The actual reason for having a (somewhat) mechanistic model of the human mind is that Baughn as a writer prefers to have mechanistic explanations for his settings and to use them to decide the results of various edge cases. This is not the only approach to writing, but it's the one used here.
Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Laniakea
Assuming it is just for edge cases. This discussion is actually making me wonder whether this whole recent sudden onset of Overgrowth among the population is actually someone's attempt to do exactly what @Quickshot0 was saying and mutate human souls into inhuman ones on grand scale.
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Maybe, though you could also flip things around and say now that Kagutsuchi isn't as able to hold humanity down anymore, it is now having the opportunity to develop some of its past abilities. That is assuming the backstory is still Schild Ladder, as then current humanity has been regressed enormously after all.
Admittedly in that scenario this new development would be in a some what uncontrolled way though, as no one would know how to do that in a scientific/engineering way in the current population.. at least one assumes so. So I guess you could also say things are 'evolving' instead then. Which would fit some what with some of the descriptions we got on overgrowth as well.
Still, this is just one way one could put the parts we have together.
Chapter 2.9
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
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.
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.
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
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Thanks for this chapter go to the Investigation Team, and also the usual suspects—@ShadowAngelBeta, @Kim Bruning and @Nero200.
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Huh. Naoto.
Between Naoto and whoever Hikaru is calling, and likely JP's if we don't get done with this soon, the number of people getting pulled into the Scavengers' situation is getting quite out of hand.
He's using his physical body and a projection at the same time, and calling someone. I wonder who he's calling.
Between Naoto and whoever Hikaru is calling, and likely JP's if we don't get done with this soon, the number of people getting pulled into the Scavengers' situation is getting quite out of hand.
Sounds like Midori might recognize the name "Naoto Shirogane". If she does, I wonder if that's just from the whole "Detective Prince" thing, or if she heard the name at JP's or something.
Amu's Dreamwalking+Occult+Manipulation is 4 dice, so we'd be getting 2 dice from bonuses. Is Ami providing 2 dice? Or is this from the key or something?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
From the key. Adding in willpower is also an option, and automatic if anything would otherwise go badly wrong.
Initial thoughts are that I'm wondering why we went with this now: Not what I was expecting out of this action lol - I thought we'd remain there for the time being?
[Need to think more given below clarifications] Force a normal shadow fight
Pending better write-ins, since I'm pretty sure exhausting Amu without resolving anything given the pros/cons is not the way to go
(Also, have we mentioned the previous update's other options to her, or are they no longer applicable?)
[Need to think more given below clarifications] Force a normal shadow fight
(Also, have we mentioned the previous update's other options to her, or are they no longer applicable?)
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
You're as close to the previous location as you can possibly be without literally being there. But that's something that will come up in next episode—Ami was the one who moved you around, and she hasn't had a chance to explain yet.
You can assume that they were mentioned, and vetoed by Shirogane on basis of being nuts.
You can also assume she's making assumptions. I'm not sure how I could have written out that conversation without recapping a lot that just happened a single chapter ago, however... hmm. Well, while in practice they're no longer applicable, there's no technical reason you can't write it in. It just would somewhat defeat the purpose of getting help here.
I was under the understanding that this would get up back to the previous location, and then do nothing further; or does this resolve (IC-expectation) if successful? The loss of dice really hurts here though..
Everybody sure is worn out for having gotten into a total of 0 fights so far. Supposedly, the party is crazy overlevelled for this, so hopefully they'll feel better after they realize how easy the fights are.
OPSEC has been crumbling all day, and now we've got the scrutiny of the Detective Prince on us. She's not, like, Investigation 5 or anything, but she's still way better at being a detective than we are at hiding things. I wonder how much she's going to pick up on.
OPSEC has been crumbling all day, and now we've got the scrutiny of the Detective Prince on us. She's not, like, Investigation 5 or anything, but she's still way better at being a detective than we are at hiding things. I wonder how much she's going to pick up on.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The previous vote was "Tear the place down through brute force".
