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Nene Kusanagi will never shy away from calling herself a gaming addict.
To say the opposite would, after all, just be a lie. Games have been a part of her life for just as long as any other child, but ever since middle school, it’s seemed to take up an uncharacteristically important mantle in it.
Middle school. That would be right after-
She tries not to think about that.
Nene has played through all manners of games in her life, from Pokémon when she was younger, to various, rather violent first person shooter games. She vividly recalls staying up late at night to get to the ending of a game, or sneaking her gaming consoles into school so that she can play during lessons. Granted, she was caught and punished for it several times, but sacrifices must be made.
It’s not like there’s anything better to do with her time anyways.
So yes, Nene is a gaming addict, and that fact is not going to change, because today, she is going to start a new game (Free this time, her wallet cries in relief).
Or maybe, today, she is going to uncover a mystery.
The game Nene has set her sights on is perhaps the most mysterious thing she has ever seen. It was posted as an untitled file on a popular website by a completely anonymous creator, with only a single caption.
“A game for those who are lost, and seeking a home.”
Unconventional, certainly, but that in itself isn’t the weird part.
The weird part was that it wasn’t a virus.
…and that the game was kind of good?
She doesn’t know for herself, that’s why she’s even downloading the game, but from the comments and posts she’s seen around the internet, the game is good. Great, even. Detailed 3D environments, an interesting cast of characters, and amazing gameplay mechanics.
There was only one problem.
The game didn’t have an ending. All the posts she’d scoured noted that during a specific cutscene, the game would simply shut down, leaving it unplayable. The game’s story had no ending, only a black screen to keep the player company.
Oh well. She’s here for the gameplay anyways.
________
It’s late into the night by the time the game finishes downloading, which should be expected for something with that level of graphics, but irritating nonetheless. When Nene looks out of her window, she notes that the trickle of cars that drive past her house have almost completely stopped, and most of the other houses have already extinguished their lights, inhabitants likely fast asleep.
What an obvious sign to go to bed.
She stares at the full moon outside her window, and then back at the game file on her computer. Her mouse double clicks on the file.
Doesn’t mean she has to listen to it, though.
The game loads up, and she’s almost immediately greeted with the barest approximation of a title screen, in which the only option is ‘Start’. The background is a detailed rendering of a dead-looking tree, and the music sounds like the clinking of crystals. It’s a tad too loud for her liking, but to hell with ‘Settings’, she supposes.
Presented with the illusion of choice, Nene clicks ‘Start’, and the screen fades to black, strange glitchy text quickly taking the place of the image of the cave.
[Do you believe that a creature can be born evil?]
A high voice whispers into her headset. It trembles as if the speaker is trying really hard not to cry.
[Of course not. We’d all like to believe that we are a product of our choices, not our birth. But perhaps for our kind, it’s not as simple.]
Ah. This is a lore dump.
[We are demons, but perhaps not just by designation. A long time ago, a curse befell our species, causing us to become mindless creatures, attacking everything in our midst, including our closest companions, the humans.]
[Amidst widespread destruction, the last of the humans went to the origin of the curse, the Heartland, and through sheer determination, sealed the curse off. Since that day, demons have lived alone, in a land still recovering to this day.]
[But a seal is never permanent.]
[The seal will one day wear off, and wreak its curse onto our kind again. Which is why, in place of their lives, the humans left a prophecy.]
On the eve of destruction, one will appear
In hopes of escape, to the world torn asunder
Two souls, once again, under a wilted tree
One a sword, and one the lingering sin
Raised up high, a blade of heavenly light
The sinner falls, and a prison is set free
[May that hope one day come true.]
With that final, harrowingly delivered line, the exposition-heavy introduction comes to a close, and soft colours gradually fill her screen once more.
“…Hey! Wake up!”
Her character awakens in a sprawling bed of flowers, staring up at a cloudless blue sky. In game, their vision blurs sporadically, and the character winces, sitting up as they clutch their head.
“Are you alright?”
Their vision snaps to the side, and they are greeted with a girl with short pink hair, wearing a puffy and similarly vibrant pink dress. On her head, lies a set of nubby horns, small and iridescent like gems. She’s bent over the character, face showing visible concern.
‘I’m quite alright,’ Nene quickly selects the most reasonable dialogue option, and the girl’s face contorts into a bright, unrealistic smile.
“That’s great! You gave me quite the shock, falling from the sky like that!”
Her character… did that? She supposes that’s a proper cause for concern to have.
“Say, how did you do it! Let me try it too!”
…What? Nene almost reels back from her screen from incredulity. What kind of person says that? She quickly selects ‘Please don’t do that’, and the girl’s face morphs into one of disappointment.
“Aw, but it seemed so wonderhoy☆! Anyways, Mx. Fell-From-The-Sky, do you have anywhere to stay?”
‘No,’ She picks. Nene is homeless.
“You can stay with me, then! I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team. They’ll love you, promise☆!”
Without an option to protest, her character finds themselves unceremoniously yanked along the flower field in an unknown direction, the girl humming (badly) the entire time.
Isn’t this kidnapping?
Also, what is a ‘wonderhoy’?
________
Nene learns a while later that the character is named Emu Otori. She’s just as bright and cheerful as previously established, with a propensity for lacking common sense.
The other members of her team are two boys that Emu scares the life out of when she bursts into camp, screaming, “Akito, Toya, wonderhoy☆!”
Akito Shinonome is the shorter one, with flaming orange hair, a pair of olive-green eyes and two thin and gnarly horns similar to branches. He immediately admonishes Emu, telling her to keep it down, or she’ll wake up half the forest. As annoyed as he sounds, the voice actor does a good job of adding a hint of fondness into his voice. It's the kind of vocal performance that Nene can appreciate.
Toya Aoyagi is the taller one, with somehow the strangest hair so far, being two shades of blue cleanly split down the middle, and that’s without even mentioning the glitchy horn on only the left side of his head. Purely for the hair, Nene feels inclined to call him the most unrealistic character so far, beyond even Emu. His grey eyes narrow with amusement, before gently telling Akito to calm down.
It doesn’t take long before the two characters notice her character and come up to introduce themselves. Though, Akito comments on her character’s (apparent) lack of horns, because they’re allegedly a defining trait for humans.
“The only ones with no horns are humans. But they’re all gone, aren’t they?”
She can tell he’s trying not to be rude, but what happened to not judging a book by its cover?
According to the game, humans are currently thought to be extinct, which is why her apparently hornless head came as such a big shock. Demons, on the other hand, were the dominant species in this world, with a stronger build and magic specialised for physical combat. And it would seem that her character, for whatever reason, is a human.
Emu offers to make her fake horns as a disguise, and the oddity is swiftly dropped.
The plot develops at a normal pace after that.
She is soon informed by Toya that they are on a journey out to the Heartland, or the origin of the curse, in an attempt to destroy the curse before the seal breaks.
“If the seal breaks, the curse will be set free. Demons will once again become mindless, murderous creatures, and the tragedy that occurred thousands of years ago will play out once more,” Toya states grimly.
‘And how are you going to break the curse?’ Her character asks in her place.
“Probably something to do with that prophecy,” Akito answers, “Its exact contents are classified, which is stupid, but most demons know that the curse needs to be destroyed in the Heartland.”
Emu quickly supplies the lackluster explanation, “I know! The vessel of the curse still lingers in the real world, though it's currently harmless. We just have to destroy it! The lingering sin, my family called it!”
It is at this point that the game sees fit to give her a gun, and she is given free reign to explore the game.
The very much open-world game.
…
Yeah, Nene did not get a lot of the story done in the first hour.
________
By the time she decides to actually progress the game, she’s already overlevelled enough to one-shot most of the enemies in the area. Dishonorable? Yes. Fun? Also yes.
She takes immense satisfaction in unleashing one last blast to kill a horde of monsters, before meeting the team in a town to progress the story.
The cycle continues in the exact same way. Grind, progress story, grind again.
It’s only normal that eventually, Nene would reach a phenomenon known as “the final area of the game”.
The Heartland sits in the distance, a large, wilted tree surrounded by iridescent crystals. The monsters around seem to be overtaken by some sort of parasite, hobbling around with rocks protruding from their back to form scales. They attack the party ferociously, to the point where they have to have someone on guard duty every night.
Very soon, the grass they tread on turns from green to a barren, dead brown, the gentle breeze crescendoing into a howling wind.
“We’re here.” Toya states, gripping his staff tightly, “This place- It feels dangerous. Do we really want to proceed?”
Akito gives a grunt of approval, but Emu, uncharacteristically, stays quiet, usual smile seemingly gone from her face.
”Emu?”
She jolts up in shock, before schooling her expression into a broad, sunny smile.
“Before we go in, can I- can I tell all of you something, first?”
Her voice is so forcibly high-pitched that it cracks audibly.
”I’m… I’m the ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■.”
Both the voice and the text glitches out heavily, rendering everything that was said incomprehensible. The visuals on the screen flash a million different colors, warping and distorting.
Ah, the glitch. It’s a lot more… dramatic than she expected.
Nene looks away from the overly intense visuals, but what was supposed to be a mostly dark room now glows, bathed in light similar to that refracted from a crystal.
It’s almost like reality is responding to the game, glitching and morphing in kind.
What is happening?
Quickly, she looks back to her screen, using her mouse to try and shut down the application. Yet, strangely, the ‘x’ button is nowhere to be seen, overtaken by the fizzing static of the screen. She can hear a buzzing progressively get louder in her ears, like a very loud, very insistent bee.
This… shouldn’t be happening. She downloaded a PC game, not some 4D VR headset… thing. Especially not one dressed up as some glitch in the game’s code. Quickly, she taps the power button on her laptop, and the screen instantly turns dark, but the light dancing around her room persists, like a cockroach that refuses to die.
Oh, shit.
Whatever the hell the glitch did, it’s beyond just her laptop at this point. She cannot believe that is a statement she just said, but she also cannot believe that it’s true.
Her light flickers overhead.
Objects disappear and appear and disappear and appear from her table.
The buzzing sound crescendoes into a high pitched ringing.
And as suddenly as it began, her vision
fades
to
black.
________
Consciousness comes suddenly, like carelessly opening a digital file. Nene, eyes still shut tightly, quietly notes the sensation of what seems to be grass tickling her skin, as she lies on her back. It’s strange, but certainly not unwelcome.
“…Hey! Wake up!”
A shrill voice breaks the pleasant silence, calling out to her. Grumbling, she brings herself to sit up and open her eyes, only to find a pair of large, sparkling pink eyes staring right at her.
Emu Otori, the fictional character herself, is perched over her, bubble-gum pink hair swaying gently in the breeze. Her usual smile is on her face, but Nene recognises the look in her eyes as one of concern. Around them, a beautiful flower patch sprawls, multicolored petals splayed open in full bloom.
“Are you alright?”
For the longest time, the only thing Nene can do is to stare.
“…Rui, this isn’t funny.”
“Who’s Rui?” The very much fictional girl’s head tilts to the side, much like a confused puppy.
There is no way Nene is talking to a Emu Otori, a being that is, by all means, nothing more than a string of code. She’s hallucinating, that’s what this is.
“Oh, are you calling me Rui? That’s so cool! It’s like a nickname☆!”
How did Rui even achieve this anyways? Last she checked, he was still hammering out the details for a “Nene-Robo”, whatever that is supposed to be. This is- This is a whole different level of technology.
“My name is actually Emu Otori! Emu meaning smile☆!”
Well, she supposes if this was something Rui worked so hard and secretly for, she can play along for a bit. That said, what does she even call her? She’s been internally referring to all the characters by their first names, but that would be beyond strange when they’re talking face-to-face.
She musters a small smile and replies, “Nice to meet you, Otori. I’m quite alright.”
“That’s great!” Otori’s smile grows impossibly wide, “You gave me quite the shock, falling from the sky like that!”
Right on script.
“I- I did?”
“Say, how did you do it? Let me try it too!” Otori jumps up and down in excitement, trampling a few poor flowers in the field. The thin and weak stems of the plants snap under the pressure of her feet, and Nene takes a while to mourn the vibrant petals now flattened to the ground.
Leave it to Rui to create near-perfect copies of the most insane characters. Nene is surprised by many things right now, but certainly not that.
