Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~ ep17
Paint it black. Or white.
Information: Fanseries wiki and fanseries ad comm
Episodes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Bonus 16 17 18 19 20 Bonus 21 22 23 24 Ending & Epilogue
My sister stole everything from me.
The Garden of Rings was beautiful, the striped tents of the Chronos Travelling Show standing out atop a hill and bustling with people filing in to get to their seats. The wagons the performers stayed in were less nice, and thus shunted off to the side and hidden behind a few trees. A young woman with board-straight dark red hair climbed into one of them, shaking.
She stole my spotlight.
"It can't be..." She stared at a poster on the wall -- Chronos Travelling Show! Featuring some of the greatest acts from around the world -- and took in the image of a tall red-haired ringmaster and his two young daughters. She scowled and tore the picture down to crumple it, not bearing to look at the wall underneath it.
The attention of our father, the audience, the other members of the show...
"It can't be. She can't be doing this." The poster was balled up and thrown out of the cart, and the woman shut her eyes to keep from shaking. It was a few moments before she opened them again and her hand reached out to the side, closing around a pair of rusted old scissors.
"What are you doing?"
Her heart jumped, and she looked over at the door she'd left open. There stood two white-haired businessmen in gold outfits, looking her over.
Even our dream.
"Cutting my hair," she said, defiantly raising the scissors and chopping off a large chunk of her hair to chin-length. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"We've seen you around before," said one of the men -- rather, one of the bodies.
"You're unhappy, aren't you?", said the other.
"Unhappy?" She glared with bright yellow eyes and snipped off another section. "Is that what they're calling it now? Exactly who are you?"
They looked at each other and shifted into the form of five girls a number of years younger than her. Her head shot up and she stared.
"We were here--"
"--to investigate this world--"
"--and possibly find someone--"
"--whose only wish--"
"--is the same as ours."
The red-haired woman's eyes went from the mysterious visitors to her riding crop on the pile of rags she slept in. "What would that be?
The five girls looked up and spoke in unison. "To make it so that this world and everybody on it never existed."
But now, I've got everything under control.
Present day, five minutes ago. Kainatrol stood with the Moon Dial, seven of thirteen Moon Pieces sitting inside. Mireyes and Binbeat stood to one side, Tachimany to the other, and Mekuramast completing the circle. In the middle were Cure Night and Cure Sunday, looking around the fading core room.
Sunday posed. "There's nothing you'll stop at unless we stop you ourselves!"
"Where have I heard that before?", Night said.
Kainatrol gave a smirk and moved behind the Moon Dial. The Etherium had less of a concept of time than the Land of Legends or any other world that hadn't been erased and added to the pile. The Moon Dial, complete or incomplete, would be stronger here.
"You might be right, but you won't ever know..." She put her hands on the broken sundial. "Moon Dial!"
The deep red glow of her power concentrated first in her eyes, then spread over her body, connecting with the Moon Dial and washing over it too. She could feel its power fading the core room in and out of existence. Focus. She had to get rid of the interlopers first. It would be a good way to test out the power of the Moon Dial after being without it for so long.
"Erase these two. Completely!"
And like that, they were gone, the last act of the girl in blue to grab her partner's hand.
At first, Kainatrol stared. Then she laughed.
"Hmhm... just like that? Hahaha..." She breathed in the red glowing power before letting it dissipate and returning the room to normal. "That's one thing out of the way. Now, if you'll all excuse me?" Her bright yellow eyes locked on to every person in the room as she picked up the Moon Dial. "You may go. I'll be taking this to the Boss."
As the others teleported out, Mekuramast watched as Kainatrol spun on her heel and walked out of the room through a wall that moved itself out of the way and resolidified once she was gone. His eyes caught something on the ground where the girls had been standing. He walked over and knelt down, examining a small snowglobe with a figure of a sad girl standing inside it. It must have dropped on the ground when Pretty Cure disappeared; a crack had formed on the side of the glass.
Elsewhere, unknown time. Sunday and Night opened their eyes to a series of blue and red circus tents on top of a hill, surrounded by people walking or taking horse-drawn carts down cobbled streets.
"We're not dead... but where are we?"
-
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~
Episode 17: The World of the Past! The Pain of Two Sisters!
