Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

[Baughn]

Here's some examples of feats you should be able to accomplish at a given number of dots. These are all 'single use' examples, at the limits of what's achievable; for sustained use, drop down one level.

(That is to say: Using psionics at this level costs willpower, which a mature psionic tends to have a lot of.)

Most of these are also usable at level 0, but only as parlor tricks. "Keep a cup of tea warm", let's say. This still depends on having spent a modicum of time practicing the skill, as there's a difference between "the cognitive machinery technically exists" and "the character knows how to use it".

Mental Range sets the upper limit to how far away you can apply any of these skills, but targeting information is typically also needed. If you think it might be needed, then it's needed.

Telekinesis

At zero dots: Lift a pencil. Generally speaking this is what Charas are at; it's what allows them to act as though they have bodies, which makes telekinesis almost universal for anyone who had one. If you still have one, then the skill resides in the Chara—not their child.

1. Normal human strength. Lift anything you'd be able manipulate by hand—assuming you aren't a strongman!
2. Absolute limits of human strength. Casual flight. Lift a couch, without feeling (excessive) strain. Move a car through the air. (How is this not just blatantly better than incrementing Strength? Well, it kinda is.)
3. Lift a helicopter; with a small amount of help, soft-land it without harming its occupants.
4. Lift a typical residential building.
5. Lift a skyscraper.

Special note: Control typically decreases as strength increases. Nothing mechanical enforces this; it's just a matter of practice. Fine-control telekinesis chiefly depends on perception.

Thermokinesis

At zero dots: Keep a cup of tea warm, or slowly chill that drink.

1. Given minutes of time, heat a pot to boiling. Chill the drink you just got from your backpack, faster than you're drinking it. ...assuming you aren't gulping it down.
2. Give someone heatstroke, serious burns, or chill them until they shut down from hypothermia. In a matter of seconds.
3. Heat the air fast enough to form a ball of plasma; a moving furnace. Instant, fatal burns. Melt the structural beams of a building in a matter of minutes, or keep a swimming pool at a comfortable temperature in winter.
4. Create liquid nitrogen in large quantities; cool a small object to absolute zero; heat an entire building to its flash ignition point, in a matter of seconds.
5. Stop the progress of time for a small object, or speed it up. Flash-vaporise a skyscraper. Freeze Tokyo Bay.

Special note: Thermokinesis can be faked with telekinesis, at a 3-dot reduction in effectiveness. Few people have generalised thermokinesis; pyrokinesis and cryokinesis are the same skill, but unidirectional.

Teleportation

At zero dots: Teleport a small object from your pocket to your hand.

1. Move large, unorganic objects around within your line of sight, touch range; limited in mass and size by your Overgrowth rating. Anything you'd be able to lift with telekinesis, if you had the skill.
2. Teleport yourself, safely, within your line of sight.
3. Teleport to anywhere you have a suitable anchor; bring friends along, safely; teleport A-to-B when you're at C. Reflexive, combat-time teleportation, to dodge or to remove incoming attacks.
4. Inter-city teleportation. In combination with Illusion or Dreamwalking: Warp space to work around the range limit, or create a permanent portal.
5. Arbitrarily edit connectivity, given sufficient time. Create and function in non-Euclidean space.

Special note: Non-line-of-sight teleportation is dependent on having some way of knowing where you're going, and this skill doesn't provide it. Dead reckoning is technically possible, but dangerous—the human mind isn't precise enough to reliably do that.

Biokinesis

At zero dots: Heal bruises. Biokinesis typically manifests first as a subconscious reaction to injuries, and is normally excused as "I heal fast". Which yes, you do heal fast at ten, but—half an hour?

1. Heal bruises or cuts, fast enough for combat time. On yourself or on others, though doing it on someone else takes all of your attention.
2. Heal internal injuries, well enough to stabilise. Convert dead tissue back to living.
3. Cure cancer, or subtly cause it. Intuitive immortality. Children who reach this point have a tendency to stop aging, regardless of their maturity at the time.
4. Deliberate modifications. Give someone the muscles of an athlete, if not the skill to use them; restore a pensioner to the strength and mental clarity of a twenty-year-old, given sufficient time. Give yourself significant mutations, such as bone spikes or subdermal armor, without downsides other than social.
5. Create an intelligent plague, destroy a plague—by counter-plague—or build almost arbitrary biological 'machinery', limited by what biology can do in the first place. Create de-novo mutations such as subdermal armor, safely, for someone else.

Special note: Biokinesis doesn't include an understanding of biology. While using it to heal yourself is almost subconscious, and the user is able to cover for their lack of understanding by making adjustments as issues crop up, using it on someone else—unless you intend to hold their hand for the next few weeks—is inadvisable without the necessary medical knowledge. If you do have that knowledge, you can push this further.

Clairvoyance

At zero dots: You can guess what's on the other side of a card someone is holding—if you're concentrating—and thereby cheat at poker. It won't be perfect, but you'll be banned from Las Vegas in a hurry.

There are two variants of present-tense clairvoyance: "Vague impressions" and "clear sight". The information feed is the same for both, but it's too much information; the latter must always be focused on a smaller area, the definition of which varies with rating. Clairvoyance can be trained towards one or the other.

1. Limited clairvoyance. This might take the form of a mental eye you can move anywhere within your field of view, or it might give you a second sense for everything happening within fifteen metres of yourself—good for dodging, not useful as vision—but it won't do both for the same person.
   
   
2. Clarity reaches the level of your regular senses, within that same fifteen-metre range. The range limit for vaguer impressions, however, extends to the limit of your mental range. There's a lot of dials this can balance, and in practice it'll be different from each person; Clairvoyance is also the psionic skill with the most subtypes. Amu has the 'base' form, so in her case this is how it works, but at higher levels she effectively needs to decide which subtype she wants to have.
   
   
3. Postcognition becomes possible: Tracing back the provenance of a physical object. That includes "this piece of ground", to be clear, but equally well "this letter". At three dots, you'll be lucky to manage a day.
   The 'clear focus' range triples, and clairvoyants at this level are often able to move that area around; it's no longer anchored on themselves.
   
   
4. If the clairvoyant is still focused simply on range, then their skill would manifest as limited omniscience within their mental range at this point; nothing escapes their sight, assuming of course that 'nothing' hasn't been shielded against them. In practice this is far too much information for anyone to handle, and someone who tries it regardless—or is forced to do so—would likely lose their ability to act independently of outside assistance. Exceptions may exist, but Amu isn't one of them—it would require superhuman attribute and ability values, i.e. above five.
   
   There are other development paths. One is to instead extend the 'depth' of the sight, seeing things beyond regular vision. Magic; ongoing rituals such as Hikawa's, the weak points of Kagutsuchi, and similar. Another, fairly obviously, is to extend the range of her post-cognition. A third is to extend the depth of the post-cognition, which might then allow you to understand how an object is used, simply by using it. This is the default option for Amu.
   
   On a sidenote: At four dots it would also be possible to use Clairvoyance for mind-reading, should you train it in that direction.
   
   
5. Do you want the Number Man? This is how you get the Number Man.
   
   Ahem. At its maximum peak, the branches of clairvoyance would normally fold back in; you get all of the above, at maximum range, all of the time. It is almost entirely impossible for any sapient being to achieve this point and remain sapient, unfortunately. That does not entirely mean the dots can't be taken; but they would need to be coupled with a form of cognitive engineering that filters the input, preventing it from overloading the user. If it's then also supposed to be useful, it would need to be hooked directly to their reactions... at which point the user is no longer in control of their own actions.

Special note: 'Vague impressions' suffices to prevent any form of surprise attack while you aren't truly distracted. 'Clear sight' allows you to add your Clairvoyance rating to Dodge rolls, up to two dice, assuming you can see it coming. Similar distinctions apply for other uses of the skill. This overlaps with the bonus from Precognition.

In practice, "three dots" is the maximum rating for Clairvoyance that's viable for a regular human. To push it beyond that point it needs to be limited in some form, or else its user will cease to be human. Specialisations are very much viable.

It's the odd one out, as scaling can't be handled simply by adding overgrowth machinery; the information needs to be actually processed to be useful.

Precognition

At zero dots: Nothing notable that can't be mistaken for vague feelings of doom about upcoming tests.

Extra special note: The size of the event matters. The larger it looms in the future, due to either high probability or high impact, the longer the range and higher the chance a precog will spot it. This means the literal apocalypse, which is an almost completely inevitable event that affects the entire world, can be spotted a year out even at one dot; meanwhile, Amu's english scores would take five dots to predict precisely.

1. At one dot, only uncontrollable but fundamentally predictable natural phenomena can really be predicted. The weather, with high likelihood of success, for three days or less; although the weather report does it better. The flight path of a bullet that's already in flight, and within your mental range. Your chances of acing the last English test.
   
   That last one is a joke; precognition can't predict that. However, at a single dot it registers as vague senses of doom or potential wetness; if Amu's English scores are genuinely predictable (which they are), then there is no way for her to distinguish her perfectly ordinary conscious prediction of doom from the one she might have gotten from precognition.
   
   
2. Still limited to events within your mental range, but the foresight becomes clearer; as in, you'll know when it happens. At this rating you're as good as the weather report. Some conditional events can be predicted, if the condition is already set in stone; for example, you would be able to predict when a timed bomb will go off. Assuming it's sometime in the next day or so.
   
   
3. Forget the time limit on that bomb; add the ability to predict complicated machinery, again within a day or so. Anything at the level of a computer remains beyond what precognition can handle, but weirdly, many humans become somewhat predictable. This isn't necessarily beyond what a three-dot Socialize ability can provide... but doesn't requite socialisation, though it in fact doesn't apply as well to strangers.
   
   Predictions at this point start failing in strange ways. While a weather mistake might just mean it's drizzling instead of overcast, precog gets more and more chaotic as you attack harder problems; it's more likely than not that not a single element of the prediction will come true.
   
   
4. ...this is because there are multiple futures, as any precognitive will eventually realise. By the time they reach four dots, they're no longer limited to a glimpse of a single one; they can get glimpses of all of them, and predictions become more a range of possible outcomes than a single hopefully-most-likely possibility.
   
   (Literally. Megaten runs on many-worlds quantum mechanics, with added cross-world interference.)
   
   
5. ...and multiple presents. Why not look into a different present? ...why not cooperate with them?
   
   Only information can be transferred, at least by the precog, but nothing stops you cooperating with yourself in a different timeline. This has interesting implications, although there aren't as many timelines as it feels like there should be, and far fewer than science would predict. There's a reason for that, which psionics will not provide.

Special note: Your precognition rating can, at all times, be added to dodge rolls in combat; up to a maximum of two dice, in ordinary circumstances. That's as far as precognition applied to motoric nerves (or similar) will take you. This overlaps with the bonus from clairvoyance.

Additionally, Outsiders / Demons of Makai / Exaltation Shards et cetera always disrupt precognition, simply by their nature. They can only be accounted for post-fact.

Dreamwalking

At zero dots: Lucid dreaming—that is, remaining conscious in dreams. Not all the time, since this is as usual the limit of what you can do, and few people can burn willpower in their sleep, but for Dreamwalking on its own... this is it. Uniquely, non-psionics are also capable of this; however, non-psionics more frequently mistake dreamwalking for simple dreaming. Or vice versa.

Most human souls are exposed and vulnerable during sleep, but there are rules protecting them from arbitrary domination by the entities that live there. By Awakening, you discard those protections.

1. Leave the immediate contextual surroundings of your sleeping body. Instinctive avoidance of the most obvious dangers.
2. Remain conscious in dreams, without effort. Navigate from waypoint to waypoint, following the most obvious paths. Speak the language of dreams. Bring small objects into reality, or vice versa.
3. Navigate from anywhere to anywhere, if you understand their ideals and the paths connecting them. Dip your hand in a river, and shape the water to suit your perceptions. Instinctive understanding of the lesser dangers; the gremlins that populate the dreamlands. Walk from Dream into Reality, or vice versa, by a pre-existing path.
4. Walk your own paths in the Dream. Force it to follow your lines of thinking, instead of vice versa. Create a path into Reality, by whichever technique best fits your personality.
5. [REDACTED]

Dreamwalking is by far the hardest of the psionic skills to provide a list like this for, and the list itself is dramatically less complete than for any other skill. In practice the results vary depending on every other element of the user, including both skills and personality. At zero dots, you become aware that there are aspects of dreams not wholly internal to the psion. At five dots, to a certain degree, that ceases to be the case.

When using Dreamwalking in conjunction with another skill, you can expect both to be magnified and warped.

= More to come, hopefully =

These take a surprisingly long time to write out! If there's a specific skill you're curious about, let me know and I'll add it.

---

If you don't have the same (or larger) number of Overgrowth dots, then your psionic skill will be hobbled somehow. How it is hobbled should be relatively consistent. For instance, with telekinesis:

- At a one-dot deficit, using the skill at full power is simply tiring. The character needs to pay 1 WP per use.
- At a two-dot deficit, you're missing finesse. You still need to pay the WP surcharge, but fine control will be lacking; essentially, those 'muscles' tremble too hard under the load to give you the same exactness you'd manage otherwise.

For someone who's already lacking in fine control, like Amu, there's a definite risk you'll accidentally break the thing you're holding. Not that she doesn't already do that with pencils.

Three-dot deficits are not allowed; you cannot train a skill that far beyond the overgrowth rating.

 

[Baughn]

JPs, two days earlier

"Aubertin-san? Can you help me with this?"

Rosaire Aubertin peered up from his pile of psychological evaluations, raising an eyebrow at the soldier who'd spoken. They were in a corner of JP's cafeteria, both having taken their lunch breaks at the same time; though the former was reading and the latter had apparently found something interesting in the lab.

"Hmm?" he asked, neutrally. He liked Mariko—the soldier was smart and competent, not to mention easy on the eyes—but the woman didn't tend to talk to him unless she had a reason. Most of the soldiers didn't, really; too intimidated by his reputation, even after all this time. Rosaire didn't mind that. It made things easier on everyone.

"The bean bag," Mariko elaborated, drawing Rosaire's attention to the bulky object she'd rolled out of its container, evidently because it was too large to lift. "I need someone to help me bring it down to level four."

Rosaire glanced at it. "Why do you need a bean bag?" he asked, still not moving.

Mariko rolled her eyes at him. "Why would anybody need a bean bag? Because they're comfy."

Rosaire gave Mariko a flat look, and waited.

"Fine," said Mariko, sighing. "So there was this girl on level four. Himamori Amu; she was brought in with grade one mental abrasion. Thirteen years old if you can believe it. And normally that would be it—if we were anywhere else, I mean—but she woke up after a couple of days. Even walked out without needing therapy."

Rosaire glanced down at his pile of folders again, frowning. "You know I'm not responsible for those kinds of cases, right?"

Mariko laughed. "You think I'm telling you she's physically damaged? Aubertin-san, you should see her medical report. There's not a single sign of brain damage." He had, but unlike the woman in front of him, he didn't gossip about those details. Mariko leaned closer, her tone lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "That's not normal. Not for unmitigated abrasion. I'm telling you this because I'm fairly sure you've been talking to her classmates."

"It seems likely," Rosaire admitted. "Though obviously-"

Mariko waved her hand through the air dismissively. "Makoto?"

"Does patient-client confidentiality mean nothing to you?" He asked archly.

"It does," said Mariko, folding her arms behind her back and cocking her head at Rosaire with a hint of amusement. "But the Chief makes a point of telling us when we have visitors who might be dangerous. Which is part of why I'm telling you about Himamori-chan."

Rosaire sighed, but couldn't fault Mariko's logic. "Why does it matter?"

"You don't read the newspapers," Mariko told him with a smile. "The Himamori girl was one of the kids who held the line until the boss could get there. Without her help there'd have been more casualties. More fatalities as well. Chief Hotsuin isn't likely to forget that anytime soon, you know."

Rosaire nodded, turning this over in his mind and wondering where Mariko was going with this. It was true that Hotsuin would not have forgotten something like that; but-

"A lot of children died that day," Mariko said. "Or ended up in hospital. It's not the kind of thing you want to have to see, but- anyway, the Himamori girl was friends with one of those who did end up here. Yamabuki Saaya. The one with grade five abrasion." Mariko's voice darkened on that last point; Rosaire winced internally at the thought. Grade five was about as bad as it got without resulting in death; and that was a question of terminology. No one had ever recovered from grade five abrasion.

"And?"

Mariko's grin widened. "And this is where it gets good. I didn't get to meet the Himamori girl when she was here, but... her parents were here every day, and half the time they brought her little sister. One of your colleagues is due to meet her soon, I think?"