…
“You can stay with me, then! I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team, then! They’ll love you, I promise☆!”
________
“Nice to meet you. The name’s Akito Shinonome. So, are your horns… hidden, or something? It’s not healthy for them to be missing like that.”
“Akito, don’t bring that up so fast. Maybe she just doesn’t have horns.”
“Toya, you know the only ones with no horns are humans. And they’re all gone, aren’t they?”
“…I mean, you never know.”
…
“Say, we’ve introduced ourselves, but what about you? What’s your name?”
“Oh, uh, me? I’m Nene. Nene Kusanagi.”
The introductions to the rest of the team follow the game’s script to a T, just as expected. Though she didn’t notice on her first playthrough, Nene is slightly thrown off by how Aoyagi’s eyes follow her around as she follows Otori to her tent.
It’s weird, as if she’s a specimen on a microscope plate, intensely studied through the lens. Nene wishes Rui added a complimentary ‘Off simulation’ button with the rest of the set, because fictional or not, she simply wasn’t built for social interaction.
She watches Otori dig out another set of blankets and pillows (all ridiculously fluffy) and set them up in a different side of her tent, and tries her best not to zone out.
Any moment now, Rui is going to turn off the machine thing and welcome her back into the real world. Nene is sure of it. The marvel of being in a fictional world can only last for so long, after all.
“All done! Nene, do you like it?”
Any moment now. She’s sure of it.
She mumbles a ‘yes’ to Otori, and she hops a little in joy.
“That’s wonderhoy☆ to hear! I’ll get the fire started for dinner!”
Any moment now.
There’s a crackling fire, and Otori is dumping the ingredients willy-nilly into a boiling pot of water, proudly proclaiming it ‘hot pot’. Aoyagi offers to help, and promptly gets shut down (See: dragged a safe distance away because he allegedly managed to burn water a week ago).
Nene is standing at the side, watching the flame flicker as the wood below turns to ash.
This has been going on for so long. Rui’s never tried something like this for so long before, and never without asking (in his own way) beforehand.
Any moment now.
Eventually, Nene is sitting in front of a steaming bowl of soup, and the sky overhead is a dusky purple.
“Hey, Rui?” She whispers quietly, “This has gone on for long enough already, don’t you think?”
Nothing happens.
Nothing has happened and nothing will ever happen.
The wooden spoon in her hand has a grainy texture, the same as one would expect from real wood. The steam rising out of the bowl felt like a warm breeze on her face. The fire illuminates everyone’s face with a bright, realistic orange.
She stares at her own, impossibly detailed image reflected in the bowl of soup. Something far beyond anything technology can offer.
A 3D model, she knows, but it feels so real. Impossibly real.
Maybe it is.
The epiphany sets in suddenly, like someone pushes her off the cliff and sends her tumbling down at terminal velocity.
This couldn’t have been Rui. Rui wouldn’t have done something like this, not without her consent.
But if not Rui, the only other option was for this… this world to be real.
“Nene, you haven’t been eating any hot pot! Is something wrong?”
She’s stuck here, with no idea how she got here, or how to get out.
At that moment, Nene doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
________
The term “Isekai” isn’t one Nene is intimately familiar with, but one that she has heard nonetheless.
“I” as the kanji for different, and “sekai” as the kanji for the world. Put together, it quite literally means “different world”, describing a story of someone transmigrating to a strange new land, where they get the chance to start anew.
New faces.
New places.
New lives.
In a moment, the Nene Kusanagi of the “real world” no longer mattered. Her achievements, her talents, her failures, vanished into thin air.
Isn’t it tragic, in a way? Who is she, now that the world has been swept under her feet? Is she still Nene Kusanagi? She doesn’t know at all. Truly, a tragedy.
Then again, this could be a good thing, couldn’t it? The world itself is carving another path for her to take, one where she will be happier, forever distanced from the memories that plague her old reality.
Is she happy, or is she sad? Is this good, or is it bad? She ponders for answers that should never exist.
She sits by the long-extinguished fireplace, staring at the ashes as they are carried away by the blowing wind. Just like how one would expect it to happen in the real world. Logically, she knows that there is a difference, because the gentle caress of this world is nothing but falsehood, but does it matter, really?
She knows this game. Knows its monsters, its characters, the magic and whimsy of its every corner. She knows how to navigate this world, in a way that she’s never managed to do in real life.
She’ll be happier here, won’t she?
In these predictable sequences of prophecy, everything she achieves will be false, but at least she’ll live knowing that she won’t fail again.
Is that the answer she is looking for? She doesn’t know.
Otori gives her a gun with over-the-top fanfare the next morning, and she accepts it easily, ignoring the way it only feels like lines of code in her hands.
Maybe she’ll live this comfortable lie, for as long as it lasts.
________
Even without Aoyagi’s droning elaboration, Nene is already intimately familiar with how combat works in this game.
Magic.
Magic in the game was something Nene always found unnecessarily complicated, almost like the person who made the game got too bored.
To start off, there were 2 whole kinds of magic.
The first was known as common magic, or simple spells that could be learnt by everyone. It included everyday spells such as casting light, or amplifying volume. Nene’s personal favourite spell was the one to cast a protective barrier, as it was particularly useful in defence.
The second was soul-specific magic. It tended to be the type of magic the game focused more heavily on, as its applications in combat were greater. Soul-specific magic was a type of magic that was, as the name suggested, specific to its wielder, and varied widely depending on the person’s personality and heritage. In the game, the main character, specifically, had the power to fire light beams and projectiles using the gun they had. The other characters, as demons, had magic that was more physical, rather than the ranged magic that humans allegedly possessed.
Of course, both kinds of magic got stronger with nepotism, as stronger and therefore more expensive weapons allowed users to channel their magic more proficiently. The other, more organic way that Nene preferred was simply the game mechanic of “levelling up”, or in other words, “levelling the ecosystem by committing mass monster murder”.
That said, as much as Nene would like to think of her circumstance as “just a game”, she unwillingly concedes, even in this world, social norms still exist.
“NOOOO!” Otori cries for what is probably the fifth time that afternoon, clinging to her as she once again attempts to run into the forest, “Don’t go become a hermit in the forest, Nene! You’ll be happier if you come with us, promise!”
Seriously, what’s with the rush? She just wants to grind out some levels (by decimating the local monster population). She can catch up to them later. Probably.
“It’s not safe out in the forest,” Aoyagi supplies, “We can still train on the way to the Heartland, but it’d be safer if you stick with us.”
She’ll be fine. With enough grinding, there’s nothing here that a good laser beam can’t fix.
Otori certainly doesn’t seem to think so though, as she transfixes her with a pleading gaze that she has learnt to identify in-game as “Puppy dog eyes Version 1.3”, and states, once again, that it’s “too dangerous” and “more fun if she goes with them instead”.
Ugh.
Let it be known that Nene is much more familiar with arguing with strangers online. Face-to-face debates have never been her forte.
So, Nene allows herself to be dragged across the forest path, listening to the others talk about literally everything under the Sun. Honestly, they make a good trio. Her presence is hardly necessary here, so she walks quietly behind without butting into the conversation.
Instead, she takes the time to admire the graphics of the game brought to life. At a glance, the forest they’re travelling through seemed similar to the ones in the real world, but such an observation would fall apart if anyone looked even a smidge closer. Multicoloured moss covers the trunks of the trees they pass, giving the forest around them a gentle rainbow tinge. The leaves overhead glow a sharp blue, lighting the path they walk even as the canopy blocks the sunlight.
It’s pretty, but it would also be pretty good if they would let her stop and grind against some monsters.
________
Eventually, they do stop, but only because a pack of large, carnivorous rabbits have decided that they like the taste of human meat.
Whatever. Nene will take any opportunity to grind that she gets.
“We’re going to have to kill these things, Emu.” Shinonome reminds the pink-haired girl tiredly, a pair of gauntlets snapping into place on his hands. Otori, on the other hand, is way too busy cooing over how “cute” the rabbits are, and looks about a second away from trying to pat them.
Yes, very cute, murderous bunnies…
With a crackle, she feels Shinonome’s soul-specific magic roar to life, covering his body in brilliant orange flames. He leaps towards the creatures, delivering several heavy-handed punches that make them reel in pain.
Beside her, Aoyagi also readies his staff, suspending a few heavy rocks and hurling them towards the rabbits. Telekinesis, which is cool and all, but Nene distinctly remembers it as a form of common magic, which is way more impractical and draining to use in combat.
Come to think of it, does Aoyagi even have a form of soul-specific magic? Throughout her play through of the game, Aoyagi has consistently only performed spells that she’s seen elsewhere before. As fleshed-out as most of the characters get, there has never been a cutscene where the characters explicitly state their unique magic, so Nene can only guess.
More mysteries. They’re starting to stack up.
The bunnies charge as one, gaping maws threatening to tear her body to shreds. Panicking, she stumbles, only barely getting out of the way in time. Her heart pounds in a way she knows is irrational. She’s played this game before, after all.
She raises her gun and presses the trigger, releasing two bright white projectiles that connect with a rabbit’s brown flank, causing it to roar in pain. The actual damage, though, is less than she would like it to be.
With rumbling snarls, the rest of the monsters charge at her once more, teeth bared. From the corner of her vision, Otori rushes forward to meet them, summoning crystalline structures from the ground, trapping their limbs. Once trapped, she swings her mace towards them, cheering as it crashes into their side.
Nene, on the other hand, rolls to the left, narrowly avoiding the few stampeding stragglers. Raising her gun again, she fires a few more projectiles, sending one of the trapped ones crashing down to the ground.
One down. Knowing how these enemies work, the battle is as good as over.
The rest of them halt, one or two sniffing the body to check for signs of life, only to stiffen when there’s none. A chittering noise is shared between the creatures for a few moments, before they erupt into a frenzy of snapping teeth, charging indiscriminately at any enemy they see.
It’s harrowing to experience for the first time, but Nene knows better.
“Put everything into attacking them right now!” She screams at the others, leaping a safer distance away from their gnashing blades, “When they’re in an enraged state like this, the resistance of their pelts to magic decreases!”
“And how the fuck do you know that?” Shinonome yells back at her sudden display of confidence, but complies anyways, flames surrounding him crackling with intensity as he lands a kick on one of the rabbits’ heads.
“Just trust me!” She screams, aiming at a stray one that’s charging at Otori. The girl smiles at her in return, before impaling its staggering, disoriented form with spikes. It falls down with a ‘thump’, and she crinkles her nose as the smell of blood fills the air. Too realistic. She misses playing the game from behind the comfort of a screen.
Nonetheless, the fight goes on. Aoyagi and Shinonome work astoundingly well as a team, with Aoyagi using his telekinesis to take the opponents off balance, and Shinonome taking advantage of the opening to do as much damage as he can. She and Otori aren’t familiar enough to work quite as well, but they’ve managed to eke out a strategy of trapping the rabbits with Otori’s rock formations, leaving them open for her long-range attacks to take them out.
Very soon, only the largest rabbit is left, snarling as it stares down their team of four.
Its pelt is immaculate, a glossy light brown without a single hint of damage, unlike the burnt and battered hides of its fallen brethren. She quickly shoots a light projectile at it to confirm her theories, only for it to fizz out of existence upon hitting the pelt.
So it’s the strongest as well.
“Shit. Is anything we do going to damage that thing?” She hears Shinonome ask from beside her. His fists light aflame once more, and he charges in, only to get his question answered almost immediately as he is flung away forcefully, the rabbit’s coat just as pristine as before.
To damage it, they needed their magic to be stronger. In the game, how did she make light-based magic stronger?
“Emu. You can make crystals, right?” She asks quickly, startling the girl.
“Yes I can☆! What does Nene want me to do with them!” She cheerfully responds.
“Can you make ones with a reflective surface? Around the rabbit, if you can.”
She cocks her head to the side in confusion, “It would… be hard, I think? Are you sure you don’t want me to trap the bunny instead?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Trust me on this.”
“Then, if it's what you want, I’ll do it!” She responds cheerfully, before surging forward, summoning large crystal structures behind her as she races around the rabbit. The crystals are opaque, with a similar metallic quality to pyrite. The rabbit seems cautious of the crystals, seemingly ready to destroy them, but she distracts it using light projectiles aimed for its face.