-
"That's what I want to know," Night said. "We should hide before somebody sees us, though. These outfits don't exactly fit in." She gestured at their Pretty Cure uniforms and then at the frills, lace, long skirts, and wide hats that the people around them were wearing. "It'll be trouble if--"
"Wait!" Sunday grabbed Night's wrist before she could leave. "Isn't it weird?"
Night sighed. "Everything about this is weird, but this isn't the time for--"
"No, you don't get it," Sunday said. "It's the fact that it's weird. Like you said, we stand out, so it'd be normal for people to notice us, right? But look." She indicated the crowds, all chatting and moving along, going about their business. "They don't even see us."
"Wha-- ah!" Night stumbled, cut off, as a woman in a stuffy grey dress walked right through her. Regaining her footing and holding her head, she stopped to catch her breath.
"Night?" Sunday walked to her side, hand still on her wrist.
"That felt weird." Night shook her head and then stopped. Her eyes grew wider. "People can't see us, they're walking through us... we are dead, aren't we? We're ghosts."
"We can't be ghosts." Sunday let go and put her hands on her hips. "If the hero becomes a ghost, it'll be in the first episode, and we're probably way past that point by now."
Night groaned. "Stop being ridiculous. With the way you think sometimes, I don't know why I--"
"Why you what?"
"...never mind." She looked away.
"Come on!" Sunday walked into Night's field of vision, shocks running through her when she passed through people. "I know we're not dead."
"How can you be so sure?" Night kept her eyes down.
"Look at me, Yoko, okay?" The force of her partner's voice startled Night into looking up. Sunday, satisfied, continued. "I know we're not dead. Remember what she said before that light hit us? Remember what the Moon Dial does? It doesn't kill people. It erases people. It makes it so they never existed. If we don't exist, would we be here right now? Would we be thinking or seeing or doing stuff?" She grinned triumphantly. "Something obviously saved us!"
"You..." Night raised her head, looking at the enthusiastic grin her partner only sported when she was completely sure about something... usually something to do with what being a hero meant. "Maybe. But in that case, how do you explain all these people?"
"I don't know." Sunday sweatdropped, suddenly not so sure of herself. "Unless maybe they're ghosts..."
"Sunday?"
"What is it?"
Night's gaze was fixed on a poster, one of many on the lampposts and building walls leading up to the tents. "Look at that."
It looked fresh, but the style was as old as the clothes and buildings around them. The poster declared in large sepia type:
CHRONOS TRAVELLING SHOW
New and improved, in its twenty-first year!
Featuring some of the best acts from around the world!
Underneath was a large image of a man in a flashy suit, surrounded by smaller images of various performers. Night pointed at one circle in particular. A man with straight hair that fanned out past his shoulders -- the image was in black and white, so it was impossible to tell what colour it was, but it was at least on the lighter side -- wore a small top hat and carried a wand, smirking confidently at the viewer with pale eyes. At his side stood a smiling woman with shoulder-length dark hair, straight as a board.
"Mekuramast?" Sunday tilted her head. "But who's that other person? It sort of looks like Kainatrol if her hair were longer, but those two can't stand each other. He told me so himself."
"Shouldn't we investigate this?", Night said. "We might at least get a clue about getting back from here."
"Now you've got it!" Sunday smiled. "This is the kind of adventure that always gets you un-stuck!" She ran off towards the main tent before Night could even say anything, leaving the girl to sigh and shake her head.
"Am I turning into her now?"
-
Back in Gessou Village, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia had long finished their own boxed lunches.
"Yoko's taking a while..." Yukari frowned. "I swear I saw Ami-sensei drive off a few minutes ago, but if Yoko's fixed the van, then where would she have gone after that?"
Mia looked at Yoko's and Starry's abandoned lunch boxes. "Kawada-san's taking a long time, too. Does she know where we are?"
Hoshi slammed her palms on the picnic table and stood up, cringing at the splinters and paint chips digging into her skin. "I got a bad feeling about this."
"Everyone ~susu!"
The three of them turned their heads to see Starry running around the corner of the Aki Guest Lodge, gasping for breath. Hoshi grabbed him when he got close enough and lifted him up.