This one is "Make your way to the centre without going through the corridors, without tearing it down." It's as much use of Dreamwalking as Naoto is willing to countenance as someone who doesn't understand it at all, but she has seen some of what Ami gets up to. Or Marie, or Teddy.
It's harder to fully succeed, but the penalty for not fully succeeding is just "You don't get all the way there in one go". Though Naoto would advice against trying it twice.
Yeah. They sure are.
Though I have to correct you: They already got into one fight. Amu just decided that mind-controlling and pulling the shadow apart, then sorting its pieces by usefulness to Yui, was a superior approach to hitting it with a stick.
...and yeah, that was tiring, but it's not really what's exhausting them so much.
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Ain't that the fuckin' truth.
I take this is weird Key visions and not RC visions?
Interesting, so Astral Projection does not consume focus to run, but presumably does not allow for multilocation on the physical layer of reality
*Things we might want to point out to Naoto, considering Hotsuin's reaction part 1*
Broken... @Baughn does Naoto have any idea how it seems broken to her?
Better get the terminologies down while we have the chance, yeah.
More refined approach but one we are less suited at, basically?
I assume Naoto hasn't seen Amu's eyes yet, or had a briefing on Amu and Utau's capabilities, or learnt of what they've done so far and what worked/what didn't?
So long as we keep our mouth shut about Scavenger and co it should be fine, and even helpful for us.
(Besides, her behaviour here is obviously diametrically opposed to Manticore, or at least enough distinct enough not to matter as far as Naomi is concerned, I hope)
Small letter willpower when its their first time dealing with all of this nonsense, I take?
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They also don't have anti-fog glasses. They've just been tanking the environmental hazard without protective gear.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Remind me to put the full description in the next chapter, if I somehow forget.
... actually, I think I'll throw her perspective in as an omake while you're voting. It's something that would go well with the story at this point.
But the answer is that, from the outside—the outside inside the TV world / shadow realm / dreamlands, that is—it's literally broken. Think of one of the labyrinths from Persona 4; it would resemble Naoto's most of all, but Naoto's wasn't a bombed-out wreck leaking shadow material from a dozen holes. It's like a building somebody shot up, teetering on the edge of collapse.
Naoto lacks the extranormal abilities to learn more detail than that; Rise would've been able, and in the event you vote to leave, Rise will be called in to help navigate the mess.
So as not to be too coy: No, it's an effect of the fog itself. It quickly tires you out and drains your rationality, unless you have specific protections. Amu &co are capable of resisting the effect, but they're fumbling, and haven't fully realised the problem. Even if they had, it would take practice.
This has been a recurring theme, at least in Persona 3 and 4. Ordinary humans just aren't meant to exist here.
Naoto would be able to acquire protective gear, though not immediately.
Pretty much. You have the power, but lack the skill. Amu plus Ami in combination would still succeed about 50% of the time, which would be impressive enough if they were being graded on a curve.
Mu.
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...have we mentioned the medicine to her, and gotten her input on what exactly these are for if she knows? Because I'm not sure if they are totally unrelated to this situation, all things considered
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
...should I just write out that entire conversation anyway? I have a feeling that maybe I should.
But yes; it was mentioned, but Naoto hasn't seen it before. Which might date the timeline a bit.
Don't if you don't want to (and it will be redundant with enough Q/A sessions anyway
), I'm just trying to figure out what our resident expert does or does not know (since her advice is almost certainly filtered through her own lens + such knowledge) - if she knows enough of things and is still giving the same advice, going against that beyond writing Stunts would be unwise.(WP isn't changed from last time I asked, I assume?)
...speaking of Stunts,
[ ] Tear the place open… deliberately
-[] Amu Chara Changes with Ran again to prevent undesired changes in geometry during the process
should work for now?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Well, Iru's tapped out now, but we weren't really counting her anyway. She's very situational, and will probably be back on her feet before the climax anyway.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
No, I think I will be writing at least some of this from Ami's perspective. It may be fun! The troll is nice.
