the floor while clutching her head. That hadn't felt good at all, and her head was throbbing painfully. They'd both been half-panicked, but in different ways, which meant—What? It hadn't felt anything like a normal character transformation, but those were far more gradual. It was like, after Amu had asked it to stop, it had just put both of them back where they'd been—without bothering to be gentle about it.

The spirit hovered in the background. It felt… uncertain? At least, she supposed, she'd confirmed that it wouldn't attack while her guard was down.

"Haah…"

She glared at the humpty lock through one half-lidded eye, sitting innocently on the floor where she'd dropped it and not glowing at all anymore. She'd have liked it if everything could have gone right, for once. Just once. Sure, she'd thought the spirit had something to do with shugo charas, but this was completely out of left field.

And what was the humpty lock, exactly? Tadase had never told her. He probably didn't know. Which, when she thought about it, was pretty scary for something that had been playing around with her head for close to a year—which it had to have been, there was a reason why she could use character transformations and none of the other guardians could, and it was mostly mental.

The throbbing in her head was finally receding. The room around her still looked more like a sketch than a real room, and that was probably the humpty lock's fault as well, though she had no idea what it was on about.

"Exa?"

No response. Oh, come on, not again—

Apologies. I was running diagnostics, it answered after a few seconds.

So she still had two computer-spirits stuck in her head. One had been quite enough, at least Exa was smarter about it—and maybe it was time to split up, she thought. Dia felt downright grumpy.

She couldn't help it, this entire situation was ridiculous—

"Says the one who's keeping secrets from herself," Amu said, a wince interrupting her chuckles as they split apart again. "Great, I'm a comedy duo by myself. How do you even have secrets? You're less than a day old!"

"Long story." Dia fell flat on her back on the table, exhausted.

"You're not supposed to have any!" She narrowed her eyes at the Chara. Her memories were terribly vague, but there were more of them than there should have been. "Are you pretending to sleep? Dia?"

An exaggerated snore was her only response. Fine, then. On her own she felt more worried than upset, but she needed answers. Just what had happened?

Amu:
[ ] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[ ] Attempt to interrogate the… random new guest in your head. The one you'd thought was just an inanimate object.
[ ] Write-in

Exa:
[ ] Tell Amu everything.
[ ] Claim you have no idea, but will investigate. [0.2x]
[ ] You know what? Those diagnostics sound like a good idea right now. You're not running away, they're genuinely needed. [0.5x]
[ ] Write-in.


A/N: Dia now has +1 wits, rather than +1 int. She always had +1 wits. Close your eyes, drink to forget, and pay no attention to the terrifying impermanence of the past.

I hate this weather.

 

[wingstrike96]

[X] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[X] You know what? Those diagnostics sound like a good idea right now. You're not running away, they're genuinely needed. [0.5x]

 

[AZATHOTHoth]

[X] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[X] Tell Amu everything.

Should we wait until this situation is resolved then tell her?

 

[Alectai]

... Well, it was the Humpty Lock?

That makes far too much sense.

[X] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[X] Tell Amu everything.
--To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. It's been there at least since I reactivated after the Conception, but it wasn't actually doing much more than sitting tight and poking me. As it was doing no damage, nor was it reporting to anything, and that it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually did, in the possibility that it was an ally.

I'll tell you what I've managed to observe if you require the information however.

 

[Giygas]

[X] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[X] Tell Amu everything.
--To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. It's been there at least since I reactivated after the Conception, but it wasn't actually doing much more than sitting tight and poking me. As it was doing no damage, nor was it reporting to anything, and that it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually did, in the possibility that it was an ally.

 

[Skelm]

[X] Attempt to interrogate the… random new guest in your head. The one you'd thought was just an inanimate object.
[X] Tell Amu everything.
--To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. It's been there at least since I reactivated after the Conception, but it wasn't actually doing much more than sitting tight and poking me. As it was doing no damage, nor was it reporting to anything, and that it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually did, in the possibility that it was an ally.

I'll tell you what I've managed to observe if you require the information however.

Exo was trying to communicate earlier, and it has some connection with this spirit (as a Chara related thing), so we should give it a chance to talk. This might also change how the spirit treats us.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

... Well, it was the Humpty Lock?

That makes far too much sense.

Click to shrink...