"What are you doing out of the phones?", she asked. "Where's Nakayama?"
"Hoshi ~susu..." The little orange creature panted and flailed his little arms. "Asa and Yoko were taken away ~susu!"
"Wait, what?" Hoshi's head snapped back. "You mean, by those guys they're fighting?"
Starry nodded. "Help ~susu!"
Mia quivered in her seat. "But none of us have any special powers! What are we supposed to do?"
"Come on!" Yukari stood up. "Remember that communicator Asa brought with her? It's still set up in the room! We could at least get someone else to help!"
Three middle school girls and one fluffy creature bolted to their room in the Aki Guest Lodge, leaving their lunchboxes behind. The Communicator to Mars was set up on the desk, the Moon Piece standing beside it.
"Wasn't the Moon Piece in the machine when we left?", Yukari mused.
"Forget it," Hoshi said. "Just turn the thing on."
Starry scrambled onto the desk, picked up the Moon Piece, hopped up to deposit it in the claw on the top, and landed back on the desk. The machine crackled to life with an image of the Temple of the Dial forming on the screen. Inside, turning to look at the screen, was a wrinkled old woman just a little taller than Starry himself. She hobbled over to look at it closer, using her staff as a walking stick.
"Elder ~susu!", Starry said. "There's an emergency ~susu!"
"I know," the Elder said, nodding her head. "Monsters in Kazahana City while Pretty Cure are away. I've already allowed Sunbi and Moonla to go to take care of it."
"Papa and Mama ~susu?" Starry blinked.
"That isn't--" Hoshi flinched, remembering her manners, and bowed. "Sorry, Elder, but that isn't the emergency we're talking about."
The Elder turned her head to examine the three girls behind Starry. "Are these three Pretty Cure? I had thought there would only be two."
"We're not Pretty Cure," Mia explained, slightly red-faced. "They're in trouble and they need help."
"Starry said they were kidnapped by the Etherium, and he ran to us for help," Yukari said. "But the three of us don't have any powers to get there."
"They've had three Moon Pieces taken away, too ~susu..." Starry looked down.
The Elder shook her head. "This is a problem. If the Etherium has the number of Moon Pieces that you say, along with whatever they gathered in the town today, I cannot leave the Garden of Days unguarded, yet Pretty Cure need help and the only people I would have called are already dealing with the problems in your hometown."
"But if you don't help Asa and Nakayama, what's the point?" Hoshi dug her short fingernails into her palms. "They're the ones who are supposed to help you, aren't they?"
The Elder frowned. "You are correct. Still... I'll help if it's absolutely needed, but the Garden of Days is vulnerable if your words are true. If there's anybody else at all with the ability to get you to the Etherium, please..."
The four of them in the guest lodge went silent. Suddenly, Yukari's eyes lit up.
"...I can think of one."
-
Kainatrol's short heels clacked on the floor in places where it bothered to be a floor, but made no sound in places where it wasn't anything at all. She reached a place where the wall was melting and dissolving, and placed the Moon Dial in front of it.
"Seven down and six to go, Boss."
The air rippled. "As expected with you in charge. You've done well enough."
She raised her head. "Well enough?"
"Yes," said the voice from nowhere. "Well enough that you have proven yourself worthy to carry on until the end of the plan. Now..."
"Now?", Kainatrol asked, sounding as though she really already knew.
"Erase me."
Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "You're sure this is the right way, of course."
"For twenty-six years, yes." The voice got quieter. "Nothing deserves to exist. Those here are not immune to this. Now, do as you were told."
"Absolutely." She and the Moon Dial became covered in a dark red aura that shot a beam out at the ripple in the air much as it had at the Cures. The warping wall behind it made a resounding crack and froze the way it was. When the light faded, she dusted off her gloved hands.
"That's done with." Kainatrol stepped back from the incomplete Moon Dial and looked at the empty air. "You had one misconception, Lord Eiender. Nothing deserves to exist... but me."
"So this is what you've been up to."
She swirled around to face Mekuramast, walking up to her and twirling his wand.
-
Night had protested the idea of sneaking into the travelling show without paying, but reluctantly agreed once Sunday pointed out that it would be impossible to pay, since nobody could see them anyway. Besides, the ring-stamped coins that people were exchanging looked unfamiliar, and the ticket stand didn't seem to take yen. Once in, the two of them wandered around the area and through the ring.