“Nene! They’re ready!” The crystals tower over all of them in a circle, with only the sky visible around them. It’s almost like they're at the bottom of the well, surrounded by stone walls.
Perfect. Now, how did she do this in the game again?
She raises her gun, narrowing her eyes in concentration. She just needs to get the angle right, and then this entire fight will be over.
“Close your eyes and cast a protective spell,” She tells the others, and she fires.
Rather than the normal light projectile, what shoots out of her gun is a large beam of light, aimed towards the crystalline walls that Otori has built. It reflects off the metallic surfaces, filling her vision with bright white light.
And then, sight completely overtaken by the blinding light, through the twinkling of a million shattering crystals, Nene hears a heavy ‘thump’.
When she finally manages to open her eyes again, it’s to a floor of broken crystals, all of the formations from before having been destroyed by her magic. At the epicentre, lies the corpse of the rabbit, lifeless on the ground. As dead as they could possibly want it to be.
Success.
They stare at each other for a while, a little shell shocked, before Shinonome breaks the silence.
“So, rabbit for dinner tonight?”
With that, all hell breaks loose, as Otori squeals in joy, shaking her vigorously like she’s a malfunctioning vending machine, “Nene, we did it☆! You were so cool out there!”
Goddamn it. She can’t breathe.
“How did you figure out your soul-specific magic already? I had to train for years! And you just did it on the spot, like, BOOM☆!”
“Otori, I think you’re choking her.”
At the reminder, Nene is finally spared, and she massages her throat, spluttering. Honestly, why does Otori use magic when she can just become Hercules, choking the Nemean Lion?
But, on the other hand, she can’t help but allow a small smile to grace her face. To do something right and be praised by someone, it feels… gratifying, to say the least. Something the “her” of the real world would have been overjoyed about. Of course, neither the person giving the praise nor the praise itself are real, amounting to a few lines of programming, but her traitorous heart can’t help but leap with joy either way.
’Don’t get attached,’ She reminds the “Nene Kusanagi” of the real world at the back of her mind, but trudges over to help the others skin the rabbits for meat anyways.
“Rabbit sounds good to me.”
________
There are a few things that, to Nene, a good game must have, and one of those is boss fights.
Everyone knows what a boss fight is. It’s a significantly more challenging fight than normal, often testing the true skill of the player. Some of them are also attached to story significance, unlike the one her group is tackling today.
It’s been about a week since the scuffle in the forest, and since then, their ragtag group has faced a few more monsters, and had grown decently coordinated. She’d also spent most of her free time grinding against any enemies she could find, so her magic was satisfactorily strong too.
However, this monster would count as their first “boss fight”.
“Please kill the Dragon of the Woods,” The village NPC begs, “The Festival of the Sealing is coming up, but the Dragon has gotten too close to the village in recent times. It’s already taken the lives of three of our performers, and we fear that the festivities may prompt another attack…”
The Dragon of the Woods, huh? Nene remembers that quest. As the first boss in the game, it served mostly as an introduction to boss fights, and thus was easily the least challenging out of all of them. It attacked by breathing frost and freezing its enemies, but if she gets the common spell for warmth, the fight should be a piece of cake.
The following conversation takes place nearly identically to the version Nene remembers, with Otori agreeing enthusiastically, and Aoyagi asking to see any records of the Dragon’s attacks. She decides to take a little peek at the records too, as she wasn’t allowed to in the game itself.
15 dead in the past 10 years. Damn, these people really can’t fight.
As much as she would like to simply charge up at the Dragon and murder it already, having a game become reality also comes with the unfortunate side effect of “unskippable cutscenes”. Specifically, the days of planning that allegedly preceded the boss fight.
Let it be known that as endearing as the side characters of the game have come to be, they are not a good planning committee. At least, Shinonome and Otori aren’t.
“I know, I know!” Otori shouts for the 7th time that hour, jumping up from the ground like an overexcited frog, “How about this, we get a bunch of fireworks, tie it to the Dragon while it's sleeping, and light it up! They’ll go soaring up into the air, like WHOOSH, and then BOOM☆! The Dragon explodes!”
She whirls over to stare at Otori, a look of shock plainly on her face, but can’t form the words to refute it. Shinonome, on the other hand, instantly shoots the plan down, “That’s practically suicide. Besides, where are we even going to get that many fireworks?”
Beside them, Aoyagi, diligently taking down notes, quickly cancels off “fireworks” from the idea list.
“Here’s my idea,” Shinonome states, “It’s an ice dragon right? I’m sure I can just produce enough fire to melt it.”
“Akito, we’ve been over this,” Is the curt reply, which, they have? Nene has no idea what the history between the rest of the team is, “Using that amount of magic isn’t healthy.”
“Fine. But what’s the plan, then?”
“How about we just all train in heat-based magic?” She pipes up. Practice makes perfect, after all. No point wasting precious time to train arguing.
The others stare at her.
She stares back unflinchingly.
“Yeah, sure, let’s do that.”
…And that is the story of how Nene Kusanagi skipped approximately 2 days worth of unskippable bickering.
________
“Ready?” Otori whisper-talks into Nene’s ear as she peers at the sleeping form of the Dragon. She nods silently in response.
The Dragon is even larger than how it seemed in-game, with curled-up form looming heads and shoulders over all of them. Light blue scales the size of mangoes cover every visible inch of its body, and its broad, glistening wings twitch in its sleep. Distantly, Nene wonders if it's having a good, definitely-not-programmed dream.
She sucks in a deep breath to calm herself. They’d prepared for this. Within the past few days, everyone on the team had learnt some variant of heat-generating common magic. It was still more tiring compared to their soul-specific magic, but useful if they needed to pack an extra punch.
“Otori, you try and cripple its wings to make sure it can’t fly. Akito, Kusanagi, go for the head, I’ll go for the legs.” Aoyagi commands softly, and they all nod in tandem.
Their weapons flash into existence in their hands, and they’re off.
It’s Shinonome who takes the first hit, flaming fists rocketing into the Dragon’s head with the impact of a bomb. The Dragon roars awake in agony, reeling its head back enough that Nene can see a few scales melting off the side of her face.
Just as planned. Channeling her magic into her gun, she fires off a torrent of light projectiles. The ones that accidentally make contact with the scales bounce off with a ‘ping’, but the rest have enough of an impact to make a sizable wound.
With another deafening roar, the dragon attempts to flap its wings and take to the skies, but doesn’t even make it off the ground. Its left wing lies limply by its body, caught in a sea of crystalline spikes. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Otori swinging her mace into its side, once again cheering with each massive swing.
Fictional characters and fictional amounts of energy…
The Dragon raises its head, to the skies, in a motion that she can easily read as readying an attack. If she squints, she can see a thick mist start to form around its gargantuan mouth, a boding disaster. She quickly fires a few more bullets in the time the attack takes to charge, before leaping what is hopefully a good distance away.
A beam of ice shoots in her direction, and she swears she can feel the air around her become chillier, causing her heart to leap with anxiety. But in the end, the attack just barely falls short of her.
Attack range estimation is a lot harder than she thought it would be, but everything’s fine. She’s alive.
The same song and dance goes on for a while, with Shinonome doing any damage he can, while she capitalises on the Dragon’s broken defences to deepen the wounds. Otori tries to chip away at its side, but she mostly just ends up deflecting its stampeding feet and beating wing. At some point, Aoyagi manages to use a large tree to trip the Dragon, which she isn’t sure of the logistics of, but good for him.
As the Dragon’s defences continue to go down, Nene starts infusing her projectiles with heat-based magic, causing them to radiate heat, further damaging the walking popsicle. It starts attacking less often, probably fatigued, which is always good news to her.
“I think we have this in the bag!” She calls out to the others, “One final, combined attack might do it!”
“I think so too!” Shinonome yells, and distantly, she can hear Aoyagi supply it with, “Let’s go for the neck!”
One last torrent of projectiles. It’s impossible to mess up.
She lifts her gun, checks her aim, and checks it again.
This is it. They’ve won.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a bright ball of fire close in on the Dragon. She takes a deep breath, and
Fires.
Instead of the usual short projectiles that normally fire out of her gun, her final attack resembles a laser more than anything, a bright pillar of light shooting out towards the target. It connects, and light overtakes her vision, but there’s a strong, reassuring smell of blood and smoke in the air.
Slowly, the light dissipates. Her vision fills with colour again.
And the Dragon
is still
standing.
“Shit! Its still alive?”
The Dragon towers over them as it always has, blood dripping from the wound in its neck, but standing, nonetheless.
“But it barely had the strength to attack earlier! I was so sure that was it!” She says, flustered. This shouldn’t be the case. The Dragon wasn’t this much of a problem in the game.
“About that,” Her ears are still ringing from the previous attack, so she can’t tell who the speaker is, “Didn’t it look like- ”
The Dragon raises its head up high once more, as if looking up to the heavens.
“-the Dragon was- ”
A chill runs down Nene’s spine, as snow starts to gently fall around them, despite it being the end of spring.
“-preparing for something?”
No, she must be hearing wrong. This had never happened in-game. She can’t fail here. Not after how much she’s prepared.
A blood-curdling roar reverberates through the forest, and rows upon rows of sharp icicles jut out of the ground, tearing through anything in its path.
And the next thing Nene knows is pain.
A red hot pain erupts at her side, and she looks down to see a large icicle protruding from it. Blood flows sluggishly from the wound, staining the beautifully clear ice structure with red.
She tries to melt the ice using a spell for warmth, but the pain cuts through her concentration like a sharpened knife, and all she can do is stare helplessly at the spilling blood.
“Nene!” Otori calls from behind her shield of rocks, racing over to inspect her condition, “Are you okay?”
Is she? Her head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton, and her vision is shaking like she’s in an earthquake. The wound is healable, the villagers have a specialist in healing magic, if she can remember correctly, but first, they have to survive this.
“I didn’t think it would still be alive,” Shinonome’s voice sounds from behind her, but she can’t remember when he got there, “Toya, how much more do we need to push?”
“I’d say a few more hits. It looks like it's barely standing.”
“Perfect. Toya, you’re better with common magic, cast a barrier or something. I’ll deal with it.”
“Akito, we’ve been over this, you shouldn’t- ”
“I’ll be fine.” Nene can barely make out anything in front of her right now, but even without looking at Shinonome’s expression, she can hear the wry smile in those words.
She sees Shinonome’s silhouette appear in front of her, gauntlets snapping into place once more. The flames that erupt from his body depart from their normal orange hue, instead being a lowly, muted blue. Despite this, the heat emanating from him is even more intense than before, and Nene, from somewhere in her sluggish brain, likens it to a non-luminous flame.
She watches Shinonome leap towards the Dragon once more, and mercifully, mercifully, finally falls unconscious.
________
Consciousness comes back to Nene slowly.
She blearily blinks her eyes open, only to be met by a wooden ceiling, from which various pungent herbs hang from planter boxes. Her head feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton, and her limbs like logs, unresponsive to the gentle tugs her brain sends them.
Where is she?
Nene, fortunately, does not have to wait long to get her answer, because no sooner as those words register in her mind, does a very familiar pink haired figure appear over her.
“Nene! You’re finally awake! I was so worried!” Otori cries in pure unadulterated joy, very clearly holding herself back from giving her a very tight hug.
Groaning, she props herself up, leaning against the headboard of what she now realises is a bed. At the same time, Otori settles herself onto a stool by her bed, a wide smile plastered across her face.
“Where am I?” She asks Otori, gingerly looking at her side. To her shock, the area that was pierced by the icicle has completely healed over, the only sign of a wound having been there being the residual soreness.
“The healer’s room!” Otori replies, “She patched you up all wonderhoy☆! Speaking of which, I need to tell her you’re awake!”
With that, she flurries off, leaving Nene with an empty bedside.
She looks around the now empty room curiously. She’s never had a need to use a healer’s tent before, having never blacked out in game, despite what the pathetic display earlier would have people believe. It smells strongly of dried herbs and smoke, and various pots and jars are laid out around the many cabinets.
It’s altogether rather boring company to have. Nene slowly swings her legs over the side of the bed, rising to her feet. Surely a little walk can’t hurt.
She only makes it a few steps out of her room when she catches a glimpse of a head of recognisable split-blue hair, sitting desolately in a separate room.