Yup. I'm kind of bad at putting stuff together but I'm disappointed in myself for not noticing myself. Exa is already a great example of magical/divine/whatever power-up devices being reality hacking supercomputers, and the Lock is in a lot of ways the same type of thing if in a different flavor.

 

[Quickshot0]

So Exo-chan beat up Exa-chan, so it could complete setup with Amu-chan... who are perhaps basically now all aspects of each other to a degree? Man, together with one of her chara keeping secrets from her as well, she has internal mental issues at times.

I'd also concur that Exo seems a bit like Exa, and perhaps of a some what similar scale as well. Perhaps a kind of local variant of an Exalted? Or at least something of a some what similar capacity?

And the Guardians were complaining Amu was getting to be a bit to special as it was.

---

I wondering if briefly interrogating Exo for 30-60 seconds might be wise, just to make sure it won't act up any more around the spirit and to see if it contributes to any kind of defences. Would be annoying for things to go wrong yet again... we're on the clock though, that agreement was only for an hour or so it seems like, so can't spend much time on it.

 

[veekie]

[X] Leave it for now; you can't keep the spirit waiting.
[X] Tell Amu everything.
--To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. It's been there at least since I reactivated after the Conception, but it wasn't actually doing much more than sitting tight and poking me. As it was doing no damage, nor was it reporting to anything, and that it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually did, in the possibility that it was an ally.

 

[Quickshot0]

[X] Very briefly interrogate Exo, but not for long, you can't keep the spirit waiting to much.

[X] Tell Amu everything.
--To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. It's been there at least since I reactivated after the Conception, but it wasn't actually doing much more than sitting tight and poking me. As it was doing no damage, nor was it reporting to anything, and that it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually did, in the possibility that it was an ally.

 

[Winged One]

So, it's been a while since I read this, and I'm not remotely caught up, but you guys should probably know this before I finish that: yesterday, Baugn rated an old post of mine as "insightful."

...holy crap. You're saying that he's having bits of himself be completely sincere so the whole can mislead us?

Click to shrink...

I was referring to Nyarlathotep, by the way.

 

[Baughn]

Amu

To be blunt, I'm as much in the dark as you are. I have been aware of the device since I reactivated after the Conception, but until now it hasn't done much other than sitting tight and poking me. As it was causing no damage, nor reporting to anything, and since it's not my way to tamper with that which I don't understand if it seems benign, I left it be and focused primarily on further repairs and analysis until I had a better understanding of what it actually does, in hopes that it would be an ally.

What. And it didn't occur to you to tell me?

A pause. That… may be true. I believe I referenced it once, but you never asked for details. I am not used to being able to communicate at all; it has always been my role to support without being noticed, nor would I normally have any opportunity to consult my host, and therefore the thought of informing you never arose.

That was, kind of…

Anything else it didn't occur to you to tell me?

She bit it out, as much as she could "bite out" a thought. Exa was important; she relied on him, and she'd relied on him to tell her anything that might matter later. Things like this. She wasn't sure what she'd have done about it—leave the Humpty Lock behind?—but he should have told her. That he hadn't, was… she didn't know how to feel about it, really.

I had not caught the connection to the Humpty Lock. As far as I knew, it might have been an unusual aspect of your own mind, and my only true options were to prevent it from doing anything overt, leave it be, or else attempt to destroy it. I eliminated the last possibility out of fear for the damage it might cause you. There are, also, a very large number of things it hasn't occurred to me to tell you, most of which are certainly not of interest to you. I am not reliably capable of judging such matters.

She sighed. We'll talk about this later. For now, I can't keep the spirit waiting much longer. It'd be rude, and if nothing else, the contract I worked out won't remain valid forever.

Exa fell silent.

Feeling a bit less confident about this than she had a minute ago, Amu picked up Dia—who had actually fallen asleep and turned back into an egg, sometime in the last thirty seconds—and put her in the pocket above her heart, where she'd be safe.

The Humpty Lock. It was a gift to her from Nadeshiko and the Guardians, that's why she'd never questioned it. It might still be a good thing, but Amu no longer thought she could take that for granted.

— — —​

"I'm ready."

She stood facing the spirit, the desk at her back. It was gathering its attention to a single spot—her—and while she had little reason to think it would matter, having something solid behind her made her feel a little better. Even if it probably wasn't solid at all.

Exa?

Standing down mental defences.