Rosaire crossed his arms. "Seriously. Does confidentiality mean absolutely nothing to you people?"

Mariko waved her hand in the air again, chuckling slightly. "Himamori Ami—seven years old—visited her sister once every other day, accompanied by her father or mother, sometimes both. The girl was surprisingly upbeat despite her sister's condition." She leaned down to examine one of Rosaire's evaluation reports. "Isn't that what it says on-"

Rosaire pulled the file away before Mariko could read it; Mariko shrugged at him unrepentantly.

This was the downside of accepting JP's offer. Mavericks and monsters and all the reasons he was here were one thing, but it seemed like one of the reasons they had so many specialists on call was because it gave Hotsuin a convenient excuse to spy on everyone they interacted with. He never went so far as to overstep Rosaire's professional boundaries, but given all his coworkers-

He cleared his throat and pressed onward. "Is this gossip going anywhere?" he asked Mariko pointedly.

"Yes." Mariko's voice lowered again; it was almost a whisper now, but Rosaire could see the eagerness on her face without even trying. "So one day after they'd visited their daughter, the Himamori parents got into an argument with the nurse." Mariko's eyes narrowed at the memory, her emotions taking a dive towards 'bitter' for a moment before bouncing back up. "On the subject of Yamabuki, whose parents haven't been here even once.

"Her father works in the Diet, you know. You'd think he could spare ten minutes from his day to take the elevator down and pay his daughter a visit." Mariko shrugged again, her expression darkening. "Anyway, little Ami-chan was left alone with us for fifteen minutes while her parents went to yell at somebody in charge. And that's where the bean bag comes in."

"The bean bag," Rosaire repeated, deadpan.

"Yep!" said Mariko cheerfully. "She wasn't happy with the chairs, you see. Too tall, all of them. So she stared at the air for a while, and then there was this flash of light-" Mariko's voice trailed off. "Honestly it's weird, Aubertin-san. None of our detectors picked up anything, but there it was. Right in front of her." She coughed, suddenly embarrassed. "And nobody wanted to poke the bear, so when her parents came back she was napping on top of it. It disappeared when she left, but two days later she did the same thing again, and that one stuck around. Though that was right before the doctors decided her sister was fine, so she never had a chance to use it."

Rosaire gave the innocent-looking bean bag another look; his brow furrowed. "That sounds..." he began, trying to think of a word that wouldn't be too worrying.

"It's not an O-O-P," Mariko assured him, misunderstanding Rosaire's concern entirely. "Perfectly normal bean bag, except it doesn't have an inside. Kanno had a look at it." Mariko tapped the bean bag with her foot. "She wanted it for testing, but..."

Rosaire returned his attention to Mariko, frowning.

"You stole it from her lab."

"Nope!" Mariko told him brightly. "I had permission! There was even a form and everything, I got one of my guys to fill it out." She nudged Rosaire with her elbow and grinned at him. "Cleanup duty. Trash disposal. Call it what you want, Kanno wouldn't get back to it again. If she wants it, it'll be in the break room."

Rosaire fought back a smile and failed miserably. He knew better than to take Mariko seriously when she said something had gone through proper channels. Kanno wasn't a bad woman—at least Rosaire didn't think so—but Mariko was right about her current state of distraction; she probably wouldn't miss it for weeks.

"In any case," Rosaire said, rubbing his temples and trying not to let Mariko distract him. "I'll have another look at their documents. That's what you wanted, yes?"

Mariko beamed at him. "Yep!" she said, happily. "You're the best, Aubertin-san." She rolled the bean bag around. "Plus some help moving this thing wouldn't go amiss."

"Do I look like a pack mule to you?" Rosaire asked her. Mariko's response was a very convincing attempt, albeit futile, at puppy dog eyes.

Rosaire considered the woman for a few breaths, then sighed and gathered up his reports. He tucked them into the embroidered shoulder bag at his feet, tapped it gently, and pushed his chair back from the table.

"Alright," he said. Mariko gave a little cheer, one that cut off abruptly as she recognised he wasn't done. "But I get something out of helping."

She opened her mouth, a sly smile tugging at her lips, and Rosaire didn't need to be himself to tell what was about to come out. "So we'll be taking this beanbag to level three, instead. I was looking for one for my public office."

"But what if some poor girl needs a beanbag on level four?" Mariko asked, her eyes wide, expression aghast.

"Then you can have one of your guys fill out a form to get another one." Rosaire smiled beatifically, picking up the edge of the beanbag opposite the now glaring Mariko. Mock glaring, though, he could see the way her lips were twitching.

"I'll ask Ami-chan," Mariko decided. "The next time she visits."

"Don't make me report you to Sako for abusing a young girl's goodwill and/or magic," Rosaire told her. But he was almost smiling too. "Now come on and lift. This beanbag won't move itself."

 

[Baughn]

Scheduled vote count started by Baughn on Feb 21, 2024 at 6:20 PM, finished with 195 posts and 8 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] Utau: Ask for help

  • ShadowAngelBeta
  • Skelm
  • Quine

  2 people have voted

  [X]Utau: That is quite enough. Lunatic Charm, Concert Mode.
  -[X] Use Nero200's stunt
  -[X] Use Strings & Songs
  -[X] Use 2 WP

  • Yu Narukaze
  • Nero200

  1 people have voted

  [X] Utau: Ask for help
  -[X] Check how long it's been since the last report to Tsumugu and send Midori back out to give him another update.

  • PistachioCookies

  1 people have voted

  [X] Amu: Tear down the place

  • TheWoo

  1 people have voted

  [X] Utau: Ask for help
  -[X] Unless Ami/Hikaru gives an option significantly different from what's been presented, move on to non-lethally disabling the Shadow and then slowly taking it apart for parts (again, unless Ami objects)
  [X] Utau: Ask for help
  -[X] Go with Midori's idea, but go non-lethal in case Yui shards are in there

  • quantum lurker

 

[Baughn]

The door shook twice more, each shudder in time with the deep toll of a bell, before subsiding.

Lacking much of a plan, they huddled in front of the door, frozen in place like a trio of statues. Utau wanted to run away, to cry, to blow this place to pieces—to hug Amu and never let go—she wanted to do a lot of things, really, but couldn't quite summon the willpower to do any of them. Amu felt much the same, a rising tide of guilt, regret and helplessness that had already threatened to overwhelm Utau once today. And Mrs Hinamori-

To say that Amu's mother was upset would be an understatement; and if the woman's emotions were harder to read than Amu's were, it was only because they were too intense to get a fix on, shifting from one moment to the next with such speed and intensity that it was impossible to pinpoint anything from them other than a rising tide of rage behind the different spikes pressing against her awareness. It wasn't helping her headache.

'Hell hath no fury like a mother's anger,' Utau thought in a moment of wry detachment.

But unlike either of the teenagers, Mrs Hinamori's nervous breakdown never happened. She shuddered, physically and mentally, before visibly steeling herself and started checking both her daughter and Utau for injuries. Which was enough to startle Utau out of her numbness and back into activity.

"I'm fine," Utau said, her voice sharper than she'd intended to let it be. "Amu-"

"Me too," Amu mumbled, lying through her teeth—but at least she didn't seem about to start crying or breaking down entirely.

Utau reached for the door, flinching back before she could reach it. The fog was denser than ever, a physical presence that felt like it should have drenched her, but instead was feeding a dull ringing in her ears. It pressed down on them like—like it wanted them to leave, to see nothing and return, but Utau refused to do that.

Amu's hand-

Their fingers found each other. Distantly, then with startling clarity, she noticed that Amu was shielding her mother from the worst of it. Somehow she was drawing the fog away from Midori, towards herself. How long could she-

'I'll be fine, I promise,' Amu told her.

'-bloody overeager, self-sacrificing middle-schooler,' was Utau's only response, to which Amu returned a melancholy sense of agreement.

Midori shook her head slowly. "We should leave," she said, looking over at the door; the air around them stilled as she did so—momentarily feeling tense—before relaxing back to normal again. "Even if Yui's really behind that door- we should leave."

Logic. How novel. But-

Utau nodded, following the woman's gaze—which had fixed itself firmly on the door in question. "Yes," she agreed. "We should."

There really wasn't much point to this conversation. She wondered if Midori understood enough to really get that.

"Not without Yui," Amu said fiercely, staring up at her mother with a hard expression that she didn't match emotionally. Fear, despair and guilt warred within her—much stronger than before—and Utau could practically see the gears turning in her head as she worked through possibilities and considered how best to save a little girl. "Mom."

The only question was which one of them would take the risks. Utau knew that. Amu knew that. Midori, even, seemed to know that. Amu had put them in a-

Utau took a breath. Closed her eyes, and opened them again. Even if they weren't here, Yui would still be in danger.

Midori took a deeper breath; glancing at Amu for a moment; then straightened her back, her expression going hard.

"Amu," she told her daughter firmly. "When we get home, we'll call for help. No arguments this time."

Amu simply nodded.

"I'll go in first," Midori told them, approaching the door with hesitant steps.

"You can't!" Amu objected simultaneously—a cry of denial that rang down the hallway, accompanied by Amu's rising panic as she grabbed her Mom's hand. "What if you-" Amu continued, gulping as Midori turned back around and fixed her with an angry look. "What if something happens?" Amu finished after a moment, sadder and more subdued.

Midori shook her head and tapped Amu on the forehead, which surprised the girl so much that she lost her grip on her mom's hand.

"If something happens to me, I trust you to rescue me," Mrs Hinamori told her daughter, squeezing her hand one last time before stepping up to the door again. "Whereas if it's the other way around, I might not be able to save you." She smiled gently at her daughter, giving her hand a final squeeze before letting go. "It's okay. I'm your mom! What do you take me for? Some silly nightmare won't get the better of me, and I think I have some anger issues to work out."

She cocked her head, frowning at the door thoughtfully.

"Amu, can you make me a crowbar?" she asked after a second of consideration, with a hint of impatience and motherly pride mixed together in her voice. "Something sturdy."

Utau watched helplessly as Amu's emotions spiralled down towards rejection. Any moment now she was going to do something stupid, but before Utau could formulate any objection at all Midori knelt down in front of her daughter and wrapped her arms around her in a hug.

"It'll be fine," she told her. "I'll be fine."

Amu did not seem to believe it'd be fine. Utau didn't believe it'd be fine. Midori didn't think it'd be fine. They were all caught between wanting to help Yui and wanting to keep everyone safe—Amu was desperate for both—but Utau didn't know if that was possible. They hadn't the faintest idea what was happening. Midori was murderously angry and not thinking straight, Amu was desperate and not thinking straight, and Utau felt like she was being squeezed between two mutually unacceptable options.

The only thing she did know was that there was something wrong behind the door; something wrong with the mist; something wrong with this whole house—that might as well make this a nightmare.

But Utau was used to that. Living in a nightmare was-

It wasn't new.

"Mom," said Amu, rubbing at her eyes, which had gone suspiciously glossy. "I'm not making you a weapon. I'll tear this place apart. You don't need a crowbar, I felt enough to tell it has a mind. Not a very sturdy one. I just need-" She shuddered, looking pained. "I just need to try."

"That sounds like an awful idea," Utau pointed out, and was summarily ignored.

Midori frowned at her daughter, though the worry Utau could feel coming off her didn't falter for a second—if anything it intensified as Amu wobbled on her feet, her exhaustion returning with a vengeance. Though Utau would be lying if she said she'd had any better ideas herself.

"Now look here," said Midori.

The two started arguing, and Utau felt an awful, sinking feeling as it occurred to her that there was nothing she could do about this; no way for her to fix this situation or give them all a way out—she was just going to have to sit here and watch as her closest friend and her mother argued over which of them would get to put their life and sanity in danger.

For the first time in years she felt so useless that it hurt.

Midori turned back towards the door, and Utau forced herself to speak up; cutting Amu off mid-sentence, almost shouting.

"Wait a minute," she said, not able to stop her voice from cracking. "Just- wait! Amu-" Her breath hitched, and she stalled. She'd had an idea. Just one idea.

Iru reached inside of her, taking the steering wheel for just one moment.

"-Aunt Midori," she finished.

She was not going to cry.

"Aunt Midori," Utau said, her voice a little ragged. The literal first time in her life she'd called her that. She looked down, unwilling to meet Amu's mother's eyes, but she could feel she'd gotten through to her. A year of being asked to call her that, and this was when she did it? Now? If only Eru had been here…

But she wasn't, and Utau was left nearly on her own, raw hurt filling her as she tried to stop just the third adult she'd ever trusted in her life from doing something dumb.

At least the argument had stopped.

"You don't need to call me that if you don't want to," said Midori, her tone subdued.

Utau shook her head. Not- not the point, but yes, she did have to. Should have already. Her mind raced, grasping for any kind of plan or solution, anything that could fix this, but came up blank. She didn't have a fix, nothing that would count as an advantage. In the past, she'd let Easter take advantage of her; she'd never thought for a second that there was anything she could do to escape them. Not until Amu had reached out to her, anyway. Now-

She couldn't watch either of them get hurt. Especially not Amu, but-

"Before you do anything," she pleaded. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. "Amu- Aunt Midori- before you do anything- we should- we need to- bloody hell" She tripped over the words, and Utau ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated with herself for being unable to just talk. Her left hand fumbled with her hair ribbon, plucking at it anxiously, until-

-until her right touched the Dumpty Key that sat anxiously in her pocket.

Oh. That was right. She did have an advantage; one she'd been ignoring for years.

She reached up again to her hair, pulling it aside and looking up at Midori through glistening eyes. Utau could almost have smiled.

-fine, then. Maybe she could let Midori mother her. Just a little bit.

Ikuto had given the Key to her when he left, telling her the lock and its key belonged together. He'd never used it himself—unlike Amu, who'd used the Lock almost every single day—and hadn't elaborated; hadn't told her what it was or why he'd given it to her. Maybe he'd wanted her to find out on her own. Maybe he'd had no idea either. Ikuto's memory could be terrible, and Utau knew better than to pretend her brother was responsible.

"Wait- just wait a minute… aunt Midori," she pleaded, pulling it out. It felt warm in her hand. Amu's eyes, of course, were drawn to it. "I have an idea."

Midori stared at the key. Amu tilted her head, but didn't object, which was all the encouragement Utau needed.

She held it up and pressed it against her chest, finding the little click—the momentary hesitation she'd felt the last time she tried to use it—and pushed, reaching towards it with raw need. This time she didn't hold back in the slightest.

There was a click; a blur; and for a second Utau saw a flash of Ikuto standing next to her with his violin—felt his warmth as he pushed the key into her hands-

-and then Utau and Iru were one again.

Mrs Hinamori looked- surprised wasn't quite the word. 'Bewildered' seemed more accurate.

"So," she said after a moment, raising an eyebrow. "Magical girl mode?"

Utau- or was she Iru? She blinked at Hinamori. 'Utau' would do, she thought, as she gave herself a once-over. It was true, her clothes had changed somewhat. She'd been trying to not go full 'Lunatic Charm'—her cheeks reddened at the thought, before shrugging the embarrassment off with an amused huff—but hadn't quite succeeded.

Her shirt had lost a good bit of its material, leaving her arms exposed. Her jeans had turned into shorts. Her hoodie was entirely gone. At least she didn't have wings.

Unlike previous transformations between the pair, this was less 'idol girl' and more 'tomboy'. Utau folded her arms over her chest, frowning at Iru's—or perhaps their—choice of dress, but refrained from commenting on it for the moment. Instead, she smiled at Midori. That came easier now.

"It's not the only one I've got," she noted. "But yes." She let out a huff, running her hands through her hair to check. What was left of it. The remaining strands of blonde- and maybe red? -sat in a short ponytail, and if things hadn't been what they were she'd have liked to check it in a mirror. Her head felt lighter than normal. All of her felt lighter than normal. The fog—once again—had receded, even the dull ache in her head was nearly gone.

"You're not-" said Amu, her voice pitched higher than usual; she looked a little stunned. "You're not going in there, are you?" she continued, almost accusingly. "Right?"

Utau shrugged, and stretched, feeling her back pop. Iru's presence felt closer than usual. It was strange, being a different person from herself; the ideas that kept appearing in her mind weren't Utau's as such, even the good ones. Iru was always… hah. Nah, it was only right now that she'd call these 'good ones'.

"Nope," she informed her friend—then impishly stepped forward to give Midori a spontaneous hug. Oh, the embarrassment was horrible. Her cheeks were flaming red!

Wasn't gonna stop her.

She paused, staring at the key in her hand as it offered up another flashback. This time she caught sight of herself, at fourteen, waving from the stage with Iru's wings on her back. In the audience were Amu and Yaya; the key drew her attention to them for a fraction of a second—to their smiling faces and happy expressions—before the image vanished into thin air.