"We can't go backstage!" Night fumed. "Even if we're not going to get caught, it's completely wrong to just go around breaking the rules like that!"
"We're investigating," Sunday said. "Therefore, we can go wherever we want. Cops do it all the time, right?"
"You do watch too much TV," Night said, resigning herself to walking backstage.
"I didn't get that off TV." Sunday sweatdropped. "My next-door neighbours get the cops called on them once a week for their parties."
Night looked away awkwardly. She stopped as something caught her eye. "Sunday, look."
Sunday turned and caught what Night was looking at. The performers were milling around, preparing to file into a line. At the front stood the magician from the poster. To see him up close and in colour, it was definitely Mekuramast. His eye mask was gone, though, and his suit was the same sepia tone as the poster's print had been, rather than white.
"It must be like when Omemi-san transformed," Sunday said. "Remember? Her uniform turned white, and her glasses turned into a mask. His suit's not white yet, and he has no mask."
"Then we're in the past?", Night whispered, out of habit. "But, wait... didn't he say that his world was erased?"
"Yeah, and..." Sunday blinked. "Yeah, that would mean that the past didn't happen either! Then what's going on?"
"Shh," Night said.
"Huh? But no one can hear us anyway--"
"Still!" She turned her attention back to the not-yet-Mekuramast. The woman who had been in the picture walked up beside him in a plain blue dress, filing into the line like the other performers were doing.
"How is it?", she asked.
He snuck a look at the audience while the assistant taking attendance was distracted. "It looks like a full house tonight."
"Looks like Kainatrol, sounds like Kainatrol..." Sunday frowned. "But she doesn't look exactly like her."
"If she got a haircut and a change of clothes, she would," Night said. "That happens when we transform, so why shouldn't it be the same for her?"
"It works differently for bad guys," Sunday instructed. "So far, all we've seen are colour-swaps."
The woman smiled in a manner very unlike the one Sunday and Night were comparing her to. "That should cheer Thera up from whatever she's been thinking about lately."
"Thera?", Night whispered.
A voice came from the ring, and Pretty Cure watched as their quarries rolled a black cart onstage as the spotlight fell on them. "Thank you all very much for attending. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Chronos Travelling Show! For our first act, please welcome Kairos, the Master Magician, and his assistant, Kore!"
As the audience applauded, Sunday and Night looked at each other.
"We're no closer to finding a way out," Night said. "Let's just give up on investigating."
"No way!" Sunday shook her head. "I want to find out where we are and what's going on."
Night twitched. "If you haven't noticed, the Etherium has three of our four Moon Pieces, Kazahana City is under attack while we're on vacation, and everyone thinks we're dead! We need to get out!"
Sunday cringed only slightly, standing her ground. "Night... I know that. But if we don't have any idea what to do, we can't get out. This is the only thing I know." She took a deep breath and smiled. "Besides, have my ideas ever failed you before?"
"A few times," Night sighed. "All right. Let's look around."
"Sure!" Sunday gave a wider smile with relief. "First things first: let's find out who this Thera is."
-
"No, no, no way."
In the guest lodge room, Hoshi put her hands on her hips, trying to ignore the pain from her splinters.
"We are not asking Omemi for help. You know what she's like. Do you want to be in her debt?"
Mia hesitated. "I know, but there isn't much of a choice, right? Besides, even she can be a good person. You've seen it!"
"Yeah, maybe once every million years." Hoshi rolled her eyes. "There's got to be a better way, even if we can't just go ourselves."
"I don't like the idea of being in debt to her either, but Mia's right," Yukari said. "She's got a good side. Besides, she's gotten nicer these days, hasn't she?"
"Still..."
"Didn't think you girls were the type to talk behind somebody's back."
Everyone in the room turned to the door. Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses and leaned against the door frame. "What is it you need me for?"
"Forget it, Omemi," Hoshi said. "We're in enough trouble without having to be at your mercy for the next couple years."
"It's an emergency," Yukari cut in. "You know we can't ask the Elder for help."
"Oh, so it's that kind of thing." Emiru moved into the room and shut the door, making sure to listen for the click before she continued. "No one's listening. Go on."
