Yukari gave Sayori a smile. “I’ve got this. You enjoy your drink. I’ll take your pack upstairs.”

 

   “You heard us call you that, huh?” Sayori said as they walked into the bar.

    “I’ve got good hearing,” Kasumi stated. “You want a sake, or something else?”

    “Just water.”

    Kasumi shrugged. “If that’s what you want. You’re old enough to drink now, you know.”

    “I know,” Sayori said. “I prefer not to.”

    Kasumi ordered a sake and a water, and then took the drinks back to a booth in the corner, Sayori following. They sat down and Kasumi took a sip of her sake.

    “So, Natsuki has her puzzles,” Kasumi began, “Yukari has her adventures, Yuri has her romance with Cap, but...what do you want?”

    “I want them safe and happy,” Sayori replied. “And I think you know that.”

    Kasumi nodded. “It’s pretty obvious, yes. The problem is that they have all these things, and the only thing you seem to have is them.”

    “That’s how it needs to be.”

    “I don’t understand.”

    Sayori sipped her water and sighed. “I guess you wouldn’t. Look, when you and Aquila and Cap came to our...school...we were a mess. But, it was a lot worse than it looked. Natsuki is brilliant, but even she couldn’t cope with somebody she liked falling on her and pawing her all the time. Yuri didn’t like him at all, and every time we had an interaction with her, she felt she like she was losing her mind. And Yukari...”

    Sayori closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yukari is family to us...and we’re the only family she has. She lost her parents and grandparents in an accident the year before high school, and we’re the ones who helped her through the grief. It is not possible to overestimate the degree to which she cares for us. And if that took the form of possessiveness, we were all fine with that – because she’s family, and always will be, and we knew how much she’s lost. And she’s smart – she’s not a genius like Natsuki, but she’s a lot closer to one than you’d expect. And it wasn’t just knives that she liked and was excited by – it was metallurgy. She had a shelf full of books on the subject. What she wanted to do after graduation was apprentice to a bladesmith and make knives and swords. She was actually saving her money to buy an anvil and set up her own little forge so that she could try making a knife of her own.”

    “That’s really impressive,” Kasumi said. “And she’s very lucky to have friends like you.”

    “To have family like us,” Sayori stated. “So you can imagine what it did to her when she realized that she was a yandere. And she figured that out pretty quickly, as well as what it meant she would do and who she would try to hurt. And she was right – it was only two days after...he...arrived, that she...she...”

    Sayori looked down at her fist and realized that it was clenched, and slowly unclenched it. “There was an incident, a couple of days after...he...arrived. Yukari threatened Natsuki, and nearly put a knife to her throat – she was holding it behind her back. That night she got rid of all of her knives and her books. Her dreams died that day.

    “And I...I was the tsundere. But that also meant that rather than trying to chase...him...I was pushing him away. And that meant that I was the one who helped Natsuki cope with the constant barrage of accidental sexual assault. I was the one who kept Yuri from thinking that she was losing her mind, or that she didn’t know what she really wanted when she actually did. And I was the one who held Yukari and convinced her that if we just all worked together and did our best, she wouldn’t hurt or kill one of the three people who meant the world to her...especially when the information stream just replaced the knives she had thrown away. And by the time you three arrived, I...I was at wit’s end. No matter what we did, the story kept happening. I think if you hadn’t rescued us, the information stream would have had to replace all four of us within a few days. We were that far gone.”

    “We got you out, though,” Kasumi said.

    “Yes, but you didn’t really know how to help us,” Sayori pointed out. “How could you? You’d only just met us. So I was the one who helped Natsuki deal with the leftover trauma of the sexual assault once we were free, and I helped Yuri regain her equilibrium, and I’m the one who helped Yukari channel all of those yandere impulses the information stream had given her into something healthy. And if that meant that they get to have these things they wanted and all I get to do is see them heal and become people they can be proud of, then that’s good enough for me. When they’re okay, I’ll worry about myself.”

    Kasumi wiped a tear from her eye. “Sayori, they are okay. You saved them.”

    Sayori leaned forward. “That’s quite a thing to say when we’re here because Natsuki is missing in the middle of war. We need to stop hanging around here and find her.”

    “Natsuki can take care of herself,” Kasumi said. “For all we know, she’ll be waiting for us in the lobby tomorrow morning. Your job is done – you can think about yourself now. You’re allowed to do that.”