-Utau's feelings; Iru's feelings; an amalgamation of them both. Do what she wanted; make everybody happy. Iru's thoughts had never changed. Utau didn't mind this either, if she could just be honest with herself.

"None of us are going in," Utau informed them both, putting the key back into her pocket. "The Dumpty Key is-" She stopped. Reconsidered for a moment. "Well. It's meant to be used with the Humpty Lock. Which we haven't got. What's the point of a key without a lock, Amu-chan?"

Actually, what would happen if they put the two together? Going by what the Lock on its own had already done, what the Key was doing right now, she had a sneaking suspicion—just the tiniest worry—that it might mash the two of them together. That wasn't as scary a thought as it might have been, not when she and Amu had already done that once—and nothing bad had happened from the Dia affair—but, still. Not something she thought they should play with.

She smiled, to show there were no hard feelings.

"If you haven't figured it out yet," she continued in a sing-song voice, "none of us have even the slightest idea what we're doing! None of us know how to save Yui. This isn't- we can't do it!" She swallowed, the weight of that suddenly hitting her again. "There's a monster behind that door, Amu, but I'm not sure that there's a girl. Or a little kid," she amended after a moment's thought, noting Amu's expression going pained. "We need to find help. I'm not saying we should leave, or even stop trying to save her, but- but I think that we need to find someone who can actually help us, you-!"

Bad Iru. Utau mentally rapped herself on the forehead, and chuckled in response.

Amu visibly flinched this time. Utau had to stop herself from reaching out to grab her friend's hand again. There wasn't a whole lot of time. Leaving aside the door—which had never stopped creaking—Amu and Midori's emotions were still equally tumultuous, and neither were terribly happy right now. Moreover, Utau was starting to feel herself strain. The key was doing something, and the confidence from Iru was helping, but it was even getting hard to keep from looking at the visions. Easier than last time, sure; not easy. How did Amu do this so often? Tiring~.

She yawned, then perked up a little, bouncing on her feet.

"You have an idea," Midori said, slowly; her face a little less pale. "Or not an idea, exactly—but you want to try something."

Utau nodded. She cast a glance at the door, then a firmer one at Amu.

"I- yeah." She took a deep breath—only her nerves betrayed her this time; there was no tremble in her voice when she spoke. "I'll call for help. I'm not completely sure who I'll call, but-" A shudder broke through her concentration; the key's desires, impulses, palpable, but not comprehensible. "There's not a lot of options, right?"

Amu closed her eyes. Utau could feel her thoughts spinning furiously, trying to come up with a counter-plan. But there were none; and if there had been, Amu was too exhausted to think of one. So, despite her tough front, was Midori.

So was Utau.

Well, Iru had gotten a decent nap!
Before they could object—before Amu could try and insist that it should be her instead, the silly-brave child—Utau gripped the Dumpty Key and pushed again, this time relinquishing reality.

Once more the world spun around her, blurred in front of her eyes, and Utau felt her heart ache as it felt like it was ripped out of her chest, replaced by something else; a drumbeat. A spiderweb of cracks formed across a stone egg. A spider built a spider-web, catching a planet in the web, and the planet became a billion, billion tiny spiders. A roar of anger and pain and grief, of dragon wings and cat ears and a tail. A song sung in the rain, a girl who didn't trust her parents-

She clamped down on that, with the last dregs of her consciousness.

'Call for help,' they thought as one, no gap left between the two—and her mouth opened up in song.

The sound tore from Utau's throat without conscious thought on her part. It wasn't music as such—there was no beat to it; no rhyme or rhythm at all. It was raw noise, a sound that emanated from her very core, a call that resonated through the fog and made the floor tremble underneath them.

'Help.' She had no idea who could hear it or what they would think of it; even if someone managed to hear the noise, she wouldn't be able to communicate any more clearly than that raw desire. But Iru trusted the world, trusted it because Amu did—trusted it despite herself—and she poured every bit of hope and will into that sound. Somebody would help.

Because this world wasn't such an evil place.

Because there were those who would catch a falling child.

She could see-

Two children. Three different locations.

A young girl in a blue dress, arguing with a young blue-haired man the same age as Ikuto. Ami's dress was torn and stained, her eyes had an exhausted look in them as she shook her head and made a quiet, tearful process that was drowned out by her companion's voice. But she could see the determination in Ami's glowing eyes, and the affection in her companion's.

An older boy whose appearance Utau knew intimately. Hikaru, her cousin, her cute—terrifying—little nephew. He stood in his bedroom, talking urgently into his cellphone while Eru paced nervously on his desk. He also stood in Kana's downstairs halfway, a bewildered look on his ghostly, see-through face as he stared at the stairwell in confusion.

And then all three looked back at Utau, an expression of shock on Hikaru's face, of joy on Ami's.

-or at least, she saw flashes of them, visions of them flickering in her eyes-

-and then Iru reached her limits.

Utau staggered, sagging sideways against the wall with a gasp as she lost her footing and fell—shudders wracking her body as a wave of exhaustion hit her like a freight train—and felt more than saw as Ami tugged on the sleeve of her companion and pointed at Utau as if to say: "See!"

"-'tau!"

Fingers curled around her hand; she recognised Amu's mental signature just in time to realise that she was going to fall over entirely, and was caught by someone warm and familiar.

She had time for a single, exhausted smile of triumph before her eyes slipped shut and everything went dark.

⁂

When she woke up the corridor was gone. It was hard to process what she was seeing at first, because they were in-

She sat up. She had to rub her eyes, and try again, but the view didn't change. They were in a bubble. A soap bubble, encasing a small room—or a cavern?—carved, organic-looking, only partly solid walls that might be limestone, or might be bone, and which were covered in painted murals either way. A ceiling—brick arches—which was held up by floor-to-ceiling stalagmites, though the floor was simply dirt.

A central pillar lit the room with a green flame, unnaturally steady. Utau scanned from side to side, eyes refusing to fully focus. Amu. Midori. A young man. And Ami.

Not quite reality, much as she might have liked it to be, but at least the fog was gone. There was a floor beneath them, walls that were murals instead of crayon, a ceiling above them—of sorts. The place was less broken, less crayon-y and more- more real. Or less. Or maybe it wasn't that the walls weren't crayon anymore, but that they were someone else's crayon, someone who hadn't forgotten what reality felt like.

It felt old. The air felt almost musty.

It wasn't a large bubble. Maybe ten paces across.

Utau took up a third of it.

The pressure was gone. The mist was gone. All that was left was-

"Ami?" croaked Utau, the name sticking in her throat and sounding more like a sob than a question. She swallowed. "Ami?"

The girl standing in front of her gave a squeal of delight and tackled her with a hug, grabbing hold of her so tightly that it almost knocked the air out of her again. But Utau hugged back, gripping Ami just as tightly. Ami. Here. She ought to be worried, except- this wasn't the corridor anymore.

She let Ami hug her, smiling towards Amu with her eyes.

Utau's thoughts sluggishly clicked together, trying to fit together the pieces of this particular puzzle. Over there by the wall, not two metres away sat Amu, staring at her with an expression that was partway between hope and relief; her face an exhausted pallor. Next to her stood her mother. And a young man nearly Ikuto's age-

Iru was gone from her thoughts.

Iru hung across her shoulder, softly snoring. She felt exhausted, yet proud of herself.

"You're okay!" squealed Ami, pulling back a bit but not letting go of Utau's arm, looking down at her with wide, startlingly bright eyes and a cheerful smile on her face that was almost enough to make Utau's heart melt right there. "Utau-neechan..." The little girl rubbed at her eyes with dirty hands—her dress was still torn and stained; the fabric tattered. She sniffled slightly. "I was so scared! You- you went somewhere scary, and I couldn't find you. I got lost. Really, really lost. A troll fished me out of the river. Why are you inside a dream?"

-standard Ami. Hadn't changed. Never change.

"I don't remember how I got into the river," Ami considered. "I think there was a monster."

Ami frowned slightly and scratched at her cheek with one finger, leaving behind a smear of dirt. Her shadow was doing funny things; funny, possessive things, clinging to Utau's leg in a way shadows weren't meant to do. Utau wasn't sure why that stuck out to her, with everything that was happening.

The little girl's frown deepened into a pout. "And then Nao-neechan found me and tried to take me home, and I had to tell her I couldn't leave." She scratched at her cheek again and looked even more confused than before, as if she were trying to remember something. "And I think I heard you crying. Don't cry, 'neechan. Please? I don't want you to cry."

Utau was awake enough to manage a weak laugh.

"I'm not crying," she told Ami, who seemed to accept this statement, but glommed on to Utau regardless. She glanced helplessly at Amu, who shrugged. A tired, "not my problem" sort of shrug.

"But you were lost," Ami insisted after a moment of thought, nodding her head. "This place is... mm. Strange. Really strange!" She arranged herself on Utau's lap. "Nao-neechan says I pulled you out of a shadow castle, except a broken one, and she helped me drag you here. She didn't know what to do next. Can we go home now?"

"I think that's my cue," said the man, stepping forward with an easy smile. Ami turned around on Utau's lap, pouting up at him.

"You didn't even think my sister was real," she accused him, folding her arms across her chest—which just made her look cuter, melting Utau's heart for sure. Was it okay to hang on to Amu and her family?

Maybe it was. A sore sort of feeling. She blinked away some tears, pretending that they weren't there.

"And you kept telling me to go home," Ami said. "Bad Nao-neechan. No kitty for you."

The man-

Utau's mind caught up with her.

The young woman laughed ruefully, it ringing true despite the… barrier? Despite the dense cloak of something keeping Utau from reading her properly.

"I was making poor assumptions, yes," said the newly named 'Nao-neechan'. "Which you've since corrected, as it happens." She looked over at Midori and Amu, then back at Ami. "Do they know who I am?"

"Well-" Ami paused, frowning again. "-no. Kept you a secret," she confessed after a moment of hesitation. "Um. Mom. 'neechan. ...and Utau-neechan," Ami continued a second later, blushing redder than Utau had ever seen her. "This is-"

"Shirogane Naoto," said the girl in question, bowing her head slightly towards Midori—her smile turning sharp at the edges. "Your daughter's teacher. Although since she apparently never bothered to tell you, and no-one ever called me, I was of the impression her 'family' was completely fictional. It's... interesting to meet you in person, Mrs Hinamori."

Midori looked rather taken aback at that. "You're-" she began, frowning. "Ami's teacher?"

"In matters to do with the shadow world, yes," agreed Shirogane, nodding her head. "I've been keeping her from harm, for… personal reasons. Although I certainly wasn't expecting her stories to be real. I have some experience with beings like your daughter, you see." Shirogane frowned, her inner confusion taking the edge off Utau's reaction to that way of describing Ami. "Or, at least, I thought that I did. She appears quite different from Marie-chan."

"...how long was I out?" Utau asked Amu on the side, suddenly dreading the answer.

Amu looked down at her; her eyes were ringed with dark shadows and her skin was a paler shade than usual, but she looked vaguely amused at the question.

"A few seconds," said Amu tiredly. "Long enough for Ami to catch on. Not long enough for me to turn limpet." She smiled faintly. "Hanging on to you worked once already today; I was thinking about repeating it."

Utau considered that for a moment, then grinned and reached out to grab Amu's hand without waiting for any further signal.

"Fine by me," she said, trying to keep the relief out of her voice and failing. "Iru's exhaustion got to me… but I think I'm good. Just tell me if I'm crushing your fingers, okay?"

"Fine by me," Amu echoed back, squeezing her hand tightly.

Shirogane looked mildly amused by the byplay, though there was a touch of sadness in her eyes that Utau didn't have time to guess at the reason for.

"Indeed," said the young woman after a second or so. "Welcome back to an approximation of the land of the living. We should work out how to get you home."

⁂

That was still not acceptable, of course. Amu, Midori and Utau might all have been exhausted, but they weren't exhausted enough to be fine with leaving Yui behind in this- place; whatever this was. Some kind of shadow realm? Shirogane had described it as 'the shadow world', which didn't mean much to Utau—it wasn't like she knew what the woman was talking about—but was probably a clue nonetheless.

Shirogane was also outvoted. Despite being the called-in expert.

"-like I said, it's very unlikely there's that sort of time limit!" protested Shirogane again as Midori shot down the suggestion that they leave straight away; Ami looking somewhat confused at the outburst. "To get back to where you were, from here, you'd need Ami-chan to take you, and-" Shirogane stopped mid-sentence as Ami yawned hugely, raising a hand to cover her mouth and not quite managing to conceal the way she rubbed at her eyes afterward. "And I don't think you want your grade-school daughter doing that."

Ami looked somewhat offended at the words 'grade-school', but didn't object verbally—although Utau could feel her sleepy displeasure well enough. She was nodding off on Utau's lap; Utau kept stroking her hair just to keep her awake a little longer. This was already late in the day for the girl.

"Don't look at me," Utau protested after a moment when Midori's glare turned on her. "I'm not the expert."

Midori turned it on Shirogane instead.

"All you've managed to do so far is confirm that the girl will die if we can't rescue her in time," she snapped. "'I don't think' is not good enough. That child is-" she stopped herself with visible effort, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to calm down. "Shirogane-san. If I had a choice, I would never let my daughter or her friend set foot in a place like this ever again—let alone this 'broken castle' of yours. But no-one deserves what I saw. Amu is determined, and right now all I care about is getting Amu and Yui both back safely."

She took a step forward until she was almost nose-to-nose with Shirogane, who tilted her head slightly but otherwise didn't move a muscle.

"Tell me honestly," Midori continued, her voice shaking. "If you are who you say you are. What are the chances we can rescue the girl?"

Shirogane shook her head, her eyes filled with sympathy—a little too much.

"In your case? None," she said. "I've never heard of a shadow acting the way you described, but it isn't something you can fight with your fists, ma'am. Please think it through; you're dead on your feet and so are your daughters-" she grimaced slightly. "-no offence intended."

Amu bowed her head—Utau felt shame and guilt mingled with exhaustion. And Ami-

Utau let her hand lie still on Ami's hair for a second, feeling the girl's breathing slow.

-was asleep on her lap, apparently. How had she gotten here? Was there a second Ami asleep on her bed back in her home? Could you sleep in a dream? Was this really a dream, or was Utau just hoping it was? She felt light-headed enough that it had to be one.

Might be nice.

"And in my case?" Utau challenged. "Could I?" She flexed her fingers, feeling the Dumpty Key's presence like a heartbeat in her pocket—soothing, so long as she didn't think of using it.

Shirogane let out a quiet sigh and stepped back, running her hand through her hair for a second before fixing Utau with an intense stare—evaluating her from top to bottom; judging her on whatever criteria made sense to this girl.

"I have absolutely no idea," Shirogane admitted after a moment, sounding a little grumpy about it. "You've done something strange to your persona—do you even have one?—but I can feel some power in you." She tilted her head slightly. "With my help? I suppose it's possible."

Utau considered that.

Ami was yawning again, her little hand resting on Utau's knee as she snuggled in closer, nearly falling off Utau's lap again. She had to shift to one side to make sure the girl didn't drop.

"I think I can pull us back there," said Amu. "I sort of-" She took a deep breath, frowning; trying to come up with a word that was vaguely fitting. "-could feel where we came from, and how Ami tore us out of it. I think I can get back there. Probably."

"Oh good," Shirogane muttered sarcastically, so low Utau doubted she was meant to hear it.

"Mom," said Amu. "I'm going back in."

Midori pinched the bridge of her nose. "Amu..." she began; sounding exhausted; then stopped for a second and visibly composed herself. "Only if it's safe"

"Is there a single element of this that qualifies as 'safe'?" Utau asked nobody in particular, ruffling Ami's hair again when the girl stirred on her lap—clinging on to Utau with her free arm. Her eyes blinked open briefly and then shut again; Ami letting out a little huffing noise that made Utau's heart melt all over again. Then they opened, and stayed open.

"Or I can take you there," Ami murmured sleepily. "'s easy. ...and scary, but not with everyone together."

She sounded more awake than before.

"Weren't you asleep?"

Ami stuck out her tongue and shook her head.

"Never fell asleep," she insisted. "Just relaxed." She yawned. "'s easy to travel here. The harder part is putting things back together, and I'm bad at that part. But you've gotta, or you make weird rivers."

Shirogane shook her head.

"All right, look," she said. "The way I see it, you have three options. Three sensible options."