"Omemi-san?" Mia shuffled her feet. "I hate to ask this of you, but you're the only one who can help. We, the four of us..." She gestured to herself, Hoshi, Yukari, and Starry. "We need to get into the Etherium. Even if we don't have any powers, we can't sit back and do nothing while Kawada-san and Nakayama-san need us."
As Emiru took this in, Hoshi stepped forward with a glare. "Just because we need you, don't get all full of yourself."
Emiru smirked and looked right into her eyes. "What do you think I'm going to do, eat you? Abilities aside, I'm just an ordinary girl."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Hoshi said. "The fact that you're an ordinary girl. I know what you do when somebody needs you, and I know what you do to make people need you. Like, say, bribing someone with a chance to talk to the person she likes in exchange for blackmail on his sister. Or how about the reason you got those powers of yours in the first place?"
"Hoshi!"
"Kondou-san!"
"Hoshi ~susu..."
Hoshi ignored her three companions. "So here are the terms. No messing around with us. We make you feel needed again. Got it?"
"You're so crude, Kondou," Emiru said, her glasses gleaming. "But other than that, the way you're acting is very familiar."
Starry looked up at her from the desk. "Are you going to take us there ~susu?"
Emiru took her glasses off and stared through them. They shone and twisted into a different shape. When they cast off their light, they had become a black eye mask with dark blue-green stones at the top corners.
"Black ~susu?" Starry blinked. "Wasn't it white like the others before ~susu?"
Light washed over Emiru's uniform, and it too turned black, though her bow, her shoes, and the stripes on her skirt turned dark teal. She put on her mask and nodded.
"It just happened on its own. I call it Reverse Form," she said. "The clothes turning black instead of white, I mean. Ladies and orange thing, allow me to introduce myself. 'Emiru' is fine, but 'Millusion' works just as well. Let's get going, shall we?"
Mia slowly smiled. "Omemi-san..."
Millusion concentrated, making a dark blue-green teleportation circle appear below their feet. "Kawada and Nakayama are in trouble, you said. I don't want to owe them forever, now, do I?"
-
"And you were the one who said I was lying the whole time." Mekuramast spun his wand as he approached. "You've got some nerve."
"I wasn't lying," Kainatrol said, bending her riding crop in her hands. "Just omitting key facts. Like I was saying the entire time, I was only doing what he wanted me to do."
"I don't doubt that there's some truth to that," Mekuramast shot back, "but forgive me if I don't believe you didn't have a hand in that."
"What do you care that I erased the Boss?" She walked closer. "He wanted it, you know. You saw him ask for that himself. 'Nothing deserves to exist' -- that's why he got rid of his body. The old Pretty Cure fed him some speech about how 'nothing' meant him, too."
He didn't move. "And you landed on that like a hungry hawk, didn't you? He probably didn't decide to erase himself without your input. You're that kind of person."
"You doubt me?"
"You're the one who likes leading people on so much that she manifested a mind control ability," he said. "If anything, this just proves how self-centered you are."
"Touche." She smirked and let the riding crop snap back to its straight position. "From the one who's so attached to the past that his ability is his old job. Am I wrong?"
Mekuramast stopped spinning his wand. "Maybe I am after all. There's no harm in saying it here."
"Oh?"
He nodded. "There's nothing and nobody here. I have nothing to turn into a Hidoinaa. You have no civilians to brainwash. It's one-on-one. Something you never get into if you can help it. You always watch from the sidelines and never do anything yourself."
"Tch." Kainatrol smacked her hand with the riding crop and began to circle him. "Other than erasing people and places from time, do you know what else the Moon Dial does?"
Mekuramast jumped back and shot out his arm, sending a scarf whip flying from his sleeve. Kainatrol put out her own hand, knocking the scarves carelessly away with a glowing red shield that dissipated as soon as it came.
"It makes the user stronger."
-
Sunday walked between the carts hidden at the side of the tent display, wide-eyed and searching for clues. Night tagged along reluctantly behind her.
"Any sign of them yet?"
"Nope... Hey, wait!" Sunday pointed at one of the carts. A sign stuck out of the ground beside it on a flimsy stake, reading: Kore, Thera. "That's got to be theirs!"