But some of it you need to know immediately, so here's a summary.
After which Ami found Utau and Amu in a bit of a mess, and pulled them slightly 'sideways' through one of the holes in the shadow castle. This gets a bit conceptual; just trust me when I saw she didn't move them far. Which is why there are murals on the walls.
Utau didn't precisely lose consciousness, but she was badly enough out of it to miss some of the conversation. What Midori and Naoto have gone over:
Stepping out of the story for a second, the intent of this is to bring your IC knowledge up to match your OOC knowledge. If it's something you believe Naoto should say about the current situation, you can assume she said it.
But some of it you need to know immediately, so here's a summary.
- Ami has known Naoto for a couple of months. Naoto discovered Ami reading an exceptionally fictional manga under a tree close to a shadow castle Naoto was investigating, and got curious about this very Teddy-like shadow. Ami, who thought Naoto looked rather a lot like Miki, was curious about Naoto as well. They ran into each other a couple of times; Naoto helped Ami out of a sticky situation; it's the usual thing.
- Ami attempted to inform Naoto that she is not in fact a shadow.
- Naoto told Ami to let her parents know that Naoto is teaching her, then, so they could discuss Ami's proclivity for trouble.
- Ami did not tell her parents any such thing...
- Ami noticed Utau's beacon earlier and tried to figure out what was going on, rolled really badly, got into trouble again and wound up getting rescued by Naoto. Again. If she hadn't been, she'd have gotten home on her own... eventually. It's actually pretty hard for anything in the dreamlands to harm her, and few things would want to try... but that doesn't include 'inside shadow castles'. She avoids those.
- While arguing with Naoto that no, she actually needed to go rescue her sister and other 'sister' and could not be stuck with some Naoto-shaped person fussing over her just because she resembles Nanako a little, Ami noticed Utau's more explicit beacon in 2.9, and was able to go "told you so".
After which Ami found Utau and Amu in a bit of a mess, and pulled them slightly 'sideways' through one of the holes in the shadow castle. This gets a bit conceptual; just trust me when I saw she didn't move them far. Which is why there are murals on the walls.
Utau didn't precisely lose consciousness, but she was badly enough out of it to miss some of the conversation. What Midori and Naoto have gone over:
- Why precisely is her youngest daughter here!?
- They were attempting to rescue another young girl. (Kana wasn't mentioned. YMMV on if that matters here.)
- Do you recognise any of these drugs? (Midori recognises that 'penumbral' and 'shadow' seem related.
Stepping out of the story for a second, the intent of this is to bring your IC knowledge up to match your OOC knowledge. If it's something you believe Naoto should say about the current situation, you can assume she said it.
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Hm... so that's how Dreamwalking Stunts should be flavoured, not my previous attempt.
Conceptually speaking, if the shadow castle is that low on Integrity, might be able to budget-Illusion/Dreamwalking up another hole straight to the center if we are careful on wording?
(Also, golden eyes again in the bonus image?)
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Given how rapidly this situation is spiraling in the physical world, I don't want to leave and expect to be able to come back later and still have control over the results. Taking the long path through this place exposes everyone to the Fog for longer, and the party hasn't yet learned to deal with that, so I don't really like that option either. My suspicion is that Naoto is underrating the power of dreamwalking because she doesn't understand it, and we've been told the "negative" outcome is just landing further out from the center then we hoped, so let's see if we can speedrun glitch our way directly to the final boss.
[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
I would be a lot more comfortable with this option if we had a 2-dot Stunt accompanying it (recovers 1WP which will prevent Amu/Ami from being totally wiped out), but right now what I can think of is 1-dot equivalents. Thoughts?
Feels like a yes but also no kind of thing since she has 3 dots of Mind Control (and 1 dot of TK to buy time) which could probably be converted to Mind Crush attempt if things go really south here lol
Wait... is Hikaru calling for JPs already?!
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