= = =

[ ] Go home
- Naoto's preference. Get someone else to deal with this. Someone who knows what they're doing, like her Senpai. Amu would be asked to come, but wouldn't be doing the fighting—if there is any.
- Plus: Definitely safe to this group, and Yui will be rescued if that is an option.
- Minus: This is by no means an instant fix, and they may not even be able to help her. There might also be a time limit.

[ ] Force a normal shadow fight
- Plus: A similar outcome to the above is likely, albeit without time issues. Naoto would guide you through the laboratory, taking point as someone with some idea of what she's doing. Unlike the four civilians.
- Minus: You'd be going into this either with Ami, or without Amu, as someone needs to take her home. "Without Naoto" is also an option, but seems dubious. Also everyone's exhausted. And you don't get to meet Senpai.

[ ] Tear the place open… deliberately
- Plus: Between Amu and Ami, with some guidance, they can tear a hole straight to the centre of this place. Roll Dreamwalking + Occult + Manipulation, Difficulty 3. (6 dice; Ami gets to be the assistant)
- - If this fails, you'll still land closer than where you were. Probably.
- Minus: Amu might be fairly useless afterwards, unless you roll well. Ami remains a liability.

= = =

"-and I'm including the last one under duress."

= = =

[ ] Write-in
- Plus: Questors can have excellent ideas.
- Minus: Questors can have terrible ideas.

 

[Baughn]

Interlude: Hinamori Ami's Grand Adventure

One hour earlier.

Describing Ami's world to someone who couldn't mind-read would be like describing sight to the blind. Thoughts and feelings were a complex mix of colours, shapes and sounds—a tumult of images and impressions and sensory stimuli that was more than she could put in words; a mesh of family and friendship that wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

When she thought hard, or remembered something vividly, her own feelings echoed through the air like a physical force; a gentle light or an invisible touch or a wave of darkness or water washing over everyone nearby—a reflection of Ami's moods given shape and substance. Of Misaki's thoughts, of Namami's dreams… there was no-one in her grade who didn't at least recognise it when it happened.

She didn't try to hide her inner self, any more than a regular girl would have tried to hide the colour of her eyes; to do so would have been instantly suspicious, it would have made her friends think she was hurt, and besides: hiding your innermost self was wrong. It was lying. And lying was bad.

She didn't know who she got that last bit from; it could have been anyone in her classroom. Ami's daily life was a stream of pleasant experiences and friendly faces, a continuous flow of emotion and company that buoyed her up whenever she needed help—which wasn't often; Ami was usually the helper—and had kept her from sinking into darker places after she'd crunched down on demon minds and hurt them on purpose.

Even her moments of frustration or anger weren't unpleasant as such—not now that she was old enough to understand them for what they were, and had friends who could help her out when she did. Loneliness was the worst. Which was why she loved her family so much. They never left her alone. There were some girls in her class—and one or two boys—who didn't have such wonderful families, and talking to them were the times Ami felt saddest.

It wasn't fair at all! She felt for them; feeling their hurt like knives cutting into her head, she couldn't help but understand. Everyone in her class did. That was why they went out of their way to be friends with them, making sure they knew that they had people who cared about them—or, at least, they tried their best.

They really did try their best.

So-

"Dad, is Miki-neechan going to be okay?" Ami asked worriedly, tugging at his sleeve with her left hand; with her right she'd taken Miki's hand and held on tight, squeezing her sister's fingers tightly to reassure her—though Ami couldn't tell if it helped much. Miki-neechan felt distant. Not quite asleep, *definitely* not awake. Not drowsing, so much as... in many many pieces? Too busy putting the pieces together to talk and smile and laugh.

That wasn't right, but Ami didn't have a better word for it.

"She'll be fine, Ami-chan," Dad replied with a warm smile, pausing his stroking of Miki's hair to reach down and pat Ami on the head instead—her hand on his arm making the movement awkward. "Your big sister just needs a bit of time to rest, and she'll be okay."

That wasn't even a lie. Ami could see. Dad said the words, but the rest of his mind was saying he didn't know. Ami would have felt a lot better if he'd been truthful with her, but he didn't want to scare her. Sometimes grownups could be infuriating. But-

Ami decided to trust him.

"Okay!" she declared, smiling up at him brightly. "Make sure Miki-neechan's comfortable, Dad!"

Dad smiled and gave her head another pat. Ami decided to lean closer and give Miki a hug. She couldn't actually remember a time when Miki hadn't been part of her family, though- um- for a while she'd maybe treated her like a moving, talking doll? But that had been before Ami had really been able to see people. When she'd still been a baby, basically.

Amu and Mom had left the house, leaving Ami alone with Dad as well as Miki-neechan, though Miki-neechan was asleep on the couch and Ami was bored, which wasn't what she'd expected. Miki-neechan had gotten big, today shouldn't have been boring. She was a dream all blown up like a balloon and Ami could feel Miki's mind straining under the weight of it all—why she was a lump of potatoes on the sofa.

Ami wasn't scared, 'cause Miki-neechan was super duper strong, but it worried... worried... in her innermost self it made her all upset and scared, in the same way a lot of things were making her inside self all upset and scared lately. She wasn't really sure how to describe it, other than that there were bad feelings in her head, and she didn't like them, and she wanted them to go away. But Micchan had said not to do that, that it wasn't smart, and Ami was a smart girl. So Ami wouldn't do that.

Besides, being honest sometimes made her eyes all glowy.

Which was neat.

Ami turned on the sofa, planting her knees on it and leaning forward; Miki was lying on her back with her head on Dad's lap and her legs against the armrest; she looked like she'd just collapsed onto the sofa—which was probably because she had—but Ami decided that wasn't her problem. Miki-neechan felt fine as such.

If Ami had had the words for it...

Miki-neechan had been like the things Ami made in her mind, that were all outside and no inside, and now she was making an inside. Ami was scared for her, because Miki acted like one of the boys in the Star class that had thought he was useless, that because he wasn't good at school or at sports or at anything important he wasn't worth anything. She felt like he'd felt, and that wasn't true! It was an awful feeling. Ami and Micchan and Natsumi and Kyouko and Ayano and even Shira-kun had had a long talk about that sort of thing with him, and it had made him feel better. So Ami was going to make Miki-neechan feel better, and she'd get Mom and Dad and Amu and Utau-neechan to help.

Her older sister's eyes were closed, her face looked soft and kind and gentle. Dad's fingers gently brushed through Miki's hair. Ami pressed her hand to her sister's forehead.

Warm.

But this was boring.

"Dad," she asked. "Can I call Micchan?"

Dad smiled at her again, just as warmly as before—he loved her. He really really did. Ami could feel it from him. She couldn't always understand everything her dad felt—or her mom, or her sisters, or even herself—but she knew about that one. Love was easy. It was warmth and happiness and a lot of other things all rolled up into one nice big ball. When people loved each other the right way, it was always just about the same. It was only if they got it wrong that things got difficult.

Or if they meant it in an adult way, like Mom and Dad often did.

Ami had determined to not ever think about that one.

"Of course you can, Ami-chan," Dad said, smiling at her and not looking or feeling even a little bit surprised. "But use the house phone. Mom will hopefully be calling me soon."

He felt a bit worried about Mom, and about Amu and Utau too. Ami tried to send him reassurance—her feelings were too muddled to do much, but maybe it would help a little! Although it was hard, since Mom and Dad had told her not to touch their minds and she couldn't do it the right way, so she just had to pretend she did. And then Dad smiled again and kissed her on the forehead; so maybe she'd done it right after all.

Ami slid off the sofa and ran to the phone in the kitchen; grabbing the receiver and calling the number she knew by heart. It rang for a few seconds before someone picked up.

"It's Ami," she announced brightly to the person on the other side. "Is Micchan there?"

She heard the person on the other end of the line sigh and hold the phone away from their mouth as they yelled; Ami waited patiently until they finished yelling—she could still hear it through the phone; just not very well—and brought the receiver back up to their mouth.

"She's exploring," Makoto told Ami. "Sorry kiddo, Micchan's not at home." Ami could hear a slight tone of worry in her voice, which was no surprise. It was late. Micchan wasn't usually out this late. Ami felt the same sort of worry as Makoto did, though the source was different.

"Oh," said Ami sadly. "Okay." She sighed. "Can you ask her to call me later?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"Sure," said Makoto after a second or so, sounding as though she was torn between making a joke and asking a serious question. "Ami, do you know if Misaki-chan had any plans for today? Did she tell you anything?"

"Hmmmm," Ami frowned at the wall thoughtfully for a second; not that Makoto could see her do so. "Micchan was sad earlier 'cause she'd broken a plate," she said after a moment's thought. "She didn't say anything else. She doesn't have secrets." She paused, reconsidered. "Not unless she thinks I need to grow up before I find out."

Makoto sounded amused at that.

"I'll let her know," she said after a moment. "Thank you, Ami-chan. I'm sure she'll show up before dinner."

Ami nodded. That was usually true.

"Thank you!" she chirped after a moment. "Goodbye, Makoto-neechan!"

She put the phone down with a click—it was so nice being tall enough to reach the phone properly. Then she sighed again and headed back into the living room; climbing back on the sofa and poking at Miki's face a few times. She didn't stir—or even react. Ami sat down on her knees and poked at her sister again anyway; she might have been sleeping, but she still ought to have reacted.

Miki wasn't actually asleep at all!

It was so frustrating. She was tired, but she wasn't asleep; she wasn't awake, but she wasn't asleep; Ami had lots of things she wanted to tell Miki-neechan and now she had to wait. Ugh. Waiting was boring!

Ami sighed again and flopped down next to Dad, resting her head against her sister's shoulder.

Dad smiled at her yet again, though this time he had a question. Ami could feel it inside him. It was kind of hard to put it into words; Dad loved both her and Miki, and he wanted them both to be happy—but Miki was new, and Dad didn't understand how she could exist, or what he should do. That sort of silly question. Ami stuck out her tongue at him.

"Ami?" said Dad after a second or so. Clearly he wasn't going to ask her.

"Did Mom call?" Ami said instead, because she'd heard Dad's phone go off from the kitchen. Hadn't been important at the time.

Dad nodded. "She's okay," he replied; his attention distracted. He was thinking about Amu and Utau and Miki and Mom, not about Ami. That was fine. "-though the place they're at sounds strange," he continued, sounding puzzled and worried again. "Well, I'm sure they'll be fine. Your mother can handle almost anything."

Ami nodded in agreement, though that was a lie. Mom couldn't have handled the demons that had attacked her school. Though wait, 'almost'. Maybe it wasn't a lie.

Dad kept stroking Miki's hair with one hand, and reached over to pat Ami's head with the other, which made her wriggle happily and squirm into a more comfortable position—she wanted to cuddle with Miki-neechan but couldn't, because Miki-neechan wouldn't notice her even if she was standing on her head. Cuddling without Miki-neechan was no good! She couldn't pretend, because Miki-neechan's mind was still sort of on standby.

Ami spent a few more minutes poking her sister—and Miki didn't even move!—before growing bored and deciding to sleep. Miki's mind was weird but it was still sort of comfy, and if she couldn't hug her sister she could at least sleep with her, and her dad could move her to her bed later. And if Miki woke up, she'd know Ami loved her. That was important too. She wished she knew where Micchan had gone.

-which was how Ami wound up standing inside a mechanical city, wearing her favourite dress and blinking owlishly as she looked around in confusion. Everything was made of gears and pipes; there were buildings of brass and pipes, and they all linked together with large tubes running above her head, most of which were full of steam or mist or fog.

⁂

The city stretched off into the distance in every direction she looked. There were some huge towers in the distance, but other than that... fog. For the most part the city looked normal-ish; like a movie version of Victorian London if half of it had been replaced with metal buildings instead of wooden ones, then wrapped it onto the inside of a sphere. The fog though, that was scary. She'd seen fog in her dreams a few times before, and it was usually a sign that something was wrong. Someone was in trouble, or soon would be.

But where on earth was she?



"Acchan you idiot," she groused at her waking self. "This is all your fault."

There wasn't an answer, unsurprisingly. Angelic little idiot.

Ami grumbled in annoyance and checked her surroundings. There was a lot of noise. Distant machinery produced distant thuds, and the fog was so thick she couldn't see what it was coming from; though at least there were a few street-lamps—they looked like gas lamps—which illuminated a little of the fog.

When Ami had fallen asleep she'd been worried about Miki-chan, mostly, which meant—and yeah, the fog was rather indicative—that she had probably plopped her mirror-self down in the darker parts of the dream. Which was extremely inconvenient. The dreamworld was supposed to be the space between spaces; you could travel quickly from anywhere to anywhere- but here, in the fog? Yeah, no, not happening. She had no idea where she was, so getting home was... problematic at best.

Wait.

She stared at the city and went over Ami-chan's conversation with Mako-neechan in her head. Micchan was lost. Maybe. Which meant her other half had gone to sleep not just worried, but thinking about Micchan specifically being lost, which was her own fault for not taking the time to calm down, and-

-and she was totally, utterly, one hundred percent lost now wasn't she? She wasn't just somewhere she'd never seen before, she was deep in the concept of 'lost', not somewhere you could usually get home from! It figured, didn't it? Ugh. She was feeling ticked off just from the thought.

Her first instinct was to yell and stamp her feet in annoyance. Or maybe hit something with her sword, except she hadn't brought it along this time. All around her the buildings were cast in shadow, and through the windows she could see glimpses of people moving about—vague outlines of bodies in suits and dresses; black on grey on white on brown. There were a few shadows moving around, which was actually reassuring—not that she was planning to go out of her way to talk to anyone; she wasn't dressed for the occasion—but a lot of places like this didn't have any shadows at all.

Oy. Wake up!

She resisted the urge to kick herself in the shins; it would just annoy Ami, who'd probably start her "we're totes the same person even if I'm gonna pretend otherwise for Mom and Dad and literally everyone I meet" spiel. It would have been cute when they were six, but not anymore! They were seven now. Not a baby!

Ugh.

"Munya..."

Munya? Seriously?

"Wake up wake up wake up!" she chanted in an annoyed whisper, bending over and stomping her feet on the pavement. "You've stuck your foot in it, 'sis'. You've gotten us into a bind. And I've got to rescue you. Even though I really don't want to, you dolt!"

Then she stared into a puddle on the ground, where her reflection was yawning.

"Akkun?" said Ami's reflection with a yawn, looking confused and bleary-eyed. "I wasn't trying to wake you up. Wait, where are we?" Her pure blue eyes widened as she looked around in alarm and surprise. "What's going on?"

"Nothing much, you've just gotten us lost," said Ami-kun to Ami-chan. "Again. You have got to stop doing this."

Ami-chan looked around at her surroundings, pressing her hands to the edges of the puddle. "Uh..."

"You're me," said Ami in exasperation, leaning down towards the puddle—she couldn't actually touch it; that would be wet, and bad—and staring into her reflection's eyes. "So don't 'uh' me. How'd we end up in the dream if you weren't trying to?"

"We weren't?" replied Ami-chan, with a frown. She rubbed at her eyes and looked around again, finally paying attention this time. "Wow. Um..." She poked the surface of the puddle and leaned in closer. "You weren't trying to get out again, right?"

"Of course I wasn't trying to get out again!" snapped Ami-kun, rolling her eyes. "If I'd been trying to get out I'd have done it already!" She paused and took a deep breath, reining in her temper. "Though I will, once we figure out how Miki did it. Wherever she is."

Ami-chan nodded—unsurprisingly, since they were the same person—and pulled a face. "She's asleep," she said after a moment's thought, wincing as though a headache was forming. "But she isn't here. I think it's like... like when I get tired from having a cold, and can't be bothered to think. Miki's like that right now, so she isn't dreaming."

"So we can't help her," Ami-kun agreed with a grimace, shaking her head and deciding not to start an argument about how 'not thinking' was one of Ami-chan's greatest strengths. "Wonderful. We can't get her to talk to us and we can't wake her up—so much for that plan." She scowled. "So you've gotten us lost, and there's not even a point to it."

"We could go find Amu?" suggested Ami-chan in that obnoxiously helpful tone of voice. "Or we could go explore this place while we're here? We've never been anywhere like it before." She paused. "Which is why it's not my fault."

"Oh don't even-" Ami-kun began in an exasperated tone of voice; then shook her head again. "Argh. Whatever." She glared at her reflection for a moment, who shrugged awkwardly without saying anything.

At least 'Ami-chan' had stopped complaining when she snarked at her. They both knew well enough why they were arguing, and neither of them liked to say it out loud anymore. 'Ami-chan' had those impulses too, after all. Even if she preferred to shove them on her instead.

Nothing good had ever come from that argument.

"Let's go find Mom and Amu," said Ami-kun finally, letting out a sigh and pulling back. "If nothing else it'll give us something to do."