Mediator active. Proxying incoming connection.​

Exa's voice was more mechanical than usual. The Humpty Lock's, however—and she had to assume it was that, even though it wasn't glowing right now—had never been anything but. Actually, it was barely a voice at all; it seemed to arrive in her head fully formed, without really bothering to pretend at being a sound. She'd thought about asking it to stop, but logically speaking, if it wanted to hurt her it could have done so already—and it was apparently prepared to help her avoid any problems now, even if Exa wasn't.

So she'd chosen between risking an unknown spirit and known-but-suddenly-changing magical girl device, after it had turned out that she wasn't in a magical girl story at all, and she'd picked the device.

If she hadn't been in such a hurry, though…

Protocol match.​

She was starting to feel lightheaded, in an odd way. It felt like falling asleep, only without being sleepy, or… feeling pins and needles, but in her mind instead of her limbs. Words failed to describe it.

I recognise this.

She forgot what she was doing.

Can it be?

She forgot how to think.

Finally.

She fell back into her memories.

— — —​

The sounds of the crowd filled her world. Christmas was a large event, and Narukoten one of the more popular shrines, especially with parents. That meant that today, there'd been a queue to throw in offerings, and they'd waited for so very long—hours!—just to walk up to the offering box.

But not forever. Amu dropped in a hundred-yen coin—part of her allowance—while Yui was satisfied with "borrowing" some money from her big brother, Izayoi-kun. The point of it all was to give thanks, and draw a fortune that'd tell her what her luck would be like for the next year. At eight, Amu had already realised that luck didn't really work that way, but she had personal reasons to want to thank the god enshrined here. After all, he'd found her Yui-chan!

Probably. Amu didn't know if that, too, might be luck, but she wasn't going to take any chances. She'd insisted to Mom that it had to be this shrine, same as last year, and Mom had finally agreed after much nagging. Yui had it easier; convincing her own mom was easy, since she could just order one of Yui's brothers to keep an eye on her.

"—Great luck, it says." Amu smiled at the thought, throwing a glance at her friend, and behind, where Mom was waiting patiently and Izayoi-kun… less so. She caught Yui scowling at hers. "Yui-chan?"

"I'm not saying."

"What?" Her eyes flicked down to the piece of paper Yui was holding. "Why?"

"If I told you, you'd tease me about it."

Her mouth fell open in outrage. "But I already told you mine! Come on—" She reached for the piece of paper, but Yui took a step backwards, crumpling it up in her hand as she went. She stretched further, wobbling on her feet—

She didn't even know what happened. A slight tug at her jacket, a moment of vertigo as she spun around while falling, and suddenly she was lying on the ground with Yui on top, flecks of snow infiltrating her coat. She struggled, but Yui had her effectively pinned, again.

"Really, Amu?" Yui sounded exasperated. "You're still as clumsy as the day we met."

Well, she couldn't help it! She kept growing, and growing…

Struck by a sudden impulse, Amu stopped struggling and let Yui hold her down. She looked seriously at her for a second, until Yui shook her head and scooted back down to her legs.

"What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

"No, I was just thinking—"

"What?"

She smiled, looking into Yui's eyes. That it's been a year since we met, almost to the day, and she didn't think they'd gone more than two in a row without being together since.

Yui seemed pretty upset about her fortune. That made it easy, really.

She sat up, forcing Yui to back off a little to avoid a collision.

"Here, take mine." Amu held her own fortune up in the tiny space between their chests. Yui, her eyes growing wide, looked down at it. There were maybe five centimetres between them, which didn't leave much room for maneuvering.

"I can't do that! What's going to happen to you, then?"

"It can't really be that bad," Amu said mulishly. "Besides, you're my best friend. If you're not happy, I'm not happy. So—" She tugged at Yui's hand, forcing it open and extracting Yui's only slightly crumpled paper fortune, before putting her own in its place and wrapping her fingers back around it. "There." She nodded. This was fine, right?

A careful peek at the fortune she'd taken, and she almost winced. Worst luck.

Oh well. She shrugged, seeing the soft expression on Yui's face. Well worth it. Spontaneously, she reached out and hugged her; Yui-chan smelled of lavender, and cinnamon, and…

"Ahem." A dry voice intruded from up above. "Are you two quite done? Not to break up the scene, but you're making a scene."

She scowled up at Izayoi-kun, but he was right. Suddenly self-conscious, she realised that they were blocking the path to the donation box, and dozens of people were looking at them. Yui had to have seen the same; she blushed furiously and scrambled to her feet, pulling Amu up behind her.