    Sayori gave her a sad smile. “Truth be told, I don’t know how. Maybe I did once, but not anymore.”

    Kasumi sipped her drink. “Well, that’s a problem I’ve got too.”

    “What are you talking about?” Sayori asked. “You and Aquila have everything sorted out.”

    Kasumi shook her head. “We really don’t. Did we ever tell you why I jumped off that building, before the miracle that brought me back?”

    “No,” Sayori said. “And, we all figured it wasn’t our business.”

    “But you did speculate.”

    Sayori nodded.

    “And what did you come up with?”

    “We, um, thought that you had been bullied into it.”

    Kasumi shook her head. “It wasn’t that at all. Nobody bullied me. I have severe chronic depression. I haven’t had a major episode since the miracle, but since we started travelling I’ve had a few minor ones. They tended to last a week or two, and it was all Aquila could do to help me get out of bed in the morning.”

    Sayori blinked. “We had no idea.”

    “I’m very good at hiding it,” Kasumi stated. “As far as any of my classmates knew, I was one of the happiest people in school. They had no idea I spent most days under my storm clouds. That’s one of the things depression does to you – it makes you hide what you’re going through so that you won’t worry anybody, because you don’t think you’re worth worrying about. It also makes it really hard to want things for yourself, for the same reason. So, the main thing in my life is Aquila. Wanting other things for myself is something I’m still working on.”

    Sayori stared at her drink. “I’m not sure what to say.”

    “How about we make a deal,” Kasumi said. “We’ll work together on wanting more things for ourselves.”

    Sayori nodded. “Okay. We’ll do our best.”

    Kasumi smiled. “We’ll do our best.”


Aquila was sitting on the bed playing with her new flip phone when Kasumi finally opened the door to their hotel room and walked in, Aquila’s coat on the doorknob.

    “Would you believe they still make these?” Aquila said, holding it up. “Cap will be delighted. Everything go well with Sayori?”

    Kasumi nodded. “I think she’ll be fine. Everything go well with the front desk?”

    “There’s a message for Natsuki, and if she comes looking for us, they’ll have her call this phone. So, all we need to do now is get together with the others and figure out what to do for dinner. The hotel restaurant is apparently quite good.”

    Kasumi took a deep breath. “Before we do...I need to know. Now that we’re here, you can take Balthazar in a fight, can’t you.”

    Aquila sighed. “No, I can’t.”

    “But, neither one of you can use your powers to warp the reality of this world, right? Shouldn’t that even the playing field?”

    Aquila stared at the phone in her hands. “It’s not...it’s not really that. You’re right, while we’re here in the hub world, the restrictions on our powers means that in terms of combat ability, there’s a smaller gap between us. But, it’s not just the ability to cause destruction that matters, it’s the willingness to use it. Balthazar’s willing to do it, and I’m not. Not any more. The villain I once was probably could have had some small chance of taking him, or at least taking him with her. But I don’t ever want to be her again.”

    She reached out and held Kasumi’s hand. “Kasumi, ever since I joined Cap in his promise to never take another life, I’ve felt like somebody who could be...who could one day be decent. And I really like that feeling. And Cap was right – when I fought Balthazar back in the story worlds, the temptation was there to try to kill him, and the villain started to emerge...but I held her back, and I’m not going to let her out again...or at least I’m going to try. If Balthazar and I fight here, it won’t take him long to realize that I’m just playing defence, and then he’ll win.”

    Kasumi nodded. “I had to ask. And...I like you as you are now.”

    “Thank you,” Aquila said. “When we fought, the villain did come out a bit, so perhaps he’s less likely to try a confrontation here. It’s much more risky for him. If he wants to take me down and be sure to survive, as far as he knows, he has to do it in the story worlds.”

    Kasumi blinked. “That’s why he was trying to kill you, wasn’t it? To stop you before you could come here.”

    Aquila nodded. “And it’s exactly what I would have done if our positions were reversed. Anyway, Natsuki’s out there somewhere. We’ll find her tomorrow, get the hell out of here, and get to safety.”

    “And if Balthazar’s side finds her first?”

    Aquila took a deep breath. “I’ve been trying not to think about that. But, Natsuki’s a genius. If anybody can stay out of trouble, it’s her. We’ve established our base of operations in the type of lodgings she’ll know to look for us in, we’ve arranged for her to contact us if she finds the hotel while we’re out, and our search for her starts first thing tomorrow.”

NEXT: “Capture”