"Okay," agreed Ami-chan, nodding her head in agreement. "Take the lead, sis."

'Ami-chan' did realise they would figure out that something was up, didn't she? Oh well. Wasn't her problem.

'Take the lead.' Pushing responsibility onto others, as normal.

Wasn't a habit of Ami's. Even when it should be.

And like she had any choice in the matter! Ami grumbled and nodded, pulling back and looking around again. Alleys and streets and fog; from above everything was probably made of fog, and none of the lights seemed to be doing anything to disperse it—their warm glow just made it look white and not grey; sort of like snow.

Snow. Snow wasn't where she wanted to go, but snow was clean. Snow wasn't dirty—except for dog pee—and didn't have shadows in it, or fog in it. She could make it to a snow slope. It was tempting, but she wanted Mom and Amu and Utau more; and this fog made it hard to think when she focused on it. If she tried that, she'd land in a weird river instead.

The alleys, then. Alleys were scary. They were dark and dim and full of monsters and stuff, but there'd be shadows there—there always were shadows in alleys—and she could use the shadows, the blankness, to get herself someplace else; somewhere where there wasn't so much fog. Or she could use the monster-ness. There could be trolls in alleys, couldn't there? In the shadows, or Shadows.

"Hey, wait a second," said Ami-chan, her tone urgent enough to bring her out of snark-monster mode. "Do you hear that?"

Ami stopped moving for a second and tilted her head sideways; frowning and straining her ears. There was a bit of noise in the distance—whistling and banging and the clattering of wheels and the screeching of... whatever the noise was coming from. She listened to it for just a few seconds before deciding she'd rather not be where that noise was; even if there was something interesting behind it.

"Monsters," she decided, and jumped into a nearby alley at a run—slamming into the ground in a roll and skidding through the fog that covered the cobblestones, abandoning her role as she went. The lost girl in the city stayed in the city, but Ami wasn't lost, not really; she knew exactly where she was going, even if she didn't know where she was or how to get there.

-her eyes glowed intensely golden, her body wrapped itself in the shadows of the alleyway, and a second later they were gone.

A little later a gremlin wandering past the alleyway noticed that one of the puddles had a hole in it.

"...must be leaking," it decided after a second or two of contemplation, and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

 

[Baughn]

Scheduled vote count started by Baughn on Mar 6, 2024 at 4:50 PM, finished with 208 posts and 6 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] Plan - Meikyuu Butterfly: Convince the 'shadow castle' to shift the room with the physical Yui right in front of the door. Joint action between Utau and Amu.
  -[X] Main Actor - Utau: The same skill, once used for the nefarious deed of blackening the hearts of children, perhaps now may serve a more noble purpose. Empowered by the Dumpty Key, hand-in-hand with Amu, reach out and connect to the 'mind' within the fog. Like a butterfly wandering a labyrinth, you feel your way towards the darkened depths of Yui's suffering and beckon to it, singing out your earnest desire to step across and share in her pain: "Open your shiny eyes in the silent night..."
  --[X] Use Lightsmithing to seek out the mind behind the fog and guide your beckoning.
  -[X] Sub Actor - Amu: Utau has not met Yui or felt the 'mind' of the 'shadow castle'. You have. Share your experiences with Utau to describe how you did it and what it felt like, in order to help her do the same. When Utau beckons, add your own emotional voice to the choir of Utau's melody, sending out the whispers of the respite you promise to bring: "I continue writing out the pages of my story, even while I'm blinded by the fog of destiny, I'll be breaking through the clouded skies toward tomorrow's distant light, high up in flight..."
  --[X] Provide free pre-concert refreshments for everyone with Su's Happy Fun Cooking Time.
  -[X] Send Ami and Midori back to rendezvous with Hikaru and update Tsumugu. Tell them to try and make sure Hikaru doesn't panic and do anything rash.

  • PistachioCookies
  • Quine
  • Skelm

  1 people have voted

  [X] Tear the place open… deliberately

  • Simon. Andersen

  1 people have voted

  [x] Go home

  • NHO

  1 people have voted

  [X] Plan - Meikyuu Butterfly

  • quantum lurker

 

[Baughn]

"Ma'am, please calm down," Shirogane repeated, not for the first time. Midori had been pacing up and down the cave for five minutes now, taking short breaths and fiddling with the sleeves of her cardigan with nervous hands. She was used to stressful situations, Utau was sure, but not physical danger. Not to her. Very much not to her children.

Utau-

Utau preferred not to think this way, but she'd also been scared. Both for herself, and for Amu… 'and for aunt Midori,' she thought, the endearment slinking into her inner monologue. Utau wasn't sure she'd ever get used to having adults who cared, but for Amu's sake… she'd try and add another to the list.

Ami was still seated on Utau's lap. Amu leaned against the wall a few steps away, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes shut. Though calling it a 'wall' might have been a little inaccurate. It was almost a natural rock formation, despite the brick lines that had been—carved? Was that likely, in a dream?—that had been carved into it.

A faint luminescence had settled into the murals, though the main light source was still the green flame on the central pillar. Utau felt her skin crawl as she watched the stick figures on the murals moving slowly across the wall; her gaze was caught by a two-dimensional firefly crawling across an illustration of a night-time forest.

Her eyes moved back to Amu's mom. That was safer.

Sort of.

By mental contamination standards. Midori's glare could have melted steel.

"Shirogane-san," she growled—the name had somehow turned into a curse—before taking a deep breath. Again. "I am entirely calm," Midori lied once she had gathered herself again. "Calmer than I probably should be." She grimaced slightly. "Even though I want to scream at someone."

Utau tried to not think too hard about how true that statement was. Midori's emotions were becoming increasingly irate with every passing second, and that was putting an extra bit of strain on Utau's attempts to keep a lid on her own. If she didn't, then Amu would feel them. And-

She wasn't sure why that felt so wrong. Just that she didn't want her to notice she was scared.

Maybe she should focus on the conversation.

"Mom-" Amu began.

"I know," Midori cut her off, holding up a hand to forestall Amu's next words. "I know," she repeated. "I'm just- frustrated. That's all." She paused for a moment, thinking. "And I'd feel a lot better if Ami-chan was somewhere safe."

"I think we all would," Shirogane agreed.

Ami-chan looked up from her seat on Utau's lap, opening her mouth to speak and then hesitating—suddenly unsure.

That nearly set Midori off again, but after a moment she sighed and slumped down—only half-faking it. "I'll admit," she said wryly, "this is not how I expected today to go."

Shirogane laughed. "On the other hand, your daughter's family is real. She's spent hours talking you up, Mrs Hinamori," she said gently. "She thinks you're an amazing mother. No matter what else happens, you can take pride in that."

Midori's smile was weak but genuine—even if Utau could still feel her aggravation underneath the warmth.

"You said we have three choices?" she asked after a moment or so.

Shirogane nodded—gently extracting herself from Midori's stare and sitting down on a nearby rock, one of the many that littered the cave. She winced as her bottom touched the cold stone, but didn't otherwise react.

"That's right," she said. "Three choices that make any sort of sense. Explaining the full depth of the situation would take rather longer than I'd like—and besides, I don't understand a lot of this myself. However, there's some elements you must understand. One of them is that there's very little time pressure."

She held up a hand, forestalling Midori's questions.

"That isn't the same as there being no time pressure at all," Shirogane clarified. "Nor that this situation is pleasant, but you need—need—to understand the basics of Shadows. They are—fundamentally, and this is based on encountering half a dozen of them—they represent the parts of yourself that you reject.

"If there's any aspect of yourself that you dislike, and don't ever want others to see, then this place can draw them out. They become a form of mental entity, with distinct desires and a separate body, and those who were trapped here were eventually drawn into..." Shirogane's cheeks turned faintly red. "Debate, let's say, though that might be understating the degree of vitriol. If the 'shadow-castle' your daughter pulled you out of was that of a young girl, then she must have had an astounding number of negative feelings building up inside her."

"Like me," Utau muttered quietly, almost unconsciously—Amu's hand sneaking down to squeeze hers tight. The others didn't seem to hear, but Ami also gave her arm a gentle squeeze—even though she'd been asleep a moment earlier, or at least... 'playing' asleep? Her eyes had been closed, but her mind was buzzing.

"However," Shirogane said. "Those are still feelings and desires you don't wish to show others. If someone else walks in on that, then- I think you can imagine what would happen, if someone else saw everything you dislike about yourself. Every single time it's happened, in my understanding, it causes the person to violently reject those feelings. Which causes the shadow to go berserk, usually attempting to kill everyone there." Shirogane took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. "So it's important that we don't rush ahead, Mrs Hinamori, because it's only once we enter that the clock starts ticking."

She let that sink in for a moment before continuing.

"If we walk away now, the shadow won't chase us," Shirogane said. "Even if there's still danger to... Yui-chan, was it?"

Amu nodded.

"She's eight," Amu said, a little plaintively.

Shirogane winced. "I-"

"At most."

"-That's exactly why we can't rush in," Shirogane said. "I understand your feelings, but…" She sighed, simultaneously looking older and younger than her years. "That just makes it more important that we're careful. It won't act unless we intrude… however, that only applies in the short term. Eventually..." she paused again; marshalling her thoughts. "We were too late, once, and another child was hospitalised. We rescued her, but… badly. I'm still searching for a way to heal her. Other times being late leads to death; I don't know for sure if they were killed by the shadow in question." Shirogane paused. "Sometimes, I wonder."

There was silence after that proclamation, though Ami shifted restlessly on Utau's lap; thinking intensely, her emotions a mess of complicated emotions that Utau couldn't begin to make sense of.

"Thank you for explaining, Shirogane-san," Midori said after a moment or so; bowing politely in Shirogane's direction—clearly rattled, though she was hiding it well. "But I fail to see the options you're offering."

Shirogane smiled weakly. "Two of them are obvious," she said. "Option one: we go home, call in the cavalry. My senpai-" Shirogane blushed a little harder. "Ahem. I know someone who is more experienced than I am in such matters. But it would take a day, which would be a risk to Yui-chan. I can see you're already rejecting it."

Midori nodded grimly. She didn't look happy about it.

"The second option is that we provoke the shadow. Every time a scenario like this has had a happy ending, it came from the person in question accepting their dark side, but that acceptance only comes after a fight. In some form, at least," Shirogane added quietly, looking directly at Ami. Ami paid careful attention to her words. "A fight of words, at the least. More likely a fight of blades. Most often both."

Shirogane tilted her head at Midori and Amu, and then at Utau.

"It would be up to us to keep it from killing the girl until she can accept it," she explained. "Which is..."

"Something of a leap," Midori admitted, with a frown. "How sure are you that this will work?"

"Sure enough to be risking my life," Shirogane replied after a moment or so. "It's never failed us in the past. Except once, and that boy was-" She grimaced. "I doubt we'll see a repeat. However, we'd need to first make our way through the castle. It's a labyrinth, and as you've seen, not the type you can map."

"And you don't know what to expect inside," Utau interjected. "You've fought these things before, but you don't know if we can handle it. And you can't do it on your own."

"Naturally," said Shirogane, nodding sharply. "I don't know the girl at all. The only ones here who can bring her to her senses are the three of you."

Which meant Amu-chan, Utau mentally amended. The only one of them who'd met her. And she couldn't tell what Shirogane-san was feeling at all, Utau noted. At first she'd thought she was just that emotionally bland, but even now… nothing. She could barely feel she was there.

"And the third option?" Midori pressed.

Shirogane hesitated, tugging the brim of her cap straight.

"The third option is that we break a path directly to its core," she explained. "It would be safer for us, though perhaps not to Yui-chan. And we would need Ami-chan to do it. I can help point her at the core, but-" She took a deep breath. "It's a shot in the dark. It would most likely tire her out, so she couldn't help us escape, and she'd be trapped with the rest of us deep within the castle." Shirogane sighed. "Honestly, ma'am, if we do that there's every chance that we'll be worse off than otherwise. The only option I can recommend is the first."

She scowled.

"Not that I believe you're going to listen to me," Shirogane added grumpily. "The fire in your eyes is quite familiar."

Midori raised an eyebrow.

"I can't ask you to jump into danger with me," she told Shirogane. "But-"

"I'm in," Amu said without hesitation. Ami's grip on Utau's arm tightened once again.

"If you're going then I am too," Utau added quickly, nodding her head firmly in agreement—then poking Ami's head with her free hand. Just touching her, to show she was there. "Option two, right? We can't take Ami-chan into the castle."

Ami stuck out her tongue and peeled open an eye.

"You can't keep me out if I don't want to be kept out," she told Utau. "I'm not little anymore! Besides, I can take you there safe and sound. Is that okay Mom?"

Midori looked and felt like she'd just swallowed something sharp—a lump in her throat, an awful truth—but shook her head anyway. "Only if you want to be grounded," she informed Ami firmly. "You're going home, young lady."

Ami made a face, but didn't complain any further—she got up off Utau's lap and thought a little; and then after a moment of staring at her hands, her eyes lit up.

"Sure, Mom," she said. "Can you give me money for the bus?"

Midori sighed and patted down her pockets, digging out some spare change to hand to her daughter. Ami accepted it gratefully, giving her mom a big hug that put a brief smile on Midori's face—and then dashed over to Amu. The next few moments featured a brief, quiet conversation and an exchange of... items?

Utau wasn't sure what they were, but whatever it was made Amu's eyes light up, and she ruffled Ami's hair affectionately—which made the girl wrinkle her nose and bat at her sister's hands ineffectually.

"How do we do this?" asked Midori as Amu and Ami stepped apart; the older girl clutching... whatever it was Ami had given her closely to her chest.

"In principle it's easy," Shirogane replied. "Ami-chan can take us back to the entrance of the labyrinth. Right, Ami-chan?"

The girl nodded rapidly, and Utau felt a swell of pride and happiness from Ami-chan as she stood up tall and proud, grinning widely.

"Yup!" she agreed brightly.

"After which she'll leave, and the rest of us fight our way through the labyrinth. It should be fairly safe if I do most of the fighting, but I have to warn you might see some things you'd rather not. These places are nightmares at the best of times." Shirogane shook her head. "It should take less than an hour."

"And then what?" Midori pressed.

"Then we rescue the girl, and if everything goes well you'll have an extra guest for dinner. If not, we'll have a grave to visit."

Midori's expression didn't change.

"Now is the time to back out," Shirogane continued, her tone switching into something sterner. "I wouldn't offer to help if I didn't think it would work, but there's always risk. This isn't like playing at heroes. Someone could die." She looked at each of them in turn. "If you want to try the safe way, Mrs Hinamori and family, I won't think any less of you for it."

There was a silence after that proclamation; one which stretched on for several seconds; punctuated by Utau's heart pounding in her chest as she wondered whether Midori would fold or not. Would her friend's mom decide that getting all three of them involved was too dangerous?

And then Amu spoke up.

"Um," she said softly. "Can we eat first? I'm really hungry."

Midori blinked. Ami started giggling and Shirogane gave an amused chuckle, breaking the tension almost at once. Amu had gone faintly red.

"We didn't bring any food," Midori informed her daughter dryly. "Actually... what time is it?"

Amu checked her clock, squinting slightly as she did so—it had taken a beating at some point or other, the glass on its face was cracked—and scowled unhappily. "Six thirty?" she said, uncertainly. "It's only been fifteen minutes..? How?"

Shirogane smiled gently at that.

"Time slows down when you're stressed," she explained, pulling out a half-full packet of biscuits and offering them to Amu, which were promptly accepted with a mumbled 'thank you'. "Doubly so in dreamworlds. I think that's an effect of this place, but I've never been sure."

Amu chewed down two biscuits in rapid succession, while Utau tried to catch a thought. Something about the way this place bent around them. Ami-chan... she spent a lot of time playing in dreams, Utau knew that for sure, but she'd never been quite sure if that was real or not.

Well, apparently it was not just real, but also Ami had spent enough time here that she could wrap the place around her. How did that work, precisely? Did she just tell it what to do, or...?

Utau experimentally shoved her current sense of worry at the wall murals, watching them shift and reform as they reacted to her desires. It was a bit like shaping clay, though she'd never actually done anything like that. The stick figures grew agitated, collecting around campfires and... were those buildings? Hard to tell without any perspective to go off of.

Ami giggled slightly as Utau experimented with her powers—she seemed to like watching people messing around.

A slight sensation of hollowness drew her eyes back to Amu, who was staring down at the empty packet in dismay; looking just a little bit less hungry than before. Utau giggled a little herself at the sight, earning an indignant look.

'-Amu,' she said privately after a moment or so. 'Hey Amu?'