“Aoyagi?” She greets him, the normal volume of her voice reverberating throughout the otherwise quiet house. He flinches at the sudden noise, before turning around.
“Ah, you’re awake,” He intones quietly, “You should really be resting.”
She feels fine. Well, other than the fact that her side is burning from a wound that doesn’t even exist anymore. In an act of petty rebellion, she walks into the room anyway.
On the bed at the far side of the room, Akito Shinonome lies, unconscious. He looks- well, truthfully, he looks horrible, skin covered in what seems like burn wounds, though some, thanks to the rapid healing of magic, have already turned to scars.
“Is he alright?” She asks quietly, not expecting the sight, “What happened to him?” He had seemed confident that he would be able to beat the Dragon, hadn’t he? For them to be alive, he must have, so why is he injured to such a degree?
“He’ll be fine,” The reply is clipped, as Aoyagi averts his gaze and fidgets with his staff, “As for what happened to him, let’s just say he beat the Dragon.”
“Wh-What? But what’s up with the burn wounds?”
Out of the corner of her eye, his staff stills, and his head swivels around to finally look at her.
“Kusanagi. Do you know what Akito’s soul-specific magic is?”
“His fire, isn’t it?” She answers.
“Yes,” The confirmation comes readily, but she can’t help but feel a little resentment behind those words, “The fire doesn’t hurt him under most circumstances.”
“And- And what doesn’t come under most circumstances?”
“If Akito pushes himself enough, he can make the flames turn blue - less bright, but also more intense. Very draining on his magic. He calls it Soulburn,” He practically spits out the words, grip on his staff tightening visibly, “Unfortunately, those flames also have a side effect of hurting him in the process.”
She recalls the last hazy memories before she fell unconscious. The blue flames pulsating around Akito’s body. The heat that emanated from it, like she had just shoved her hands into a fireplace.
“So, those flames- ”
“Yes, they were.”
They don’t talk anymore after that. Aoyagi goes back to staring at Shinonome’s sleeping form, picking at the wood of his staff.
Nene takes a stool to sit on, and simply looks down at the ground.
________
The door of the house they’re in opens with a loud “bang”, signifying Otori’s successful return with the healer. Next to her, Aoyagi flinches even more violently than last time.
“Nene☆! The healer says she wants to check on you one more time!” She calls from the corridor cheerfully. Rising from her chair, she pokes her head out of the room, to see Otori standing next to an NPC with patchy clothes and various herbs sticking out of his pocket. Behind them, the NPC who gave them the quest to slay the Dragon stands, looking strangely nervous.
The healer quickly sweeps forward to examine her wound, prodding around the area and asking her if it hurts. She replies honestly, and at each of her answers, the healer nods sagely.
Does this mean that she’s answering correctly?
After a short, and frankly rather disturbing check-up, the healer rises, and with a sweep of their clothes, pronounces her “fit for battle”.
“That’s awesome, Nene!” Otori squeals, this time dashing forward to envelop her in a hug. She startles at the sudden contact, trying to squirm away slightly, but Otori’s arms only tighten around her, like she’s some kind of huge plush toy.
The hug is… weird. It’s warm, like she’s sitting in the middle of a field, basking in the Sun’s rays. At the same time, as much as she wants to give in to its warmth, the arms that surround her, she reminds herself, are nothing more than a computer’s programming.
This is only a little fantasy world for her to escape from reality.
Behind them, the other NPC lets out a little cough, snapping Otori back to reality,
“Oh, Nene, I almost forgot! Bagin here has something he wants to ask us!”
At this, the NPC, Bagin, finally steps forward, “Pardon me for disrupting the reunion. I do apologise for the suddenness, but I have something to ask of you and Aoyagi.”
Quickly, she motions for Aoyagi to come out of the room, and when he does, Bagin clears his throat once more, “Due to the casualties we suffered from the Dragon, our village is, unfortunately, short of 3 performers for the Festival of the Sealing. Therefore, we’d like to humbly request that the 3 of you take their place for the performance this year.”
At that moment, Nene’s world stops.
Sure, it made sense for them to be presented with such an offer. With Shinonome out of commission, they’d have to be stuck here for a while. In the meantime, the rest of them could fill out the missing roles perfectly.
Logically, it was a perfect solution. But Nene couldn’t ignore the way her heart dropped into her stomach at those words.
They’re asking her to perform. To get up on a stage, in front of all the villagers, for a Festival she was sure was dear to all of them.
There was once a time in her life where she would have accepted the offer without hesitation, wasn’t there? A life before shame and failure had run its course.
But now-
“I- I’m sorry, but I can’t do it,” She quickly stammers out a response, shrinking back into herself a little.
“Eh?” Otori is quick to jump up in surprise, “But Nene, the villagers have been stressed about this problem for ages! Think of how happy they’d be if you could join!”
She knows, she knows. Knows the expectations they hold for this Festival. That’s why she can’t do it.
“I know. I just- I just can’t. I’m not the right fit for this.”
“Is this because it’s Nene’s first time performing?” The shrill voice makes her want to tear her ears out. It’s not. It’s not. And yet, the only thing the voice does is continue, “Don’t worry! The villagers are all reeaaally nice☆! I’m sure they’ll help you!”
There’s a tug on her arm, except, instead of being warm like the hug before, the contact feels like a thousand needles in her skin, piercing and jabbing and stinging.
“The stage is right outside too! Come on, Nene, you have to see it!” The voice pipes up again, good intentions all over its surface, but she can’t help but recoil upon hearing it.
She doesn’t want to. This isn’t part of the game. She wants to play the game.
And yet, despite everything, Nene finds herself outside the house, staring at the stage opposite.
It’s an old, dilapidated thing, the coat of paint covering it flaking off in some places, revealing the decaying wood underneath. There are ornately carved symbols all over it she doesn’t understand, because it was designed to look the part of religion, rather than be it.
She can almost envision the day of the Festival, with the audience crowding around the stage, looking at the performance.
Looking up at her.
’I can’t remember my lines! What should I do?’
And as much as she hates it, she starts thinking. What would it be like, to look down at them on that stage? What expression would they be making?
‘Did she really bother to show up again after what happened last time?’
But she knows the answer to that.
She can see the disappointment in their eyes, hear the discontent in their voices, coating every bored expression, every disinterested slump in their stance.
She’s going to fail.
‘I can’t remember my lines!’
She’s going to disappoint everyone.
’What should I do?’
She can’t step on that stage again, knowing what happened the last time she did.
’What should I do…?’
Staring at a stage that, even as lines of code, haunts her, Nene finds herself possessed by a raw, guttural panic. She tears herself away from Otori’s hands, and runs.
________
The forest is less beautiful than she remembers.
She remembers waking up in this fantasy world for the first time, enveloped by sprawling flowers and grass. Remembers the multicoloured moss coating the ground the group has trekked through, and the vines of glowing leaves hanging overhead.
Unreal in every sense of the word.
Now, as she runs through that same forest, the only things she sees are the shadows of the real world.
She’s living a fantasy, she knows this much. A world of which she knows every nook and cranny, from the gentle breeze of the starting areas to the howling winds as they approached the Heartland.
So why is the world she left behind haunting her at every step?
She’s here to erase her failures. To run away from them, wash their stains away and start over on a blank, clean slate.
So why is it that no matter what, failure haunts her at every turn?
Come to think of it, has she even succeeded in her own, fantastical world?
She unlocked her soul-specific magic quicker than normal, yes. She knows of the enemies’ attack patterns and can use it to direct her teammates, certainly.
But at the same time, hasn’t she needed to be saved? The Dragon. Shinonome, destroying himself with his own magic to get her to safety. Why is it that even in this world, failure lurks in her shadow?
Is Nene Kusanagi simply an existence destined for failure?
She doesn’t want to answer that question.
Panting, she stops by a cascading waterfall, sitting down and submerging her legs in the water. She wordlessly stares at her own rippling reflection, trying her best to focus on the roaring of the water instead. The thoughts bleed into her mind nonetheless.
How does she escape? Escape the neverending pain of reality?
Is there an escape?
Her only answer is the slosh of the water as she kicks her feet back and forth.
She closes her eyes, and lets herself relax, eternally lost between two worlds.
“…Kusanagi?” She doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually, a voice sounds out from behind her. It’s uncertain, barely audible over the waterfall, yet grabs her unwilling attention.
She slowly opens her eyes and looks back. Underneath a small tree, Aoyagi stands, staring at her.
“Don’t you have to take care of Shinonome or something?” Her voice is more biting than usual, but she can’t be bothered to care.
At the acknowledgement of his presence, Aoyagi walks out of the shade of the tree and settles down beside her. His staff hangs on his back, so his hands find a stray leaf to fiddle with instead.
“He’s asleep. Otori was beside herself with worry, you know. I think you should talk to her.”
At the mention of Otori, she directs her gaze back towards the water.
“I’m not saying that what she did was right. I’m just saying that both of you would feel better if you could clear things up.”
“And why should I care about how she feels?” She insists hotly, “She isn’t real. Neither of you are real.”
“Is that how you really feel?”
It isn’t. Because as much as she tried to deny it at first, this world isn’t simply a fantasy for her to enjoy. It’s different from the “real world”, yes, but its failures are just as cripplingly real and devastating.
She doesn't grace Aoyagi with an answer, though.
“Though, if it is a matter of reality we’re discussing,” He continues, flicking the leaf out into the water and watching it float away, “Would you please allow me to show you something?”
She tilts her head to look at him once more, and he smiles gently in return. He swiftly fishes his staff from behind him, closing his eyes in concentration.
There’s a soft, icy blue light.
And suddenly, the glitching horn on his right fades out, like it was never there before.
“Your horn…” She says, stunned. Her hand reaches out to feel the area where it once was, only to be met with empty space.
That alone tells her everything she needs to know. The horn wasn’t real.
Aoyagi Toya never had a demon horn.
”Toya, you know the only ones with no horns are humans. And they’re all gone, aren’t they?”
Only demons had horns. It was one of the few things that distinguished them from humans.
“So- So you’re- ” She stammers, hands subconsciously feeling the rock-like fake horns that Emu had made for her.
“Yes. I’m human.”
Humans were all extinct in this world. That was a fact that had been hammered into her head since the beginning of the game, from the first whisperings of the prophecy. As far as she knew, only she, a being from another world, was a human.
For Aoyagi to be standing here, horn absent from his head, then by the only known precedent, that would mean-
“I believe we both came from the same place, Kusanagi.”
He’s from the “real world”. All this time, she’s been interacting with someone who’s just like her, a person trapped in a world that isn’t theirs.
“I- How?”
He shrugs, “The same way as you, I suppose. My friend was in the middle of recommending the game to me, and well, it just happened.”
“But you’re a character in the game too! Surely if you disappeared, people would notice. Your friend would notice,” She argues, heart pounding in her chest.
“Ah. Then perhaps, in that world, I don’t exist anymore,” He replies serenely, laying his staff gently beside him. And maybe you don’t, either, she can hear the silent insinuation in his tone.
She’s not the only one. Does that make it better or worse?
Once again, she can’t find any answers.
“So, your soul-specific magic, is it the illusions?” She asks instead.
He huffs a laugh, shaking his head in response, “No, it isn’t. My soul-specific magic- I think it’d be easier to demonstrate.”
He closes his eyes in concentration once more, and slowly, his fist lights up in a very familiar, glowing light. A small flame surrounds it, flickering weakly, producing barely enough light to illuminate their faces.
Fire. The very same magic that Shinonome uses.
“Mimicry?” She asks tentatively, and he nods, dipping his flaming hand into the water. It meets the liquid with a sharp hiss, disappearing into leisurely rising coils of smoke.
“When I came here, I was… wandering, for a while. During that time, I met someone just as lost as me. She was the one who taught me how to mimic her illusions.”
“Then, all this time, other than the horn, why haven’t I seen you use your magic?”
“Ah,” He deflates visibly at the question, lowering his head to study the blades of grass beneath them, “I’m afraid I’m not quite a fan of it. There’s nothing wrong with the magic, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t feel like mine.”
A lull falls upon the conversation, and they sit next to each other, listening to the thundering of the waterfall. Neither of them look at each other, nor do they dare to voice the questions that have inevitably piled up on their tongues.