"All right," Mom said, smiling benignly at them. "Do you two already know what wish you're going to make?"

"I dooo~!" Yui had already forgotten her embarrassment. She held up another piece of paper. "Look, already wrote it down and everything."

Amu patted her own pocket, nodding shyly.

The procedure was simple. Write a wish on a piece of paper, tie it into a little bow and tie the bow to a tree on the shrine's grounds. There was even several trees right here! Only…

"They're all really full," Yui said.

Amu blinked. "I think I see a free spot over there—"

"For one, maybe!" There'd have been room for at least five. "I want to hang mine next to yours, so let's go look behind the shrine. That's okay, right?" She looked pleadingly up at Mom, cleverly ignoring her irritated-looking brother.

"Sure, but don't be long."

"We won't!" Yui grabbed Amu's hand and started running, leaving a slightly befuddled Amu to keep up the best she could.

— — —​

"I think that's far enough."

"Thank— god—"

Amu sank down against the back wall to the shrine, trying to catch her breath. Yui was fast when she tried to be, and Amu was anything but athletic. Fascinated, she watched Yui looking around—checking behind trees, under the raised wooden floor of the shrine itself, and around corners—until satisfied.

"Mm, yep. No-one's here; we're safe."

Amu could have told her that. Who'd come to a place like this? It was dark even in the middle of the day, the gravel paths had given way to dirt, and the trees—there were trees all around the shrine's perimeter, but unlike the ones in front of the shrine, these ones had clearly not been pruned as carefully. They looked like they wanted to eat her.

"So what was so important?" Amu asked, a little testily.

"Well, I wanted to hang up some wishes—"

She couldn't keep up the poker face for very long. It collapsed into a grin, long before Amu could think to get properly outraged.

"And also, there's something I wanted to show you. Here!" She turned to the side, holding a bit of her hair to the side. Yui's was black, of course, like just about everyone, but underneath…

Amu got up and looked closer, unsure if what she was seeing was real.

"You dyed it!" Her voice was a mix of jealousy and excitement. She fingered the locks, which had been hidden until now. One green, one reddish pink; later in her life she'd think those two clashed horribly, but right then she was just amazed that Yui had gotten permission for something like that. "How did you convince your parents?"

A sudden apprehension struck her.

"You—did convince your parents, right?"

"Well—"

"Yui!" Amu shook her head in mock outrage. "How could you? And without letting me in on it!"

Yui smiled. "Well, Jin-kun has this friend, and his big sister works part-time in a hair salon. She didn't mind doing me a favor, when I told her how terribly confining I think black is—" Her eyes sparkled. "Nothing you would know anything about, brunette-chan."

"Geez, Yui."

"Also, I told her I'd bring you by next week." Yui stuck her tongue out. "Now let's hang these up, before Izayoi-kun and your mother come looking."

Amu nodded, though she didn't think they needed to worry just yet.

"So what are you going to wish for?" She asked.

"If I tell you that, it won't come true, dummy—"

Right, there was a rule like that. Amu stole glances at Yui as she stretched up towards the lowest branch, feeling the same fuzzy feeling she usually felt when they were alone. Yui wasn't just her best friend, she was her only friend, and even though it was rarely just the two of them at school, everyone else was really Yui's friends—not hers. She suspected Yui would have put something like "I want to stay friends with Amu" on hers, so Amu felt okay with being a little more selfish.

She held her own piece of paper tightly. I want to become more like Yui.

—Discontinuity—

Then they were done, and walking hand in hand back to their respective keepers. At some point it had started snowing, enough that they were leaving tracks behind them.

"There you are!"

Amu blinked up at Mom, who looked angrily down at them. Her eyes softened. "You took a long time. We were about to start looking."

They hadn't been that long, had they?

— — —​

Later that week, Yui fulfilled her promise and took her to the hair salon, where Amu added a blue stripe to her hair and Yui refreshed hers. It looked good, she thought, thinking it unfortunate that she needed to hide it—and perhaps that was why it didn't last more than a day. Amu, being a girl who enjoyed physical contact, had dropped herself on Mom's lap for a nice session of TV-watching, not remembering that Mom had a habit of running her hands through her hair when she did that. And the dye was water-soluble.

She was grounded for an entire hour as a result, but was upset at Mom for weeks afterwards for making her wash it out. It's hard to say who got the worse of that deal.

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