'-Yeah?' said Amu-chan, sounding confused at Utau's cheerful mood.

'Why don't you simply make us some food?' she said, pushing an image of Su towards Amu. 'I know you can.'

Amu paused for a second, and then her cheeks flushed as she understood what Utau meant. Ami perked up.

'I didn't think...' she said. 'I mean, it's not like...'

She didn't finish either sentence, which was good because Utau already knew what her friend's reservations were, and how utterly wrong they were.

'-You're already doing it, aren't you?'

'Well, I'm hungry!' Amu replied defensively. A moment later the shadows shifted and changed, and a bowl of ramen—including chopsticks and a lid—appeared in her hands; steaming hot and smelling delicious.

'And I didn't want to eat it here,' Amu complained after a second or so, looking down at her massive meal. 'Because then I won't be hungry for dinner!'

'That's the idea,' Utau replied, snickering a little to herself, before poking Midori in the arm and pointing at her daughter. Midori looked mildly confused at the sudden appearance of a bowl of ramen, and then her confusion melted into bemusement as Amu pulled out four more bowls.

"Food, everyone?" Amu asked brightly, looking a bit embarrassed but determined nonetheless.

"If you're offering." Midori smiled.

Ami grabbed hers with no reservations, and Utau considered her own portion thoughtfully as she reached for it—it was steaming, as though it had just been cooked, but when she took a bite the noodles were perfect; firm but not brittle, just the way she liked it. It might be for the best that Amu didn't do this too often, as otherwise she would definitely get fat. She made appreciative noises as she ate, savouring the taste and the warmth; ignoring the odd looks Midori and Shirogane were giving them both.

Then Midori and Shirogane got their own bowls—Shirogane looking bewildered, but accepting Amu's offer nonetheless—and they settled down for a meal.

It helped.

⁂

"I needed that," Midori admitted afterwards. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mom," Amu replied. The bowls were stacked beneath the pillar, alongside Ami's sketchbook—which had appeared once she was done eating, and was now gathering dust. Her sketch of the five of them was, however, safely ensconced in Midori's breast pocket.

"Alright," Shirogane announced; shoving her bowl underneath Amu's stack and getting to her feet. "Shall we begin?"

"Mom," said Ami-chan suddenly, holding on to her cardigan. "Mom, I want to stay. Can I?"

Midori was silent for a moment, looking down at her youngest daughter. Her gaze was not angry or annoyed; it was mostly sad.

"I think you should go home with her," Utau said.

"You just want me gone!" Ami snapped back. "That's unfair! You don't want me to help!"

Utau made a face. "Did I say that?" she replied in a calm tone of voice. She leaned over and pinched Ami on the cheek. "You're not a hero, Ami-chan," she informed her. "You're just a kid."

Ami huffed, rubbing at her cheek unhappily. "I'm better than a hero!" she retorted. "I can take care of myself."

"I'm sure you can," Midori replied quietly; crouching down to speak eye to eye with her daughter. "But you shouldn't have to."

"Besides, Utau-neechan-"

"-is going to be fine. I will as well. You don't need to worry about us, Ami-chan," Amu said softly, from Ami's other side, placing a hand on her younger sister's shoulder. "Please trust us. We'll come home safe."

"And if you don't trust them, trust me," Iru added, flitting over from her seat on Utau's shoulder. "I'll take good care of Utau."

Ami frowned unhappily, still glaring up at Midori.

"Also I had an idea," Utau said. "Shirogane-san, can I ask you a question? The problem was we need to either fight our way to Yui's shadow, or break a hole to the centre of the labyrinth—right?"

Shirogane nodded.

"But if we draw it to us, that isn't a problem," Utau said. "Everything here reacts to emotions. Like the painting on the walls... Mrs. Hinamori, did you notice the murals?"

Midori blinked, but then nodded slowly.

"And the other fox thing was drawn to Amu for some reason," Utau continued. "So I have a question. What if we go to the entrance, then lure it towards us? I'll amplify Amu's... signal, I guess? I'm not sure if it'll work. But what if we could bait Yui's shadow and bring it straight to us?"

Shirogane went silent for a moment, thinking.

"That might work," she finally admitted, sounding thoughtful. "Or it might not. I take it you're thinking you can trap it once it's there? I doubt that will work; it never has in the past."

Utau shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. If it runs away then we're no worse off, right?"

Shirogane stared at Utau for a long second or so, and then laughed quietly to herself—a genuine chuckle.

"We'd at least learn something new," she agreed. "Though I have some concerns. I've been observing your power, and it seems to warp the world around you, if in a subtler manner than Ami-chan. In combination with Amu-chan's powers, and the Shadow... no. I have no confidence in keeping Mrs. Hinamori safe." She paused. "Or Ami-chan."

Midori frowned. "But Amu and Utau-chan would be fine, is that what you're saying?"

Shirogane shrugged. "Probably," she admitted. "My concern is for the worst case scenario."

Midori let out a quiet sigh and nodded slowly, closing her eyes for a moment as she thought.

"Mom." Amu spoke up; her voice uncertain. "I think you should take Ami home. I know you're scared. I... I'm scared too, Mom. But I also-" Amu paused; swallowing hard. "I've been to scarier places than this. Utau and me, we both have. If worst comes to worst..."

There was a loud crack, and then a chunk of the solid stone they'd been sitting on broke free, rising up to hover in front of Amu—its edges sharp and pointed.

"If worst comes to worst," Amu repeated, her voice thick with emotion. "I'll still come home. Please be there when I do."

Midori met her daughter's eyes for a few seconds—trying to speak without words. And then she sighed; defeated.

"Promise?" she asked softly.

Amu smiled brightly in reply, and the stone dropped back to the ground at her feet—the sound of it hitting the ground echoing faintly through the chamber. "Promise."

"I love you," Midori replied simply, pulling Amu into a hug. Amu stiffened for a second or so, then hugged her mom back tight—not caring if they were in front of Shirogane or not.

"Love you too."

They separated after a few moments more; Midori blinking rapidly to stop the tears that had formed in her eyes.

"And Ami-chan," Amu said; her younger sister's ears perking up at being addressed. "It's your job to get Mom safely home, okay?"

Ami scowled and folded her arms across her chest; sulking silently—but didn't protest, which meant she agreed, on some level at least.

"Let's go," Shirogane said. "No point in delaying the inevitable." She glanced down at Ami, who was pouting sulkily up at her older sister. "Ami-chan, are you ready?"

"No," Ami admitted after a moment, letting out a quiet sigh and hanging her head. "No. But..." She sniffed once and gave Amu a hug. "You'll be fine," she said. "That's an order, okay?"

Midori chuckled slightly at that. "I'm sure they will," she agreed, giving Ami a reassuring pat on the back. "Okay, Ami-chan."

Ami let out another sigh—then, with a twitch of her nose and a shudder of her body, the shadows grew thicker around them and the wall of the cave buckled—forcing Amu, Utau and Shirogane to back away in surprise.

And then, in less time than it took to blink, it all fell away to reveal the red door—and beyond it, the foggy labyrinth that stretched off into infinity.

Midori stumbled back in shock, catching her balance on a rock. Amu just blinked.

"Neat," she said finally. "I-"

Ami's grin was bright and mischievous. "I thought I'd try to make a path. Um... this is kinda hard, so you guys have to hurry! It won't last very long."

"We'll be quick," promised Shirogane-san. She stepped out past the door and stared at the fog, squinting slightly—her eyes were very blue in this light, though Utau was pretty sure they weren't contacts. Then she pulled a pair of glasses out of her jacket pocket—why would you have glasses in a dream? Was there a story behind that?

Amu followed Shirogane-san out without hesitation. Utau followed, and then paused—looking back at aunt Midori and Ami-chan and the cave. It was more tempting than she wanted to admit—but Utau shook her head and followed the others. She didn't want to do this any more than Ami-chan did, but-

But Amu was brave enough for all of them put together; so Utau would have to do the same. She wasn't going to let her friend do this on her own.

⁂

"You can follow the ribbon back to the entrance," Amu was saying. "It'll lead straight to the stairwell. Then you walk down it, and you'll be in Kana's home. I, um. I broke the lock when we got there, so..."

"I see," Midori replied gently; folding her arms around her daughter one last time, in a tight embrace. "Well, I'll handle that for you. Get moving, Amu-chan." She stepped back and looked her daughter in the eye. "And come home safe, both of you."

"I'll make sure they do," Shirogane added after a moment, staring at the red 'paint' on the floor. "Nikaidou-san's idea is ingenious. It might work."

"Alright," said Midori, after a moment or so—stepping aside and letting go of her daughter. "Don't keep us waiting, girls."

Amu blushed. "I won't, Mom," she promised.

They watched them go.

"They'll be fine," Iru promised Utau as they walked away, Ami skipping lightly along the ribbon. "I know they will."

She poked the chara lightly with a finger; a faint smile on her lips. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up," Utau replied quietly—though it did help, a little bit at least. "Do you think this will work?"

Iru shrugged. "Dunno," she admitted. "Maybe? Maybe not?"

Utau gave a short fond laugh. "Wish we'd had more time to talk," she said, running a hand through her hair. "Wish I wasn't making this up on the spot, actually. Amu? Do you think it'll work?"

Amu went very quiet at that, and stood still a few seconds before answering.

"I think," she said finally, "we need to try."

Shirogane sighed quietly at that, and bowed her head. "For what it's worth," she said after a moment or two, "I've never seen a shadow do anything like what you described. After this, if you can find the time, I'd like to sit down and interview you about... everything. There are aspects here I don't understand, and if I ever want to bring Nanako-chan back to herself, then I need to know as much about these 'Dream Worlds' as I can."

"Oh," said Amu, going a little red in the cheeks. "Um, sure? But, uh..."

"It's the first time we've been to one," Utau admitted quietly.

"Even so," Shirogane replied firmly. "Afterwards, when we've saved your friend—a favour for a favour?"

Amu nodded silently at that—her emotions twisting slightly—and looked back at the door.

Same crayon-like appearance. Same irregular thuds from the other side, muffled by whatever dream-substance the door was made of. And, now that they were watching it-

A bell sounded in the distance, ringing throughout the labyrinth like a town crier shouting out the hour. The fog churned and twisted, the entire labyrinth shaking slightly as it did so; Utau and Amu reflexively reached out to steady each other. Shirogane frowned.

"This place feels unstable," she said after a moment or so, "Not just dangerous."

The world shuddered again as she spoke, and a sound like ripping fabric echoed through the maze. Shirogane flinched, glancing around rapidly—for threats, or answers, or anything that made sense, but the only thing Utau could feel was Ami's dwindling presence in the distance. A few moments later even that had disappeared, leaving them alone in the labyrinth—the fog swirling around them and the thumps sounding louder and louder.

"Well," Utau said, swallowing uncomfortably. "We'd better try this right away. Amu, take my hand?"

"Okay," Amu replied, looking a little unsure of herself as she took Utau's hand—squeezing it tightly with nervous fingers. "Um." She hesitated for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts. "What do I do?"

"Just-" Utau's voice broke as a sensation like sandpaper rubbed at her eyes—forcing her to blink furiously in an attempt to dislodge whatever was causing it. It felt like the fog had entered her eyes. She shoved back at it. "Follow my lead?"

Spoiler: Utau's song

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phy_ra_DDaU%5D

Utau took a deep breath, and made herself a lighthouse. One hand on the Key in her pocket, the other holding Amu's, she merely sung; feeling the song resonate in her head and throat and fingers and toes and breath and everything all at once—Iru floating around her in an erratic orbit as she opened herself up completely—to everything. Merging with Iru… with the Key, she didn't need it. They were connected, and that was enough to harmonise like this.

In her mind's eye, Utau could feel a golden thread reaching out into the labyrinth—a ribbon of song that wrapped around and through the walls, invisible to all but her; unerringly weaving its way through the fogged-up paths until it reached the darkness at its centre.

The same skill she'd used to drag a stadium of children into depression, now turned towards a rescue operation—did that mean anything? Did it have meaning? Did it make her a good person? Utau wasn't sure—the feelings inside her were indecipherable, but Amu clung on tightly to her hand, imbuing Utau with warmth and courage and determination and the belief that this was not a waste of time, not a futile gesture, not a bad idea.

Amu's mind formed a lens for her light, focusing Utau's song down to a burning light that blazed out into the darkness—tearing through the fog, inescapable and unyielding; burning through it in an instant like a flare fired into the sky. And Utau's song echoed into the fog; reaching further than any human voice ever could—but no matter how far or fast it went she could not see what Amu had described. Couldn't find a child, Shadow or otherwise.

Only the fog remained, as if it had never left

'Come on,' she pleaded mentally. 'Please. Show yourself.'

Reaching out in all directions, but for what? Utau wasn't sure where or how to push; the light simply existed in all directions; a solid pillar of music that drove away the fog and burned at the labyrinth's boundaries. And then Utau felt something give way, a kinetic crunch in her mind—and an impression of absolute joy exploded through her senses.

'-Kana?' Amu wondered. 'Kana! Here! We're here!'

The fog shuddered and vanished, as though sucked into a void. The door collapsed into dust and scattered in the sudden wind, revealing—

Revealing the darkness, and in it a child; a small girl cowering against the wall with her hands clasped over her ears and a shadow hovering over her. And beyond it, a girl Amu's age; a girl that resolved into existence like a pixelated picture, that stared at the shadow with yellow eyes filled with utter terror—and then at Amu with a desperate sort of hope; a girl with brown hair, dressed in a simple school uniform

'Kana,' Utau realised—but her realisation was quickly overwhelmed by Amu's joy at the sight before her.

There was a distinct sense of vertigo as Utau's vision flickered—as her perspective was yanked away from her. One moment she was looking at the scene before her; the next, Shirogane had done something and a pillar of lightning as thick as her waist had enveloped the shadow. Amu's hand had torn free of her own, and she was hugging Kana like she'd never let go again—trembling and crying silently into Kana's shoulder as Kana hugged her back, the girl's glowing eyes seeking out Utau's in bewilderment.

Utau was fairly sure Kana's eyes hadn't been yellow. Or glowing, for that matter.

The pillar of lightning faded away, leaving scorch marks on the ground—but nothing more; no sign of the shadow, or the girl it had been menacing. Utau hadn't been able to see, but she was fairly sure she had faded away along with the shadow. Had it been a girl? She wasn't sure.

"Hey..." Kana said tentatively; the first thing Utau had heard her say since their meeting at Amu's house. Her voice was small and hesitant, wavering like the flame of a candle. "Amu-chan? ...you shouldn't be here. She's going to get mad if you're here!"

Amu didn't reply, but rather simply hugged Kana tighter.

Shirogane coughed.

"This is not how I expected this to go," she said, rather dryly. "The plan worked perfectly. Forgive me for not being happier. I think I know the answer, but... who are you?"

Kana stared at Shirogane for a long second or so, then—quizzically, and a little uncomfortably—glanced at Utau.

"Me?" she asked in a small voice that didn't match Utau's memories from the party in the least

"Who else?" Shirogane asked flatly. "Though I'd also like to know about this person you're saying will be angry."

Kana blinked rapidly, cringing a little at Shirogane's tone of voice.

"I'm... Kana?" she said finally, looking a little lost. "Nanami Kana? I- I can't really explain! I just know! I'm so glad you came!" She paused for a second or so, shifting against Amu's hug—clutching at her friend's arm. Relieved, happy they were here—but scared. Timid, to an almost disturbing degree. "Um..."

Kana frowned slightly, ineffectively trying to pull away from the hug. A furrow grew in her brow, then she lifted her gaze back up to stare at Shirogane and Utau in turn.

"She's right behind me. And if you stay here then Kana will be angry," she continued—her voice sounding a little firmer and more confident, though only by a tiny amount. "Really angry."

= = =

The princess is in another castle, but you don't have much time to prepare for Bowser.

[ ] Leave, taking Kana with you
- Amu's instinct.
- She would successfully take Kana with her.
- There are obvious problems.

[ ] Ask Kana what is going on
- Utau would like to know many things.
- You get one question, two at most.

[ ] Defend Kana
- She obviously needs it.
- If you don't run away then this is Amu's second instinct, but…

[ ] Follow Shirogane's lead
- Into a fight? …fighting who? …her?
- By default neither Amu nor Utau will be very effective.

[ ] Write-in

 

[Baughn]

Scheduled vote count started by Baughn on Mar 25, 2024 at 7:29 PM, finished with 160 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  2 people have voted

  [X] Defend Kana
  -[X] From... herself? From both herselves?
  -[X] Amu: Whatever this place has done to her, this is still your friend. And with all the time you've spend tangled up in her thoughts, you may be the worlds greatest expert on Nanami Kana. Try to help her come to terms with herself, preferably without a fight. If that fails, at least try to keep them from killing each other.