It’s Aoyagi who breaks the silence first, “But I’m not here so you can hear about me. So, if I may ask, is there a reason why you don’t want to talk to Otori?”
Because it reminds her so much of why she quit theatre. Of her failure. She doesn’t want to go up there because then she would have to accept that this world was real, and not some divine escape for her to live a perfect life. That failure was just as imminent as it was before.
“I’m scared,” She simply states, “I’m scared she’ll drag me up on that stage again.”
“I see,” he replies. She peers back over at him curiously, and finds his eyes narrowed, as if he’s mulling over something.
“Then, please forgive my impudence, Kusanagi, but,” He continues, “What is it that you’re running from?”
“Wh- What?” She stammers out reflexively, subconsciously shifting a few inches away from where Aoyagi sits.
What is she running from? She’s running from Otori's request. Running from the stage. Running from the village, with their expectations of a beautiful performance.
She’s running from the failures that haunt her every footstep, the ones that tighten her throat every time she wants to talk to someone. She’s running because maybe if she runs fast enough, she can pretend that they’re gone. Figments of her imagination.
“I’m not going to pretend I know what your life was like, Kusanagi,” He gently states, “I’ve run before, just like you, but it would be rude to pretend our circumstances are the same.”
“But the thing about running is that, eventually, it hurts more to run than to stop.”
“I don’t care,” She cuts him off before he can add on to that statement, “I’m not going back to that stage. Not here, not out in the “real world”, not anywhere. I can’t live with that failure again.”
“And I’m not asking you to. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t. But no matter where they take place, those memories are still a part of you. At some point, you have to look back over your shoulder and acknowledge that they happened.”
From somewhere in the hastily knitted bag he keeps hung around his waist, he pulls out the gun that she’s gotten accustomed to shooting. He holds it out towards her, offering it silently.
“Maybe this isn’t the world that it happened in, but even so, I think that letting it out is better than pretending it doesn’t exist. I’m not sure of how real this world is either, but even so, I believe that they will understand beyond what their lines of code would suggest.”
Gingerly, she reaches out towards the gun, eyes tracing its black and light green exterior. The small flecks of light shining through the canopy is reflected in its sleek metal, giving the gun a beautiful shine. She holds it firmly in her hand, and, for the first time, it feels well and completely real.
“Alright, Toya. I’ll try,” She finally gets the courage to say.
________
She finds Otori sitting on the stage when she returns to the village.
Faint humming is audible as her legs swing back and forth over the edge of the stage, but her mouth is pressed together into a frown. In her hands lie a crude mask that looks barely stitched together.
“Otori,” Nene calls out to her, “Can we talk?”
She instantly looks up at the question, and her face breaks into a small smile, “Of course, Nene! Where do you want to talk?”
“Somewhere… private, I guess? Maybe we can go back to my room at the healer’s place.”
The walk to the healer’s place is short, but tense. Neither of them dare to look over to the other, let alone voice the thoughts eating away at their minds.
“I’m sorry,” As soon as they’re back in the room, the words rip themselves out of Otori’s throat.
She steals a look over at the other girl, only to see a genuine look of regret on her face. In an instant, she feels her throat dry up, the things she wished to say gone with the wind.
“It’s just,” she continues, “The villagers seemed so sad, because of all the people they lost. Me and Bagin, we thought that maybe, if we could find a way to commemorate them during the Festival, the people here would have a reason to smile again.”
It’s a very well-intentioned request. Otori in the game, despite being overly enthusiastic, had always been the first one to try and make others smile. That said, in contrast to the dialogue in the game, seeing it on full display in real life had always felt warmer, like a ray of sunshine shining upon her.
That said, Nene reminds herself, Sometimes good intentions can have bad outcomes.
“I’m sorry,” She apologises once again, lowering her head to study the floor, “But, Nene, can I ask you something?”
“Eh? What is it?”
“Did someone hurt you when you were up in the skies?”
“What?” She asks, baffled by the absurdity of that statement.
Otori doesn’t laugh at her confusion, or follow it up with a joke. Instead, her brow furrows in uncharacteristic worry.
“To be honest, Nene, when I saw you fall from the skies, it almost didn’t feel real. It almost felt heavenly, you know? Like I’d been given a god-blessed gift,” Her eyes are sad as she says that, even as her lips twitch into a smile of reminiscence, “Before you came, I was always so… worried as to whether we could successfully eradicate the curse. But you were so strong, so smart, it felt like an angel had descended to help me.”
The words that come out of her mouth are so outlandish, but so… honest.
“I- I don’t know what I could have done to make you feel that way,” Nene stutters out a response. Sure, the knowledge she had had been of some use in fights, but not enough to warrant such feelings. She feels like Otori is baring her heart to her, yet cannot, for the life of her, figure out what for.
“Ah, right. Nene can’t know yet,” Otori says, but strangely enough, the words don’t feel intended for her at all. They feel like a closely guarded secret, something that she should never have been allowed to hear.
“But something happened to you, before you fell from the skies, right? When I asked you to perform, you seemed scared. Like someone hurt you.”
Ah. So that’s what this is about. She takes a deep breath, mentally steeling herself before she answers the question, “The Festival, it wasn’t… my first time performing. The last time I did, it didn’t really go so well.” Her heart pounds a heavy rhythm as she utters the words, and refuses to stop as she awaits Otori’s response.
She doesn’t know why Otori thinks of her so highly, but in her heart, she dreads the possibility of watching that pedestal get destroyed. That knowing about her failures would eradicate that image of an “angel” in her mind, cementing Nene as just as weak and unsure as the rest of them.
Otori’s expression doesn’t change at all upon hearing that information. Instead, she maintains the small sad smile that has plagued her throughout the conversation, “The sky is crueler than I dreamed of. I’m sorry that had to happen, Nene.”
“It’s not your fault that it happened,” She responds, the wild palpitations of her heart slowing in relief.
“It is my fault for not knowing,” Otori maintains, “But, thank you for entrusting me with this, Nene. I’ll try my best to help you keep smiling.”
“Thank you,” She whispers in return, a real warmth flowing into her heart, “I think I needed to hear that.”
And for a while, those words are enough, the Sun’s rays peeking in through the windows, casting their mutual smiles in a bright yellow glow.
Then abruptly, Otori stands, passing her the cloth mask that she was holding earlier, “Earlier, I thought that maybe you didn’t want to show your face on stage, so I got help from the villagers to make a little mask to help with that. But, now, just think of it as a meaningless gift. I should probably go now. The villagers will be having their rehearsal soon.”
She gently receives the mask, thumb gliding over its colourful surface. It looks to be a full-face mask, with two holes present for her eyes. Various butterfly accessories decorate it, but they look mangled and botched due to the messy sewing.
Technique-wise, a total failure. And yet, she finds it beautiful, in a strange and abstract way.
”What are you running from?”
The decision pops into her mind unbidden, yet convincing.
“Emu,” She calls out, “If it’s possible, I’d like to give the rehearsal a try. With- With the mask, though.”
Her name is Nene Kusanagi, and maybe it’s about time she looks her failure in the face once more.
________
The Festival is a success. Of course, none of the villagers know it’s her, owing to the mask, but she feels joy nonetheless looking at their brilliant smiles.
It’s weird to think about it, but in a way, even though she wasn’t acting in a play this time, she missed this part about theatre. The emotions present in a performance, and sharing those emotions with the audience. It was like a splash of colour in a monochrome world, drawing her away from that fear of messing up again.
“Nene, you looked so good up there☆!” Emu cheers after the performance, practically jumping for joy, “I didn’t know you could sing like that!”
She smiles, and just lets herself enjoy the compliment. It’s a strange thing to say about someone who’s considered “fictional” everywhere else, but she finds herself glad to have met Emu.
________
Ever since coming to this world, she’d had so much fun with its ragtag group that it was easy to forget that they’re travelling with an objective in mind. However, as they move on from the village with heavy hearts, a large, wilted tree far away gradually creeps closer, reminding them of why they came so far in the first place.
The Heartland. The origin of the curse that once possessed the demons of this land. It was every bit as ominous as the tales made it seem, the gargantuan tree sitting in its centre gnarly and twisted, like a black, charred hand reaching for the skies. Even from the distance that they are from it, Nene can still make out blood-red crystals hanging from its branches like dripping blood.
That said, before they could enter the Heartland, there was still one more objective to complete.
The village that lay outside the Heartland was small and quaint, with most of its inhabitants living in humble wooden cottages with roofs covered in strange glowing vines. The stone paths were lined with crystals that hummed with a sort of mysterious energy.
As their group walked into the village, Emu suddenly reached out, plucking the fake stone horns she’d been wearing for so long from her head, causing her to yelp in shock. She giggles a little at her surprise, “No need for those here, Nene! These people won’t mind.”
The villagers greeted them with a hesitant warmth, kind smiles smeared across their faces but eyes full of caution. Despite that, their eyes did not linger on her hornless head, most of their attention directed towards Emu instead.
“Otori,” A woman with horns covered in flowers calls out, “I assume your group is planning to head into the Heartland?”
“Emu, this person knows you?” She hurriedly whispers to the girl beside her. None of them had introduced themselves to the villagers yet. So why did they know her name?
Emu doesn’t even acknowledge her question, instead cheerfully turning to the woman, “Yes we are! This village has changed so much since I was last here! Where’s Grandpa Harold? He hasn’t come down to greet us yet!”
“Ah, I’m afraid the historian has retired. The lost girl he took in a while back has taken his place,” Another villager answers, pointing towards a house at the top of a hill. The house resembles more of a small little shack, perched precariously on the slope. The stone path up is hardly well-maintained, with wildflowers poking out of its cracks adding splatters of colour. Messy, certainly, but not without its charm.
Without wasting a single moment, Emu grabs her hand, making towards the house in question.
“Emu, what was that about?” Shinonome demands on the walk up, “You know these people?”
“I came here before when I was really little! My dad and brothers brought me to see the Heartland once!” She explains energetically, practically skipping up the stone path.
’Someone’s excited,’ Nene thinks to herself as she follows her up the steps. Then again, it is a beautiful village. She can hardly blame her.
“I see. And why are we going to see the historian?” Toya chimes in curiously.
“Because you need permission to go to the Heartland! And you can only get permission if the historian likes you!” They’re nearing the house now, and Emu quickens her pace, racing towards the door and knocking enthusiastically.
There’s a moment of silence before the door creaks open, revealing a girl with long, icy blue hair. A pair of plain, black horns stick out from her head. Her posture is hunched as she studies them carefully, hands gripping the door tightly.
“Wonderhoy☆, Ms. Historian!” Emu greets loudly, causing her to flinch back in shock. The ajar door closes just a little.
Relatable. Quite frankly, Nene would have done the exact same thing.
“…Visitors?” The historian mutters to herself, eyes narrowed.
“Nice to meet you again, Yoisaki,” Toya calls from behind Emu’s over enthusiastic self, causing both Nene and Akito to turn to him in surprise, “Apologies for the sudden visit. We’ve come here to obtain permission to enter the Heartland.”
“You know this person, Toya?” Shinonome asks, befuddled, and he answers with a small nod.
Yoisaki’s eyes flick away from the Emu, and breaks out into a small smile, “Likewise, Aoyagi. Permission to enter the Heartland, was it? I can do that. Please come in.”
Yoisaki’s house is small, dark and cluttered. In every corner, books and notes are scattered across the floor, all of them containing strange runes in an unknown language. Various strange carvings and crystals are stacked on the shelves, the faint glowing of some serving as the house’s only light source.
“Y-Yoisaki, was it?” Nene asks, looking around the room, “What exactly do we have to do to gain your permission?”
The girl in question rifles through a box of various unknown artifacts, before eventually pulling out a small, pink crystal. She turns to them, mouth pressed into a tight line, “I will go through the process shortly. Before that, may I ask if you are familiar with the prophecy surrounding the curse?”
“The prophecy?” Shinonome mutters, “I thought that information was classified.”
She sighs, grabbing a small scroll in the corner, “The prophecy is one of the most concrete things surrounding the curse that we know. The definitions of some terms have been highly debated over the years, but most of its meaning is widely agreed on.”