  • Skelm
  • Quine

  2 people have voted

  [X] Ask Kana what is going on
  -[X] Ask Kana if she can show Amu who "she" is by using her mind powers to link with Amu.
  -[X] Share what is mentioned with Utau, and have Utau decide what should be shared with Naoto, using words or using visual projection as appropriate
  [X] Defend Kana
  -[X] From... herself? From both herselves?
  -[X] Amu: Whatever this place has done to her, this is still your friend. And with all the time you've spend tangled up in her thoughts, you may be the worlds greatest expert on Nanami Kana. Try to help her come to terms with herself, preferably without a fight. If that fails, at least try to keep them from killing each other.

  • quantum lurker
  • PistachioCookies

 

[Baughn]

Years earlier.

(Content warning: Implications of harm.)

"But I'm hungry, and I'm tired, and- and I want to see my sister!"

Kana couldn't help but plead her case, even though she knew it wouldn't do any good. Kana was hungry. She was tired and lonely and hot and- and bored. She'd been stuck in this empty, rural train station all day every day for—how long had it been? Weeks? Months? Days? It felt like years. Years upon years upon years.

"I'm sorry," her mother repeated through the phone, "but I can't just pick you up whenever you want me to, Kana. This can happen if you miss the train."

Kana glared at the phone, trying to get her breathing under control—in and out, in and out. Her cheeks were hot with anger and frustration and the sheer unfairness of it all; Mom had been the one who insisted she should go to summer camp. Now she wasn't allowed to come home? What was the point? Sweat dripped down her forehead, sticking strands of hair to her face. Kana shoved them aside in annoyance.

"It's only another hour to wait," her mother added after a moment or so—hearing her daughter's angry silence for what it was. "You can buy a snack, can't you? I gave you money for that."

"I spent it at the camp," Kana said sullenly. "On postcards." She had thirty-two, now; all stacked neatly in a folder, stamped and addressed and ready to post in a few days—though it had been three hours since they'd left the camp and she still had no idea when she would write on them. Kana didn't want to send postcards to anyone right now. She wished she'd bought a new sketchbook instead.

"Then ask the stationmaster to lend you an onigiri or two," her mom replied patiently—giving no indication of any sympathy for Kana's plight at all. "You're adorable, I'm sure they'll agree."

Kana didn't have the energy to protest the suggestion. She'd already considered and rejected that approach. Talking to adults made her uncomfortable at the best of times. Talking to strangers to beg for food was worse, and Kana definitely wasn't going to do that. There had to be something else-

A train chugged past, belching out smoke as it did so—a testament to how far into the boonies she was—and Kana glared at it angrily. They came through the station about every ten minutes or so; roaring past like a giant monster in the process of devouring the station whole. None of them ever stopped. Why had she ever let her mother convince her to go to summer camp?

She ignored and stomped down on the memories; a smiling Yui, eager to hear tales of her sister's adventures; the excited chatter of all the other girls in her cabin as they bounced around from activity to activity; excited hollering as she paddled down a stream…

None of it had been worth it, none of it.

"Dear," her mother said, a note of concern finally entering her voice. "Are you alright?"

"I'm hungry!" Kana repeated, not caring that she was whining now. "I don't have any more money and- and there's nowhere to buy food! And you haven't said how Yui's doing! Is she okay?"

Silence answered her.

"...Mom?" she said after a second or so, dread clawing its way up her chest; her heart thumping loudly in her ears. "Is Yui okay?"

"Kana..." her mom began. "You know she just broke her leg, right?"

"Yes!" Kana snapped; gripping the phone tight enough to hurt. "I was there! I helped carry her to the nurse!"

Yui had been crying! She was worried!

"Kana-chan, they took the cast off last week," her mom said with a laugh. "She wanted to surprise you once you got home."

Kana's grip tightened further—but relief was washing over her, filling up her insides like ice-cream—and she slumped against the wall, feeling utterly drained.

"She's okay?" Kana asked in a small voice; barely audible even to herself.

"Of course she's okay," her mother reassured her. "They took it off last week. She's at Yuna's place right now, in fact."

"Okay," Kana whispered, smiling despite herself. "Okay. I... okay."

Yui was okay. She was okay and had tried to surprise Kana by being around when she came home from camp; and Kana was too relieved to be angry about being tricked, because Yui was okay and would be at home when she got there, and then Kana could hug her big sister and...

She shook her head slightly, swallowing hard to suppress the urge to cry—she'd done enough of that.

"Thanks," Kana said quietly, leaning her head against the wall. She didn't trust herself to speak properly yet.

"Kana, when was the last time you ate?"

"For breakfast," Kana replied sullenly—glaring at the wall. "Before we left. But it wasn't enough!"

Her mother was silent for a few seconds at that—probably making some face at the phone as she thought about that.

"Didn't you get lunch on the train?" her mom finally asked, her tone curious.

Kana scowled again, thumping her head gently against the wall. "No," she replied bitterly. "They were out when they got to my wagon."

She remembered it clearly; it had been about one hour into the trip, just when Kana had started getting hungry. The girls she'd been sitting with had made noises of disappointment; and one of them had brought out a box of cookies to share around, but they'd been hungrier than she had. Like, really hungry, the sort of hungry that felt like a gnawing pit in your stomach; not like Kana's usual 'I skipped second lunch' level of hunger.

So she'd pretended like she wasn't also hungry and only took one. And- they'd been grateful, even if they hadn't said so. She'd wound up with a few more phone numbers.

But now she was really hungry.

"That's awful," her mom replied—sounding genuinely sympathetic for the first time during their conversation. "Are you okay?"

"No," Kana grumbled into the phone, rolling her head sideways to stare a hole through the trains. "Please come get me."

Her mom was silent for a few seconds longer.

"Work is at a crucial point right now," she said finally, apologetic but firm. "But I'll send one of the interns instead. Can you hold out for half an hour?"

"I guess," Kana replied, letting out a sigh of defeat. "I'm okay," she added after a moment or so, softer—knowing it would disappoint her mother if she didn't say it.

"You're a good girl," her mom agreed affectionately. "I love you, Kana-chan."

"Love you too," Kana replied quietly, feeling a little better now that someone was coming to pick her up. "Bye."

She ended the call without waiting for a response; putting the phone back in her pocket as she stood up off the barrier and stretched. A half an hour—that was plenty of time! Maybe she'd write one of those postcards after all, to help pass the time.

And with that in mind she dug out her pen and sat down on the barrier, trying to remember where her address book was. The folders were in her bag, and the bag was- she'd left it on the stairs of the platform.

Five minutes and an embarrassing amount of running later, she had her postcards and her address book. The first card she was writing was addressed to Sakura, a brown-haired, green-eyed girl she'd met on the bus—who'd helped her figure out what she wanted to do at summer camp, and had gotten lost twice already on the first day.

The girl had an infectious smile and was energetic and talked a lot, and Kana's stomach felt like it was doing funny flips whenever they were together. Which was weird and confusing, and Kana kind of liked it but not really?

Maybe the hunger was making her brain weird.

'Dear Sakura' she wrote, carefully shaping each character with a steady hand.

⁂

Half an hour later the promised intern had still not arrived, and Kana had finished her postcards—now stacked neatly in their folder—and had moved onto drawing flowers on her arms with a glittery purple pen; it was the closest thing to art she had on hand at the moment.

Her stomach was complaining loudly about her lack of food. She had been hungry for far too long, and Kana was starting to regret not taking that girl up on her offer of cookies. It wasn't like there'd be more cookies tomorrow!

Well, there might be. But tomorrow wasn't today, which was the problem. Kana's stomach gurgled unhappily at that thought.

Then it rumbled loudly enough that Kana could hear it—and a voice spoke from just behind her shoulder.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Kana yelped, nearly falling off her seat as she flinched away from the voice—a voice that belonged to a man with long hair, standing less than an inch behind her with his hands in his pockets.

"Sorry," he added quickly, radiating sheepishness and sounding honestly apologetic for startling her. He stepped backwards to give her some space. "Are you Nanami Yui? The daughter of Nanami Asahi?"

"What? No!" Kana stared at him. "I'm her younger sister. Nanami Akane." She stared at him a bit harder. Didn't he know anything?

"Apologies," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "Your mother asked me to pick up her daughter. Um." He glanced around, seeing the lack of other people around. "It's just you, right?"

Kana rolled her eyes and hopped off the barrier.

"Do you see any other kids here?" she asked him drily, looking pointedly around at the empty station. "Yes, it's me." She folded her arms across her chest, scowling at him. "I don't have any other siblings. You know my big sister?"

"Only by reputation," he replied, smiling a little at her reaction.

"Okay," Kana said, frowning at him. "Fine. So you know my mom?"

The man shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Nope," he replied, popping the p sound in an oddly familiar way. "She's my manager's boss. So I've seen her at work a few times." He paused. "She's very scary."

Kana frowned at that. Her mom? Scary? Was this guy nuts?

"Well, it doesn't matter," he continued after a second or so. "Let's get going. Is this all your luggage?" He gestured vaguely at the bag on her shoulder and the folder in her hands.

Kana nodded silently at him, still eyeing him with suspicion—but he was an adult, and he didn't feel evil. Which was a weird thing to think, but Kana just knew—his aura felt good, even if it was really turbulent. It reminded her of Sakura a little, and she felt her mood improve slightly.

"Okay then," the man said; clapping his hands together once in apparent satisfaction. Then he held out a bag of onigiri. "Here's lunch."

Kana's stomach roared at her—and she snatched the bag off him almost before she knew what she was doing; opening it up and sticking her face inside, inhaling deeply as she did so. Rice! Umeboshi! Tuna! Eel!

She took a bite, chewing down and swallowing quickly.

Bliss.

⁂

"So you work for my mother's company?" she asked after he'd pulled out into traffic, unable to keep the curiosity from her voice. Her entire mouth tasted of rice and salt—she'd inhaled the onigiri like a vacuum cleaner. But it had been food and delicious and enough to tide her over until dinner.

"Yeah," the man replied after a second or so; driving with a careless ease that spoke of a long experience behind the wheel. "I'm an assistant to one of the section heads. Doing odd jobs, mostly. Stocking the coffee machine. Filing papers. That sort of thing." He hesitated slightly, glancing at her in the mirror. "Fetching lost kittens, on occasion."

Kana went faintly red at that comment, sinking down in her chair and huddling her shoulders up high. Stupid embarrassing interns.

"Shut up," she mumbled quietly, folding her arms across her chest and pouting into her sleeve.

The man laughed quietly at that—a good-natured laugh that helped lift her mood again. He didn't feel mean-spirited about teasing her at all; in fact, he felt kinda relieved about something.

"It's a bit of a drive. Your mother asked me to bring you to work until she's done for the day."

Kana sighed—she didn't mind visiting her mother's workplace, exactly. She just had to go there with an escort and stay in the waiting room. Which wasn't horrible, but it was boring and... dark. Well, not dark dark, but it felt… weird? Scrapey? And it was small, with nothing to do. It wasn't a very fun place to spend the afternoon.

At least they'd finally fixed the AC, so she wouldn't swelter in the heat like the train station.

"That's fine," she said finally, kicking her feet back and forth lightly. "I don't mind."

He was silent for a few seconds as the car veered slightly right; as they passed through an underpass and sped up a little as he resumed.

"I could lend you a book," he offered finally, the feeling of amusement growing stronger with every passing second. "If you like."

Kana stared at the back of his head for a few seconds. "Is it for kids?" she asked flatly.

"Not particularly," he replied. "I mostly read science fiction. Look in the seat to your right, there might be something that could interest you?"

Kana peered around, and found a few books face-down on the backseat—half buried under a pile of clothes and a small carton of orange juice. She picked the top one off the pile and turned it over, squinting at the title—then flipped it over again to read the summary on the back, squinting at the small text.

"What's a 'battlement'?" she asked finally.

"Ah," he said—the feeling of amusement becoming tinged with something else now, like chocolate on ice-cream. "It's a fortification thingy," he replied after a second or so. "A wall with cannons on top."

Kana rolled her eyes and dropped the book back into its seat—muttering a quiet "boring" under her breath.

"Mmm," the man hummed noncommittally, and didn't say anything more until they reached her mom's workplace. Kana was put through the usual motions—asking for permission to enter, waiting around while he sorted it out—and then being shown to a small, beige waiting room on the second floor, where she spent most of her time staring out the window.

The waiting room had a small TV and a table with a few magazines and some books, but they were boring and old and had no pictures, and the TV was on the fritz today. "Remote needs batteries," the man said—and then didn't go get batteries.

So Kana stared out at the park beyond the windows—at the little kids playing on the swings—and wished that she'd taken her sketchbook with her on the camp trip. Kana was good at sketches, if she said so herself. She mostly drew cute animals, and cute places were good too; not boy stuff like fighting robots. She really wasn't any good at that at all.

She spent a good chunk of time watching the kids play, their cheerful voices filtering through the window. It was calming, in an odd way.

Maybe she could go and join them?

When was mom getting here?

Was it dinner time yet?

"Bored," she muttered quietly to herself, leaning forward against the windowsill and letting her cheek rest against the cold glass. The park beyond was filled with people. Going on walks or strolling with friends, playing in the shade or exercising in the sun. And here she was stuck indoors in Manticore, watching them from a distance—and unable to draw or read or do much of anything besides watch. This was dumb. She was being dumb for letting it happen.

She still had an onigiri left, didn't she?

Digging into her pocket, Kana fished out the remaining onigiri and unwrapped it from its clingfilm. The plastic rustled loudly as she did so—and she took a deep whiff of the smell of seaweed and rice; then, finally, took a bite of it and chewed thoughtfully. The flavours were delicious; spicy and salty and sour all at once.

"Isn't mom getting here yet?" she whined, unable to keep the frustration from her voice as she thumped her head against the glass.

"I'm sure she is," the intern replied, laughing quietly as he looked up from the book. "Time can feel like it's going very slowly when you're bored."

Kana glared at the back of his head. She was not 'bored'. She was hungry and annoyed and wishing that she'd stayed with Yui instead of doing this stupid summer camp thing! At least there'd be plenty of food at home, even if...

A glimpse of a brown-haired girl with green eyes cut through her thoughts, and Kana couldn't help but sag against the glass. Fine. Fine, Mom, you win this round! She was just bored, okay? Happy now? She was super duper bored and wanted to go home and eat a ton of yakitori.

"I don't have anything to do," she complained sullenly, letting out a sigh as she tried to think of a way to escape.

"Well, you're free to play in the park if you like," the intern replied blandly; not bothering to look at her as he fiddled with the TV remote. "So long as you stay in sight."

"I can?" Kana asked, perking up at that thought.

He waved her off with one hand. "Sure," he replied absently; his tone suggesting he didn't much care either way. "We're just waiting around for the director anyway. You can play, and I can get some work done. So long as you stay in view of the building. Do I need to show you out?"

Kana jumped out of her chair and hurried towards the door, pausing only to make sure she had her phone on hand before saying "No" and leaving without another word. She could find the way on her own, no problem! She wasn't a baby or anything!

The door closed behind her with a loud click—and Kana practically skipped down the hallways as she made her way towards the elevator. The hallway was almost empty; some cleaning guy mopping up near a doorway, and a middle-aged woman walking towards Kana with a sheaf of paper in her hands, but other than that nothing. The elevator had a lot of buttons. Her thumb hovered over the 'ground' one for a second or so—and then she noticed the keycard still stuck in the slot near the bottom of the panel!

That looked like the one her mother carried, didn't it? The one that let her go into the building without asking? It probably wasn't meant to be here. Kana eyed it curiously, not quite daring to pull it out, and considered her actions.

Well, she coooould go down to the lobby and give it to security on the way out, but...

Her thumb hit the basement button with a loud ding, and Kana couldn't help but grin triumphantly as the doors closed and the elevator started moving. Just a look. She'd take a peek at what was right outside the elevator, and then go to the park. Since no one was watching her, no one would be any the wiser! And even if someone was watching, well, she was sure they wouldn't get too mad. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully?

But there'd be no harm done, so that was fine!

The elevator rumbled and shuddered as it slowed down to a stop; and the doors opened up onto a dull grey corridor with a 'NO ENTRY' sign right outside the elevator. Kana hesitated for a second or so—shifting her weight from one foot to another as she worried her lower lip—and then poked her head out of the elevator before she could talk herself out of it.