She passes them the scroll, and in elegant, cursive handwriting, the prophecy from the beginning of the game is written out.
On the eve of destruction, one will appear
In hopes of escape, to the world torn asunder
Two souls, once again, under a wilted tree
One a sword, and one the lingering sin
Raised up high, a blade of heavenly light
The sinner falls, and a prison is set free
Seeing those words again makes her feel a little nostalgic, like the journey she’s been brought on in this game is finally coming to an end.
“The lingering sin,” Shinonome mutters, examining the scroll closely as if hoping it will give him more answers, “Emu, that’s what you said was the vessel for the curse, right?”
“Yep!” Emu answers cheerfully.
Yoisaki quickly supplies her explanation, “While the seal contains the curse’s spread, it is believed that the lingering sin was the vessel of curse’s origin. In other words, only if the sin is found and destroyed, will the curse fully cease to exist.”
“I see. And how are we supposed to find this lingering sin?”
Her eyes linger upon Emu for a moment, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, but she does not grace them with an answer. Instead, it is Emu who pipes up, “I’m sure we’ll be able to find it! It should be somewhere in the Heartland!” Shinonome snorts at her enthusiasm, but shoots her a small smile nonetheless.
“Yoisaki, may I ask why this knowledge of the prophecy is needed? Is there something that we need to know,” Nene asks hesitantly. In the games, such a thing was never brought up. Instead, the trial they needed to do was fight off a few very strong monsters.
Was there a reason for the sudden divergence?
Yoisaki’s eyes focus on her, studying her hornless head, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the human who fell from the sky?”
The room falls dead silent, as everyone turns around to stare at her.
How does she know that? The only ones who knew that Nene fell from the sky were the fellow members of her party. Where the game started, there wasn’t a village to be found for days.
“I- Yes I am,” Her response comes out soft and hesitant, “I’m human.”
Yoisaki nods, as if expecting her answer, “The other soul of prophecy, then. Please hold the crystal and use your magic to confirm.”
She fumbles as she receives the small pink crystal. Focusing, she allows herself to channel just a little light magic into the crystal, unsure of what it might do.
Instantly, the crystal starts emanating a piercing light, illuminating the entire room in bright white light. She closes her eyes reflexively, and when she finds herself able to open them again, she finds that the crystal is now a light minty green.
“I’m sorry, but how does that work?” Toya asks in marvel, while Emu fawns over the crystal’s vibrant lustre.
“Excellent,” Ignoring the question once more, Yoisaki states, “Please present the crystal to the villagers. They will allow you entry into the Heartland upon seeing it.”
That’s it? That’s the test?
As much as she knew that this world wasn’t a one-to-one copy of the game, it was uncharacteristic for such a large change to be made. Especially when so much previously untouched information was divulged.
“No, not yet,” She protests before the others can turn around to leave, “How did you know I fell from the sky?”
Yoisaki turns away from them, putting the scroll back on the shelf she took it from, “The seal. It contains much more than just the curse’s spread.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“The seal is also the piece of magic separating worlds.”
Worlds. When in the game had they ever mentioned different worlds? It was always about the world that demons inhabited. The only other world she ever knew-
It was the real world. The world that humans inhabited.
“You can’t possible mean- ”
“Yes I do. Humans never truly did go extinct. They were simply separated from demons by the seal.”
She can feel her world turning upside down with every word she hears.
So there really was no “real world”. Instead, her world and this one had always existed in tandem, like a pair of parallel lines, connected only by a game.
If both worlds were real, then what was the game? Why did it exist?
“So how- how did I end up here?”
”’On the eve of destruction, one will appear in hopes of escape, to the world torn asunder’” She quotes serenely, “Because you, and all the other humans who came here, had something to run from. And for the prophecy, that was enough. I suppose you simply had the luck of coming here at the right time, with the right kind of magic.”
The game was a manifestation of the prophecy. An arm, acting out the script laid out by the humans who sealed off the curse so long ago. Desperately finding candidates to pull through worlds in order to fulfill itself.
So this place truly was her feeble attempt at an escape from failure.
“And- and how did you find out? About the other world, I mean.”
It is at this that Yoisaki finally turns around, face completely emotionless. Her hands reach out to touch the horns on her head, yet instead, Nene watches as they phase right through them.
Slowly, familiarly, the horns on her head fade away, leaving only empty space where they once were.
Yoisaki’s face breaks into a gentle, encouraging smile, “Good luck, soul of prophecy. Remember to follow the script.”
________
The villagers send them off enthusiastically as they set off for the Heartlands. As they head beyond the beautiful stone paths of the village and towards the wilted tree, the sounds of celebration and fanfare behind them gradually fade. The lush forests that accompanied them throughout most of the journey disappear as well, leaving dead, brown grass and a leafless graveyard of trees.
They really are in the final stretch now.
“It’s hard to imagine that a place like this was christened the Heartland,” Toya remarks as they trudge through the eerie land, scanning the trees for any signs of life. The dialogue is different from what it was from the game, but after Yoisaki, Nene doesn’t care to question it.
“It probably looked way prettier in the past! Don’t you think so too, Nene?” Emu declares, nudging at her for a reply.
She startles at the contact, but does not shy away, “Eh? Oh, maybe… I’m rather nervous, though. It feels like everything is coming to an end, somehow.”
Shinonome chimes in, “I hate to admit it, but I am scared too. It would be horrible to come so far just to fail. That said, only one way to find out.”
She and Toya murmur in agreement, yet Emu stays quiet beside them. Too quiet.
“Emu, is everything alright?” She asks, looking at the other girl.
She flinches at the sudden question, turning her head to avoid her gaze, “Before we go in, can I- can I tell all of you something?”
Her voice is so forcibly high-pitched it cracks audibly, in a gut-wrenchingly familiar way. The smile usually plastered across her face is gone, something that Nene had only ever seen once before. In the final cutscene before the game glitches out.
“Go ahead, Emu,” She says encouragingly.
Emu looks over at her and nods.
“I’m- ”
Words previously went unheard ring out into the air.
“I’m the lingering sin.”
And for the second time, Nene’s world completely stops.
________
The lingering sin? What is the lingering sin?
The lingering sin is the vessel holding the origin of the curse. It is what must be destroyed in order to destroy the curse.
It is also Emu Otori, the cheerful, airheaded girl standing in front of them.
To destroy the curse laid unto the demons, she has to kill Emu.
“No,” She denies that train of thought instantly, “You’re joking.”
To kill the very person who first took her hand onto this journey? What kind of ending would that be?
Emu’s eyes look at her, a sort of haunting emptiness behind them, “I’m not, Nene. I really am the lingering sin.”
She wishes she could reach out and mold the smile back on Emu’s face, so that she could get some assurance, any assurance, that what she said was a joke. However, that would be impossible for her to do.
“The curse happened a long time ago, didn’t it? Otori, surely you aren’t old enough to be the lingering sin,” Toya argues.
“It’s a family thing,” She explains, voice sweet and disgustingly cheerful for what she’s trying to convey, “Before me, my grandpa was the lingering sin. And before him, his ancestors were too. We’ve been vessels ever since the curse came into being.”
“So it’s… not a joke?”
“Not a joke. I wouldn’t joke with you guys about this.”
The words hang in the air, like a death sentence swirling around Emu’s head. Despite all this, she steels her previously empty expression into a smile that makes Nene sick to her core.
“No,” Nene declares, backing away from Emu.
Emu cocks her head in confusion the same way she always does, “What’s the matter, Nene?”
She knows exactly what the matter is. It’s sick, it’s twisted and it’s horrible. That’s what the matter is.
“You can’t possibly be asking me to kill you. That’s murder, simple as that.”
Her smile grows infinitely wider into an unsettling grin. Her horns glow with a faint red light, as she stares unblinkingly at them.
“It’s in the prophecy, though, Nene. There’s no point fighting it.”
And suddenly, everything that Nene could possibly say in response dies in her throat, like a candle’s flame being snuffed out.
She has to kill Emu. It’s what the prophecy says. The prophecy that was spoken through ancient magic, stretching across worlds to drag her into this place.
If the prophecy dictates it, then who is she to fight it? The only option for her is to follow the script, and allow herself to be molded into a convenient blade.
The only option for her is to kill Emu.
It’s like a disgusting, corrupted rendition of soulmates. Two souls fated to meet under a wilted tree, except instead of them being in love, it ends with a blade through one’s chest.
Nene wants to vomit. She wants to vomit and turn back and leave this godforsaken place. Take Emu’s hand, forget about the prophecy and run.
But she can’t. Because without the prophecy, the only thing left for both worlds would be destruction.
________
The camp they set up that night is especially silent, with only the crackling of the campfire as conversation. Emu, for the first time, is the first one to head off to bed, stalking off into the tent the moment she finishes her food. Toya leaves next, saying that he’s going to survey the area for any potential threats.
The only ones left by the fireplace are her and Shinonome.
“So,” Shinonome starts, “The prophecy says that you have to kill Emu?”
Was he even paying attention to what Emu said just now? She’s the vessel to the thing they came this whole way to destroy.
“Yes,” She replies shortly, “Yes, it does.”
He hums in response, taking full advantage of his fire immunity to stick his hands in the flames, warming them up, “And what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do about it?” She fumes, kicking the ground and sending the dirt beneath her feet into the flames. The campfire flickers weakly in protest, but is unable to do anything to stop her. It’s not sentient, after all.’
“So you’re just going to kill her, huh?” His words are straight to the point, like a knife’s edge pointed straight at her heart.
“Of course I don’t! Why would I ever want to kill Emu?” She shoots upright instantly, yelling in protest. She would never even think about killing Emu. Emu was kind, cheerful, with an innocent heart filled with good intentions. She was the one who reached out her hand and brought her on this journey. She was the one who gave her a mask and the courage to go back onstage. It was something she would have hated to admit when she first entered this world, but she had grown to like Emu.
What was it about “Emu Otori” that entailed death?
It was unfair, all the way down.
“It’s just- I can’t not kill her.”
Suddenly, she hears a chuckle sound out from next to her. She whirls around to glare at Shinonome, to find a small smile on his face.
“Shit, I shouldn’t have laughed,” He quickly remarks, shaking his head, “It’s just that you reminded me of Toya for a second there.”
Oh, sure. She’s here worrying about having to kill Emu, and here he is, thinking about Toya.
Quite reasonably, at least to her, she snaps back, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Shinonome uses his magic, allowing his hands to light up in bright, orange flames. They merge into the weak, dying flames of the campfire, causing it to flare up brightly once more.
“Kusanagi, what do you want to do?”
“I- I beg your pardon?”
The rejuvenated flames cast his face in vivid orange, lighting up his eyes as he stares at her.
“How do you want this story to end?”
Once, when Nene was very young, she went to a theatre to watch The Little Mermaid. At the end of that play, she watched the little mermaid fall into the sea and turn to foam. She thinks back to how she cried her eyes out after the ending.
It was a beautiful ending, yes. But didn’t she want it to end on a happier note? Didn’t she want the little mermaid to live out a “happily ever after”?
Now, she’s at the end of her own Little Mermaid, staring down that cliff, awaiting the sea foam that would eventually be swept away by waters.
How does she want this story to end?
“I don’t want to kill Emu,” She says, “I want to stop the curse, but I also want her to live.”
“Then there you have it. That’s what you need to do.”
It’s nowhere that simple, she wants to say. The actions she is going to take have already been bound by prophecy. She’s merely a puppet, acting out its will.
Instead of listening to any of that, Shinonome stands, wringing his hands out to rid them of the stray ashes that linger on them, “Well, then. I’ll leave you with that. Good night, Nene.”
And then, it’s just her, and the crackling of the fire next to her. Even in the otherwise abject silence, the flames seem to be taunting her, hissing questions into her mind.
How do you want this story to end?
“Good night, Akito,” She whispers for no one to hear.
The wilted tree draws near. Nene makes a decision.
________
They wake up the next morning to find Emu gone.
Nene discovers it first, owing to the two of them sharing a tent. Her eyes open slowly as the first rays of sunshine seep through the tent, illuminating the empty space beside her.
“Emu?” She peeks her head out of the tent and calls, and receives silence as an answer. This serves as enough to cause her to panic, and she jolts upright from her lying position, scouring the tent for any clues on where Emu could have gone.