The hallway went to the left and right; both ways were the same; dim lighting and concrete walls that didn't really allow any sort of airflow. Kana sniffed and immediately regretted it, wrinkling her nose in disgust. The place smelled gross!

Well, not gross, exactly. Not bad smelling, anyway. It was just- it made her skin crawl? Like something was scraping away at it. She wasn't sure what the actual smell was. Old socks, maybe? Or incense? Something smoky and old; something that smelled like sweat and dust and... and black?

Black wasn't a smell. Kana dismissed the thought almost immediately after it had formed, and let her eyes wander to the ceiling, where she could see a few vents lining the roof. Air conditioning?

"Heeeey," she said, so softly she was basically whispering. "Anybody here?"

Nothing answered her, so Kana hesitantly stepped out of the elevator. Her feet echoed in the empty space; in the hollow of a concrete hallway that was more like a sewer than anything else—dark and empty and wrong in ways that were hard to articulate. She wasn't a scaredy-cat, but this place made her skin crawl. It was just wrong. She wanted to leave.

...but she hadn't seen anything interesting yet?

She walked for a few steps, hoping to catch sight of something, anything—and then paused, as a thought occurred to her. A quick retreat to the elevator, where the keycard made its way to her pocket. The elevator doors closed with a 'ding' after she stepped out, and the elevator left.

That was good. She wouldn't want anyone walking in on her down here. That would be embarrassing. And scary? The air in the corridor felt bad, almost like...

Kana shook her head, dismissing the thought.

⁂

The corridor was long and straight and dark, lit only by naked lightbulbs hanging off the ceiling. A lot of it was dusty. It wasn't abandoned. There weren't any broken bulbs, the dust wasn't everywhere—but it was like they didn't clean it very often. There were alcoves every dozen metres, but nothing in them besides some wiring.

There was no one in sight, and there were no doors or intersections for what felt like miles, just blank concrete and a smooth floor that gave her no traction when she skidded on it—her sneakers slipping out from underneath her when she tried to kick off on an idle whim.

"Ow," Kana complained quietly, rubbing at her hip as she got back to her feet and walked on.

It made her feel uneasy, but she told herself that it was probably normal for offices to have creepy basements, and walked on—allowing her imagination to run wild as she did so; wondering if this was some kind of secret ninja base, or if this was where the time police stored their time-travel equipment, or-

Or maybe just cleaning supplies?

Kana slowed down slightly at that thought, before picking up the pace again a few moments later. Yes, of course, but that thought was no fun. So she kept on walking; listening to the echoes of her footsteps fade into nothingness as the corridor went on and on and on without end. It was very... um...

Long. Behind her the elevator was nearly out of view, just a vague light in the distance. She'd been walking for ages already, but it didn't feel like she'd moved at all!

Kana hugged herself, taking a deep breath.

"This is silly," she said quietly to herself, looking around at the nothingness around her. "This is dumb."

Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. It didn't make her feel any braver. She knew there wouldn't be monsters, because this was real life and not an anime or something, but...

What if she got lost?

...walking in a straight line?

One more minute. If she hadn't found anything by then, then she'd go back. Okay? Okay.

And so Kana kept walking, occasionally pausing to peek into a nearby alcove to see if there was anything hiding there, before resuming her exploration with a determined frown—a determined frown that faded and got replaced by something smaller and less certain with every step she took down the hallway. Something was wrong. She could feel it; her nerves were thrumming with anxiety; her hands trembled slightly as she stared around for something—for anything at all that would explain the eerie feeling she had about this place.

But there was nothing, nothing at all to see beyond the unending length of the corridor. Nothing-

Except a greyish, metal door, set inside an alcove and nearly invisible until Kana had all but walked past it. A plaque on the door read 'AN1079'. The letters were faint, almost invisible, but the door—unlike most of this place—had been kept meticulously clean. There was a card reader next to the door, with a blinking red light on it; the only light Kana had seen so far besides the flickering bulbs on the ceiling.

Hesitantly, Kana stepped inside the alcove, shuffling to one side to get a better look at the card reader. The air in there was odd. It made her skin itch—and the keycard she'd 'borrowed' felt warm, almost biting to the touch. She eyed it nervously for a second or two, but then shook her head and stuck it into the card reader.

She wasn't going to go in. She'd just look through the door. Maybe.

The lights on the card reader flashed—once green, twice red—and then a loud click rang through the corridor, as the door slid open silently—the smooth metal slipping into the wall without resistance. Kana blinked at the sight; resisting the urge to rub at her eyes in case it was a mirage or something, or in case it would disappear. But no, the door was real. Through the door, Kana could see-

A long row of bunkbeds, all made from metal. At the back of the room was a closet, and at the front—on the opposite end of the door—a large television was mounted on the wall; playing some sort of news broadcast, but silent.

The door started scraping closed. Panicking, Kana threw herself in before it could close fully, sprawling to the floor as she did so—one hand instinctively reaching out to catch herself as she tumbled forward.

Clang!

"Ow!"

She'd landed on a bucket. Her ankle was throbbing painfully—she'd trod on its side as she fell—but Kana bit her lip and suppressed the urge to cry out for help, instead letting out a quiet whine as she rubbed at it. She'd gotten inside, which maybe wasn't the best idea, but she'd found something she wasn't supposed to. Something creepy! The beds were all small, sized for children rather than adults, and all unmade. The closet at the back of the room was half-open, revealing stacks of blankets and folded clothes on one side, and empty hangers on the other. The news broadcast was silent, but...

Kana pushed herself up off the ground and winced, limping as she turned to look at the door. Time to leave, if she said so herself. She'd ask Mom what this was all about once she was safely home.

She looked for a handle or crash-bar on the inside of the door—she'd need those to get out—but there was nothing but smooth, seamless metal.

Panic flared in Kana's chest.

'Calm down,' she thought firmly to herself, forcing her breathing into a slow, even rhythm as she looked for the controls. They didn't take her long to find. On the side of the door, at the same location as the outside, there was a card reader similar to the one on the outside of the door.

The keycard-

Was on the outside. Still in the card reader.

'Don't panic,' Kana thought desperately to herself, a high-pitched whine escaping from her lips as her thoughts scattered in every direction—and her hands scrabbled frantically at her pockets. Her phone! Her phone was-!

She was underground. It wouldn't-

She pulled it out and stared at the screen, which was showing three bars of reception. "Yes," she breathed quietly, hope flaring in her chest like a beacon—and then swallowed, as her thumbs danced across the numberpad. She hit the fast-call shortcut for her mom, the one she'd said never to use except in emergencies.

The phone rang for what felt like an eternity. Kana's breathing quickened with every moment it took for her mother to pick up, her heart thumping loudly in her ears—and then-

Click.

"Kana?"

 

[Baughn]

Content warning: It's probably as bad as you thought. There's a summary in the voting block in case you'd rather not read this.

Kana's story didn't last much longer after that.

Amu tried not to think about the cold feeling that had settled over her. Instead she kept her gaze on Kana, taking in her expression—the downturned corners of her mouth, the creases on her brow—and the way Kana felt was like a girl whose world was falling apart around her. Like someone who had already cried too much, and could no longer summon up more tears even if she wanted to.

"Yui is your big sister?" Amu asked finally, her voice quiet and small and lost—lost and drifting like a child in a storm.

She'd meant to ask it telepathically, but she'd spoken aloud instead—her thoughts had been fragmented by horror and she hadn't been able to keep it all in line properly; hadn't been able to quite force everything where it was supposed to be.

Kana's tale had been one thing, and Utau had spoken that aloud. Had made a show of it, at first, amused at the drama of a young child. Until- until the emotions underlying those endearing moments had overwhelmed her and she'd been forced to speak the rest of it in whispers. And Amu had been frozen by it all; transfixed by Kana's memories of the same as they spun towards disaster.

"Not the same girl," Kana replied, hugging herself tightly. "Yui-chan didn't have a name. I named her after my big sister. So I would love her." She stared at the ground for a second or two—the roiling mass of shadows that was her aura ebbing slightly in intensity as her shoulders slumped. "I did love her. I still love her, she's the best, but she isn't Yui. I miss my big sister and she isn't- I couldn't- couldn't-"

Amu filled in the rest of the sentence herself, by reading Kana's mind. Yui's broken leg had been just that, but their mother had taken the... opportunity...

A present for her tenth birthday-

Utau fought down the nausea building in her stomach, as memories of Yui's daily routine bubbled up from the depths of Kana's mind—of cheerful, happy Yui with her scuffed pink sneakers and her brown hair tied back with ribbons; Yui with her gentle smile and her-

Damaged mind.

-wait-

"Your mother was teaching her what?" Amu whispered, shock overriding everything else. "Magic? How?"

Kana was silent at that, unable or unwilling to answer—and her aura's darkness surged again, the shadows casting an eerie glow about the room as they roiled in response to her thoughts and memories.

Whatever the case, it hadn't gone well. Whatever Kana's mother had done to Yui hadn't worked properly—and the little girl who had emerged from the experiment had been scarred not only emotionally, but mentally. She'd been an empty shell, living more by instinct than by any sort of reason or intellect.

Their mother had searched desperately for a solution, and had found Kana in the depths of the building. In the room where they kept children to-

"S-so Yui-chan is..."

"One of my mother's experiments," Kana answered quietly. "She tried to, I don't know, copy Yui's core. It almost worked."

Kana's expression was a blighted thing, a ghostly grin twisted with grief and pain and anger and self-loathing—emotions that had no place on anyone's face, much less Kana's. That was just her face; her inner self felt somehow worse. Kana's soul was writhing in agony, and it hurt to look at—it hurt to feel; it was an acid in her veins, burning away at her, and Amu had no choice but to bear it. To push deeper, so Kana would know she was there.

"Mom 'rescued' me," Kana said. "And I got to see Yui. But I didn't go home that day. I was trapped there. In Manticore." She gestured vaguely at their surroundings; at the illusion of a wrecked laboratory they were standing in. "This place. Mom showed me the ropes. Taught me to be useful. Told me I had talent, more than my sister, and if I did everything right we'd get her back."

The shadowy amalgamation of memories pretending to be a laboratory cracked into motes of dust, fading away into nothingness as she spoke, as the maelstrom of emotion that surrounded her dwindled down into nothingness—into something small and quiet and exhausted.

Kana slumped down against the wall and slid to the floor with a dull thud, her head leaning back against the concrete; her gaze locked onto Amu's—a look of quiet despair in her eyes as she continued speaking.

"And I tried. I tried so hard," Kana whispered; her voice small and quiet in the empty space where a laboratory had once stood; in this barren hallway of memory and lies and corpses. "But Yui-nee was in a coma, Yui-chan's mind wasn't right anymore, and Mom couldn't fix it, no matter how hard she tried- I could tell, I could tell," Kana spat, grinding her teeth in frustration as her fingers dug into her skirt—as her hands clutched at the fabric like it was a lifeline in a stormy sea. "Her mind was full of holes. The experiments she did, the drugs- nothing worked."

Her head dipped down to rest on her knees; her shoulders slumped in defeat as she spoke again.

"Mom told me how minds work. Personas, Shadows, all of that-" Kana looked up at Amu, realising her incomprehension. "-I'll tell you later. So I tried..." She swallowed nervously; her mouth moving up and down as she struggled to get the words out. "I tried to fix her mind myself, but-" Her mouth twisted into a rictus of pain. "I made everything worse. And mom was going to throw her away. Even though half of her was Yui. ...that's when Naomi got to me."

Amu heard her take a deep breath, saw her tense up for a few seconds as she gathered up her courage; watched Kana's mouth open, as the girl got ready to speak again—and Amu was suddenly certain that whatever Kana would say next would not be something she should hear.

"-stop," Amu said quietly, cutting Kana off before she could speak. "Kana." She made to pull the girl into a hug, then paused.

She'd hugged Kana before, had clung to her the second she'd seen her in the room—but that had been in response to fear and nervousness, and hadn't really meant anything. This... this was different. This was important. It couldn't just be a hug. It needed to be more than that. But Amu didn't know how. Didn't know what she could say that would make this better.

Maybe nothing could.

So she took a deep breath instead—closed her eyes to give herself a moment of peace—and tried to quiet her racing thoughts; tried to ignore the frantic pounding of her heart as she folded her arms around Kana regardless, squeezing as hard as she could. As hard as she had ever hugged anyone in her life. Squeezing Kana like she could squeeze out all the sadness and hurt; like if she hugged Kana enough then things would be okay again.

Like somehow this would fix it; like she wasn't afraid of breaking her newest- best friend in half because Kana was so small and fragile-feeling and Kana was stronger than this but it didn't matter because this was Important, Kana was important, and so Amu couldn't help but treat Kana as gently as she could because-

"I just want to go home," Kana whispered quietly, crying into her shirt. "I don't want to fight. I don't want to kill people like Riku anymore. I… don't want to have to save Yui. I don't want to have to be the good one. I just want to see my mom again." She looked up at Amu, her expression so full of pleading and self-hate and sorrow that Amu couldn't help but flinch back from it—wishing desperately that she could do something, anything, but not knowing how; not knowing what.

Because-

Because Amu wanted things to be okay again.

Because Amu was worried and upset—so upset she could cry; so upset she did cry, hot tears dripping down her cheeks and wetting Kana's clothes, which were the uniform of Kana's grade school. Because Amu just wanted to hug Kana forever and ever until everything was okay again.

Because Kana still loved her mother.

Because none of this was fair.

Shirogane's presence was a distant, tolerant thing at the edge of her awareness. An interested spectator of Amu's actions. A silent question hanging unspoken in the air—and she didn't know how to answer her. She didn't know what she wanted to hear from her; didn't understand how Shirogane wasn't radiating horror, like she and Utau both. Kana's mind was an open wound; a pool of anguish and self-loathing and more fear than Amu knew how to handle—but Shirogane wasn't horrified by any of that.

'She can't see it,' Utau softly told her, whispering directly into Amu's thoughts instead of using words. 'She's not a telepath.'

Amu couldn't respond to that thought, true though it was. She felt like anyone who wasn't utterly blind would see how Kana felt about herself; about what she'd been forced to do. But Shirogane couldn't.

Though Shirogane's poker face had cracked.

Anyone who wasn't blind would know-

Know-

Would know how unfair it was.

And now Kana was the one holding Amu up, hugging her back as Amu's legs failed beneath her—as Amu's strength left her and she collapsed forward onto Kana; sobbing quietly into her chest; feeling weak and useless and out of her depth; so far out of her depth that it wasn't even funny.

"There's always a story," said Shirogane. "Even if this one is worse than most. Amu, Utau-"

Her voice was gentle and kind, in a way that reminded Amu of Mom—but sharper, with an edge hidden behind it that had been missing before. Her mind was hidden, but Amu could almost make out anger. She raised her head slightly at that, looking up at Shirogane through tear-stained eyes.

"-Kana," Shirogane finished. "I know who's chasing you. But do you want to say it?"

Kana sniffled quietly, scrubbing at her eyes with one sleeve before wiping it off on her pants.

"Yui's shadow tried to kill her," she said quietly, avoiding Shirogane's face. "-so I know. The one chasing me is Kana. I'm-"

Her voice wavered as she spoke, not quite cracking. Her voice was low and soft and Amu couldn't help but feel her strain to hold herself together. Her mind was frayed, too raw to feel much beyond her grief. Amu reached out for her thoughts again—letting her own merge with Kana's once more, to help hold her together.

She felt Kana relax fractionally.

"I'm Kana's Shadow," Kana continued in a whisper, shuddering visibly as she spoke. "Her true self. And now that we've torn apart she's chasing me. When she finds me, she'll kill me. And I don't want to be a killer anymore."

It was a bleak certainty. A statement of fact without any shred of doubt or hope in it.

"Does she know what will happen if she does?" Shirogane asked after a second or so—her voice carefully neutral and unemotional; a stark contrast to Amu's internal turmoil, which Utau was doing her best to suppress.

Kana hesitated for a moment or so.

"Yes," she said. "She's counting on it."

= = =

Spoiler: Reduced summary

Kana was 'rescued', and while not allowed to go home, her mother tried teaching her instead. She'd previously attempted to teach Yui magic, which backfired badly, damaging her mind; a lot of what follows is Asahi (the mother)—and Kana—attempting to somehow heal her.

None of it works. They eventually create Yui-chan, copying the working parts of Yui into a receptive child; this also doesn't work. Naomi gets to Kana during the fallout, and convinces her to help them escape. Amu asks her not to explain the details.

Kana abandoned her family in the process, and still wants to go home. She's so full of self-loathing about this that—now that they've been separated—she intends to kill her own shadow, fully knowing what this will cause.

How do you want to approach this?

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