Lying on her large and fluffy pillow, carefully set next to the various plushies she hugs to sleep, there lies a single note.
The note reads:
Hey, Nene!
Sorry about yesterday. I didn’t want to make you upset.
I’ve decided to go to the wilted tree earlier than intended. Preparations need to be made, after all! Once you’re ready, you know where to find me. To be honest, I’ve had a really wonderhoy time with all of you☆! I’m sorry I won’t be able to see Nene’s world, but I hope the sky will be bright and sunny when you return.
It’s been an honour fulfilling my purpose.
Wishing you a wonderhoy rest of your life,<
☆Emu☆
Her hands shake as she carefully reads the handwritten words, trying her best not to crease the paper.
What an idiot…
It sickens her how cheerfully Emu faces death. She treats it like it’s a role in a play to be had, an inevitable demand of its script. She told them that fully expecting none of them would be sad, and was worried when they appeared upset.
She hates it. Hates it with every fiber of her being. Hates the faux smile that Emu put up during her confession and the secrecy she’s had throughout this entire journey and the way that every cheerful exclamation she’s had was probably done on a backdrop of prophesied despair.
Then again, why wouldn’t she have turned out this way? She’d spent her whole life knowing herself as the lingering sin, a cursed being meant to die.
It didn’t mean that she had to like it, though.
“Where’s Otori?” Toya asks her as the boys wake up and exit their tent, looking around the campsite for a sign of the familiar pink hair. She just pushes the note into his hands, refusing to elaborate any further.
“I see. What preparations would she have to make, though?” He quickly scans the note and asks.
This elicits a snort from Akito, “Probably something to do with killing her.”
At Akito’s statement, there is a loud rumble in the distance, almost as if the earth itself is answering him. They turn around towards its source, to be faced with the wilted tree in the distance, the blood-red crystals on its branches falling like rain.
“…And that, I suppose.”
She chooses to ignore the joke, “We should really head there soon. Who knows what else is going to happen.”
“I agree. Akito, are you ready?” Toya seconds.
There is no response.
“Akito?”
Then, for the second time, the earth roars to life, this time shaking vigorously beneath their feet, throwing Nene to the ground. Crystalline spikes tear out of the ground, forming towering red walls all around them. The only path left for them to walk is onwards, towards the looming figure of the wilted tree.
Behind them, there is a blood-curdling scream.
“Akito!” Toya screams once again, whirling around to see what happened to him. Nene looks back as well, but in an instant, her vision is met by bright red flames, as a gauntlet-wearing fist forcefully connects with Toya’s chest, sending him hurtling back into a crystal wall.
“Akito? What are you doing?” She calls out to him as he stands, motionless, in front of them, fists still flaming and outstretched. He swivels around upon being called, arms pulled back as he jumps towards her, red-hot fist filled with murderous intent.
What the fuck? What the fuck?
She quickly leaps away from Akito, still staring from the shock. He meets that gaze with a glare, like a predator looking at its prey. As their eyes meet, Nene realises that they aren’t the olive green they’ve come to know anymore.
Instead, they’re an angry, crimson red.
The same, furious, burning red that has overtaken his flames. The same red as the crystals that surround them. The same red as the crystals that hang from that accursed tree, the place holding the seal.
“Toya,” She calls out hurriedly, “I think it’s the curse. It’s already starting to affect the demons.”
The person in question groans as he gets up from the ground, clutching at the area that they had been struck, “The curse? So Akito’s possessed?”
“Yes. Whatever Emu is doing to fulfill the prophecy, it’s clearly started. It’ll only get worse once the seal breaks, because then it’ll connect us to the human world too. We have to hurry over quickly.”
“I see,” With a wave of his hand, he quickly summons his staff, using it to fend off Akito’s frenzied attacks, “And what are you going to do to Emu once you find her?”
Nene freezes at the question.
She knows how she should answer this question. Here is where she should move past her hesitation. Should quote a part of the prophecy, and say “I will strike her down with my blade”. Should push down the regrets in her heart and rid this world of the curse once and for all.
But Nene has already made a decision.
Akito’s flames crackle loudly in her ears, and she finds it strangely comforting, similar to how the campfire was yesterday.
Say it, the flames say.
Say it, the Akito of yesterday says.
Say it, her heart says.
“I’m going to get rid of the curse,” She starts, “But I’m not going to kill her. I’m going to find a way to get past what the prophecy says, and I’m going to make sure all of us get our happily ever after.”
Toya glances at her for a moment, before his face breaks out into a smile, “I see. I was kind of hoping you’d say that, honestly.”
And then, slowly, ever so slowly, flames creep up his body to match Akito’s. His soul-specific magic, Nene realises. He’s mimicking Akito’s ability, in a way he’s always been hesitant to do in the past.
Except this time, the flames aren’t an angry red, or even the orange she saw by the waterfall.
This time, those flames are blue.
“You’re using Soulburn,” She marvels at the flames, watching as its dark blue shine intertwines with the red surrounding Akito, casting the clearing in a purple light. It’s so pretty she almost doesn’t notice when the smell of burning flesh reaches her nose.
Lowering her eyes, she sees burns blooming over Toya’s skin like angry flowers. His face is pinched from the pain, but he keeps the agony out of his mouth.
“You don’t have to use it if it hurts. I’ll fight with you,” The worry welling up in her chest spills out like falling water, as she’s suddenly reminded of Akito, unconscious in that bed after the fight with the Dragon.
Instead of accepting the offer, Toya simply shakes his head, “You should go. Face Emu, before anything happens.”
“But- ”
“I’ll take care of Akito. Just go, Nene,” After entrusting those final words to her, he turns around, blue flames around his body meeting Akito’s red flare, ignorant to the way his body starts disintegrating into ash.
Everything depends on you now.
Nene turns away from the whirling glow of blue and red, and towards the wilted tree. Her legs, with a purpose this time, break into a run.
________
[Do you want to hear a story?]
Nene doesn’t know how long she runs down that path. The crystalline walls tower over her, a barrier blocking her from the outside world. The only things within reach are behind, where Toya is, and the wilted tree reaching out for the skies.
[A long time ago, the Heartland wasn’t a place of curses and death. It was a sprawling forest full of life.]
What is Emu doing in that tree, she wonders? Is she just sitting there, waiting for her to arrive?
[From the tree in the middle of the Heartland, sprouted leaves made from beautiful pink crystals. These crystals were the wellspring of magic, and thus, what gave us our identity.]
Is she just sitting there, waiting for herself to die?
[Naturally, the crystals also gained… undesirable attention. So, the village bordering the Heartlands appointed guards to defend them. My ancestor just so happened to be one of those guards.]
Nene grits her teeth and keeps running.
[But my ancestor was greedy. They stayed by those thrumming crystals, and day by day, the temptation grew. So one day, betraying the village, they climbed up the tree and stole the crystals, intending to use its power for themselves.]
Eventually, eventually, an end to the path enters her sight. At the base of the tree, lies two imposing wooden gates, unknown symbols from centuries ago carved into them. It’s inlaid with various gemstones, giving it a striking colour even from a distance.
[However, the power of the crystals should never be for one person, or even species to hold. Unable to contain the power, my ancestor fell into a mindless curse. A curse that would rampage upon demons all across the land.]
Nene stops in front of the gates, gazing upon its ornate handles. Once she opens the door, she’ll have to face Emu for the first and last time.
[I think you know the rest.]
She looks up at the sky. It’s nothing like the day she came, sunlight hidden away by the thick layer of clouds, casting the earth into shadow.
[I am a demon, but perhaps not just by designation. As the lingering sin, it is my duty to pay for the sins of my ancestor in death.]
She takes a deep breath.
[Come in, Nene. We were meant to meet under that wilted tree.]
And she opens the door.
________
The tree is hollow inside, a husk of rotting bark stretching out to the skies. If Nene looks up, she would be able to see a spiraling roof of wood intertwined with hanging red stalactites, with a gaping hole at the top from which the horizon looms.
Nene, however, only has the will to look forward.
In the middle of the tree’s clearing, Emu sits on a chair made of dead wood. Her eyes are closed, face slack in a way that makes her look asleep. Her horns, once small nubs of pretty pink crystals, have grown to resemble a lamb’s, colour deepening to a sanguine red.
Nene steps closer. At the sound of her footsteps, Emu seems to wake up from her trance, opening her eyes to look at the intruder. Her heart leaps when she sees the bubblegum pink still behind those eyelids, but that quickly fades as she realises that the eyes which were once so lively were now hollow. It was like she was peering through a window, except on the other side, instead of a sprawling view, all that met her was pitch-black.
[There’s nothing left of ‘Emu Otori’ in here.]
Sluggishly, the lingering sin opens its mouth into a wide grin, revealing teeth with tips sharp as knives. A heavy aura fills the room, and a hopelessness washes upon her, weighing on her heart like a large stone.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a faint glow emanating from her pocket. She tries to ignore it, instead brandishing her gun in cautious preparation, but all of a sudden, the weight in her pocket disappears.
The small green crystal that Yoisaki gave her floats into the air, shining a small light upon the rotted, dark remains of the hollow tree. Slowly, it warps and changes, until eventually, an infinitely heavier something falls into her hands.
Nene looks down. It’s a blade.
A blade of light.
[Destroy the lingering sin.]
The lingering sin sits motionless, skin of their neck perfectly exposed. All it would take was a single swing of the blade in her hands, and everything would be over.
[Destroy the lingering sin.]
A strange, unbidden force lifts Nene’s arm into the air, and the blade in her hand glints in the air. Panicked, she looks over at it, only to find a thin, green string tied to it, controlling it like she’s a puppet on a string. She tries to tug her arm away, but finds it held in place by the string.
The string of prophecy, trying to fulfill itself.
[Destroy the lingering sin.]
The force propels her forward, and she stumbles towards the lingering sin. Her arms grip the blade tightly, poised up high to deliver the final blow.
The lingering sin, in its thoughtless, mindless daze, smiles. It’s nothing like the grin it wore before, with wide-open eyes and the tip of its lips pulled up too high. This smile is gentle, like new leaves poking out at the first sign of spring. It’s a smile she’s seen many a time, accompanied each time by endearing words and an energetic voice.
And despite the string’s insistent tug, Nene is unable to strike.
[Dësțroŷ thę lǐngériņg sıñ.]
The string pulls harder this time, trying to force her hand once more, and it takes all of Nene’s willpower not to submit to its strength.
The lingering sin keeps smiling, something that one so naturally evil should never be able to do.
Because the lingering sin isn’t just the vessel for the origin of the curse. It’s Emu, the bright starry-eyed demon who liked making people smile. The one who had travelled all this way with her.
The lingering sin was Emu, but Emu wasn’t the lingering sin. Emu was so much more than that.
[D̦̊̄eͤ͠s͈͐ͨ̒́t̸͔͛ͣr͔̝̟͘oͦy̅͑̒͡ t̝̉̍̐̀h̤̖̿̀ë̸̟͐ ḻ̛̞̒̔i̖͚͆͐ͮńg̠ͦe͘r̯͈͉i͌͐ng̳̈́ s̟͕̜̈͗i̻n̮͋͊̚.]
The string pulls and pulls, echoes of the prophecy crescendoing in her head. It screams of destruction, of evil, of beings meant to die. It screams and it screams and it screams.
And through the screams, all Nene can see is Emu.
She gives in to the force pushing her. The blade swings in for a strike.
And in one clean stroke, Nene severs the strings of prophecy.
[D̓̽ͮe͋ͤsͧ̈ͨt̓ř̶̠͓͎o͍ͮ̐ͣy̧̮̥̜ t͓̻̄̓̓ẖ͐ẹ͙͘ͅ l̟͂́̀i̙̣̹n͎̬̏ͯ̏g͎̦͐̔er͉̍i͎̿̿ͧ́n̴ͦͧͤg̡̦ͨ͐̆ s͂ͩ̄̀i̢͈͍̔n̷̖̤̞̔]
[Dę͇͉s̗ͣͤͩt̉r̗͆̀o͕͚͓y̝̫̙̆ t͗͒̓h̴͎̓͒̄e̳̳̅̚]
[Please save me.]
And then all is still.
Nene wishes it could be a peaceful kind of still. A still that feels like gazing out of the window at the dead of night, where the world is asleep, awaiting the promise of a new day. The kind of still that caresses your hair with a gentle wind and whispers to you that everything will be okay.
This isn’t that kind of still. This is a foreboding kind of still, like watching someone filled to the brim with anger, waiting for those seams to pop and everything to come flowing out. Like watching the thick grey clouds of the sky and waiting for the storm to arrive.
Small ‘clinks’ reverberate throughout the clearing, like two glasses being tapped together. The dead wood in the tree is gradually replaced, part by part, with a kind of opaque, black gem.
Nothing moves, but Nene knows it’s only a matter of time.
Then, with a tumultuous roar, the top of the tree splits apart, making her stumble as the earth quakes in kind. What was once a wilted tree now forms a circle of six arms, each tipped with blood-red, crystalline claws.
All at once, they pounce upon her, each hand meeting the ground with a loud rumble as they try to crush her into nothing. As her vision above fills with a foreboding, reflective black, she scrambles away from the looming structures. Clouds of dust fill the air where the hands have smashed, yet, by some miracle, Nene remains intact.
She pants heavily as she stares at the moving hands, each creaking as they rise up into the air once more. In the middle of the circle, Emu is still motionless, but even from a distance, Nene can see a glimmer of light behind those once-empty eyes, like the first rays of the sun at dawn.
The strings of prophecy have been cut. Emu’s fate is no longer up to an ancient line of words. There was only one thing left to do.
Destroy the wilted tree, once and for all.
The arms rush at her once more, moving at speeds so fast that Nene can hear the foreboding ‘whoosh’ as they tear through the air towards her. She meets the first one with the sword in her hand, and while it works, the recoil leaves her with barely enough time to react to the second. The clawed hand barrels into her side, sending her into the ground.
Her side burns as she hits the ground, and she clutches at it in agony. Through her fingers, she can feel a thick liquid dripping out, and when she turns her head, just as expected, her hands are coated with red.
She doesn’t need a doctor or healer to know that that isn’t good. Not that she can access one right now either way.
Slowly, she stands up, staggering to the side to avoid the rest of the hands coming her way. She slashes desperately at the ones that narrowly miss her. Shards of broken crystal fly off, but the arms rise once more, creaking just as ominously as before.
The cycle repeats, except this time, Nene’s side is burning with pain, and she can’t run without doubling over in pain. At any moment, the hands are going to come crashing back down, and she knows that it’s only a matter of time before they strike her again.
How long is she going to last before she gets crushed?
“Shit…” She groans, hands shaking as she grasps her sword. It’s not a very honourable set of last words to have, but she can barely think straight. The next flurry of hands come, and she barely manages to roll out of the way, let alone do any damage in reciprocation.
She’s going to die here, isn’t she?
A life for a life. She saved Emu from the prophecy, but the prophecy was the only thing keeping her from this.
She can’t do any damage to the arms. And yet, the arms are strong enough to be able to kill her at any moment. It’s like the rabbits all over again.
Then again, they beat the rabbits, didn’t they? She’d needed Emu’s magic, but she’d managed to cast magic strong enough to destroy even the last, strongest one.
All she needs is a little bit of reflection.
The black facets of the crystalline arms glint at her, once dangerous, now inviting.
And Nene’s face breaks into a smile.
The hands reach out to crush her once more. If she moves to the side again, she should be able to avoid them once more, but Nene doesn’t do that. Instead, she stumbles towards the outstretched claws, using her sword to deflect the incoming strikes to the best of her ability. As the last one strikes the ground, she closes her eyes, puts all her strength into her legs, and jumps.
She lands back in the middle of the clearing where the fight started, in front of where Emu sits. As quickly as she can, she uses the common magic she knows to cast a barrier around her unresponsive form.
The arms clink against each other as they move back into the air, swiveling to face her.
She pulls out the gun she’s used all this time, its familiar weight a reassurance in her hands.
The hands surge toward her again, the shadows they cast on the ground darkening as a sign of the impending doom. This time, however, she stands her ground, looking up at the ever-approaching claws.
As the hands grow close enough to cover the sky above her, she swears she hears a voice behind her.
It asks, “What are you running from?”
She raises her gun. Points it above her. Finger tightens on the trigger.
“Nothing,” She answers.
And she fires.
In an instant, her vision fills with a piercing white light. She closes her eyes, and through the nothingness, the tinkling sound of shattering crystals reach her ears.
A seal breaks.
She smiles, and allows the nothingness
to
take her.
________
The next thing Nene knows is the floor below her, hard like the wooden floorboards of the villages she’s been to, but also cool in a way that they aren’t. There’s a throbbing pain at her side, way less than what she remembers it being, but the pain jolts her awake nonetheless.
She blinks open her eyes, only to be greeted by a ceiling that she hasn’t seen in a long time. As she sits up, she looks up at the desk that is hers, and sees her computer and headset lying on it, just how she recalls it being.
It takes a moment to register, but when it does, she feels herself sag in relief.
The seal broke. The worlds merged together again. It worked.
It worked.
She laughs in relief, only to clutch at her side as the pain flares up again. A spare glance shows that the wound is still sluggishly oozing blood. Despite that, it’s somewhat better than it was before, like it’s had the time to heal. She should probably stop by a pharmacy to buy bandages for it.
Outside, instead of the nighttime she remembers it being, the sunlight has begun to creep into her room. Her mother knocks on her door, waking her up for school.
As she gets ready for school, a thought strikes her. If the worlds are back together again, then wouldn’t that mean that everyone she met in the demon world is here too? Akito, Toya and Emu. Wouldn’t her friends be here too?
She smiles as she tests that question out on her tongue. Friends. In the human world. She likes the sound of that.
For now, though, she makes her way to school.
________
“Hey, did you hear?” Her desk mate at school whispers into her ear. It’d been so long since Nene actually went to school that she’d gotten the shock of her life when he’d called her, but she managed to stutter out a response.
“N-No. What happened?”
“You know that kid from the other class? The one who went missing? I heard that they found him. He’s in the hospital right now,” Her desk mate says it like it’s a piece of old news, but the information is completely fresh to her ears.
“Someone here went missing? Since when?”
She gets a look that plainly shows that she is being judged, “Have you been living under a rock? Aoyagi Toya, remember? He disappeared about a month ago.”
Toya? Toya went to her school before the game?
What had he said again, back below that waterfall?
“Then perhaps, in that world, I no longer exist.”
When a person was pulled through the game, the “them” in the human world ceased to exist. This was the only way to ensure that no one noticed the truth of the game. For Toya to be back, that was damning proof that the worlds had indeed merged, and weren’t just a figment of her imagination.
“Which hospital is he at?” She demands, hands clenched on the table.
Her desk mate blinks, “Why do you need to know?”
“Where?” She asks again, voice laced with even more urgency than before.
“I don’t know! Ask a teacher or something! Why are you acting so weird today?”
________
It takes all of Nene’s patience not to rush out of school during the droning lessons that follow. Toya is in the hospital, probably from using Soulburn, and here she is, doing nothing about it.
The moment the school bell rings, Nene races out of the school gates. The hospital the teacher has told her about is close enough to get to by foot, so she runs as fast as she can through the streets, trying very hard to ignore the pain in her side.
Before she knows it, she’s in front of Toya’s hospital room. She slowly walks in, expecting herself to be all alone, but finds another figure hunched over his bedside.
“…Akito?” She calls softly. He’s also dressed in the Kamiyama uniform, but it’s completely disheveled, almost like he’d gotten tossed into a blender.
He jolts upright at her voice, turning around to look at the doorway. Upon seeing her, his shoulders sag visibly.
“Oh, Nene. You heard too, huh?” He says, gesturing to Toya lying on the bed. Following his movement, Nene finally allows herself to scan her friend’s unconscious form.
He looks horrible. There’s no other way of describing it. His skin is covered in burns, some still angry and red, while others have faded into obvious scars, similar to the wound on her side. It’s like how Akito looked after they fought the Dragon, except this time, he had no healing spells or demon physique to help him.
“Yes, I heard,” She replies softly, settling down in a chair next to the hospital bed, “I was there to see him use Soulburn, too. This is… much worse than I expected, though.”
“It’s my fault too,” He clenches his fists as he practically spits out the words, “Stupid curse. I should’ve known it was coming.”
Her heartstrings tug at those words. Akito and Toya had always been close, closer than either of them had been to Emu. She remembered clearly just how despondent Toya had been after the fight with the Dragon. To watch someone so close get hurt because of you, it must have been as despondent as she had felt when she’d realised that she had to kill Emu.
But she’s powerless in this situation. Toya is in the hospital, and all they can do is wait for him to wake up.
Instead, she tugs her lips up into a smile, “He’ll heal. I’m sure of it.”
At those words, Akito’s hunched form relaxes just a little. And for a while, he allows that reassurance to hang over them, like a bandage over a bleeding wound.
Then, suddenly, Akito asks, “Hey, if the three of us are here, then did you succeed? Did you save Emu?”
She knows, logically, that the answer is yes. Throughout the whole fight, struggle as she had, she had not laid a single finger on Emu. However, there’s a seed of worry inside her, irrationally, that maybe it didn’t work. That Emu could be dead right now, and she would have no way of knowing.
She shakes her head. This is no time to be uncertain.
“Yes. I’m sure I did,” She says, willing resolution into her voice, “We’ll just have to wait a while.”
________
And just like she says, time passes, slow like she’s walking through water. She keeps her eyes peeled whenever she walks through her school hallways. After all, if both Akito and Toya ended up in Kamiyama, then who’s to say that Emu didn’t too?
The familiar bob of bright pink hair never meets her searching eyes.
Toya wakes up a few days later, to Akito’s immense relief. The first thing out of his mouth upon seeing her is about Emu’s safety, which would have been funny if he didn’t look like, to quote Akito, “complete shit”.
She responds with the exact same thing she’d said to Akito.
So she waits.
And she waits.
And then one day, Rui approaches her with something to ask.
“Someone asked me to perform on a stage in Phoenix Wonderland. I was hoping you could come to perform too.”
His explanation is short but sudden, so for a second, she doesn’t know what to say.
He quickly supplements the explanation, “I understand if you don’t want to go onstage, so I made a robot for you to control instead.” Her eyes follow his hand as it gestures down beside him.
Next to Rui is a small, stout robot. It’s entirely made to her likeness, down to her long, green hair, save for its thick and short limbs. As he presses the controller in his hands, the robot mechanically lifts its right arm, giving her an impressively smooth wave.
A substitute, so no one can see her while she’s on stage. It’s like the mask all over again.
“Thank you, Rui,” She says, “But I don’t need the robot. I’ll perform on my own.”
________
The stage she gets led to is old, nothing like the grand stages that park-goers frequent. It’s decorated colourfully all over, with musical notes and rainbows painted on its backdrop. The “Wonder Stage”, Rui calls it. Definitely not a stage in Phoenix Wonderland she’s heard of, but certainly a charming name for the place.
As she and Rui approach, she glimpses the figure of a yellow-haired boy standing on the stage. With exaggerated motions, he spins around and poses dramatically, screaming something that is incoherent from the distance. The decibels he reached would genuinely be impressive if it wasn’t so annoying.
Then, replying to whatever the boy said, Nene hears a laugh. It’s a joyous laugh, bright in a way that reminds her of meeting Emu for the first time, in the field of brilliant sunshine. The person behind the boy jumps up enthusiastically, and from where she stands, Nene sees a flash of vivid pink hair.
In that instant, her heart stops.
“Emu?”
The girl, noticing their presence, turns her head over to look at them, revealing very familiar, bubblegum pink eyes. They’re every bit as vibrant as she remembers them, radiant like the crystals she so often conjured from the ground. The small clouds of darkness behind them during their last few conversations are completely gone, and Nene marvels at the way she looks weightless, with a real, genuine smile spread across her face.
“…Nene?”
She’s running before Emu even replies, legs desperately pushing off the ground as she closes the distance between them. With a leap, she barrels into Emu, arms wrapping around her the same way Emu has done so many times with her.
“I love you,” She sobs as her arms tighten, grasping onto the other girl like a lifeline.
And uncertainly at first, then with just as much vigour as her, Emu’s arms envelop her too.
“I love you too, Nene☆!”