"I still have a bad feeling about this," Night sighed as they approached the cart. A piece of fabric attached to the top was rolled up, exposing the inside. Upon a pile of rags and staring at a poster of a tropical island glued to the walls sat a young woman with shoulder-length dark red hair and yellow eyes.
"Her again?" Sunday blinked. "Wait, she can't duplicate herself, can she? That's the other guys."
Night watched as the redhead sighed and shook her head, taping another poster for the travelling show over the one of the island. "But if Kore's on stage, then is this...?"
"Thera!"
Sunday and Night turned around and stepped aside as a tall, red-haired man in a flashy suit marched over to the cart. The young woman inside spared another glance at the travelling show poster to make sure that it was covering the other one, then turned to look at the man.
"Yes?", she asked. The Cures blinked at the same time -- this one had Kainatrol's exact voice, too.
"Quit daydreaming around and get ready, Thera," said the man. "Your act's coming up."
"Yes, Father," Thera said, trying to keep the acid out of her voice. "I'll be backstage in a minute."
"As long as you are," he said, turning around and walking away. "Your twin sister's got more sense than you. She at least puts the show first."
Sunday held her head. "Twins? Magical duplicates I could buy, but twins? That's only in soap operas!"
"Yes," Night deadpanned. "Obviously, Takashi and I are living in a soap opera. The next thing you know, I'll be married to five different people because I think four of them are dead."
"That's different," Sunday said, red-faced and without much force behind her statement. "Wait, you watch soap operas?"
"My mom watches soap operas," Night said. "Although they're a little less ridiculous than what happens back home these days..."
Thera walked between them, a twist of anger on her face as she made her way to the main tent, and they stepped out of the way out of habit. Night looked away.
"Night?" Sunday walked up to her. "What's wrong? You've been acting weird all day."
"Sorry." Night shook her head. "I just..."
The scene around them faded in and out. Sunday frowned. "I know this is serious, and I know you're upset about something. You can tell me what it is, okay?" She flinched. "I mean, you don't have to say it right now, but..."
The world around them was losing its colour, like it had slowly gained it when they first arrived. Night's eyes lit up. "Hold on!" She grabbed Sunday's hand again as the world faded from view. They were pulled backwards, the world's image shrinking, until they were back in the void with an image of a clock in front of them.
"What just happened?", Sunday asked.
"What was any of that?" Night shook her head. "Either way, we need to get back to where we were, but..."
They looked around the area as they floated through the air. Whiteness everywhere, but, unlike the area they'd seen before, there was no sign of there being a room or even walls. Nothing but large clocks, suspended in midair, passing around.
"These must be all the other worlds they erased," Sunday said. "But I thought there'd be nothing left of them, so..."
"They're echoes."
"What?" Sunday looked at Night -- no, it wasn't her voice. "Who's talking?"
"Talking?" Night raised an eyebrow.
"Someone definitely was--" Sunday stopped and looked down. Her hand was brushing past another clock. She pulled it away, and the noise stopped. "Hey, Night. There's something in here."
"Something?" Night, still holding onto Sunday with one hand, pushed off empty air with her legs and floated over to examine the clock. They looked at each other and hesitantly touched the clock. It pulled them into... nothing, it looked like, at first. The surroundings were the same as the outside: a white expanse with clocks floating around. Their only clue that they had actually entered the clock was the presence of two figures who didn't seem to notice they were there. Two girls in outfits like theirs.
"Echoes? What do you mean by that?" The one who said that had fluffy pink hair, tied into two pigtails with red heart-decorated bows. Her uniform was constructed a lot like Sunday's, with the frilly underskirt and layered shoulders, but it was pink like her hair, with yellow accents and a white bow at the front. She wore some sort of necklace and fidgeted with it with one hand.
The other girl, one with a lavender dress and long, flowing hair so purple it looked black, closed her eyes and lifted a finger as if giving a lecture. "By 'echo', I mean an impression left of what used to exist, but doesn't. Of course, such a thing hasn't been proven to exist. If it had, the Etherium would have done its best to destroy them, and in doing so, would have destroyed itself." She gestured towards the various clocks. "These are echoes. They're sort of like memories replaying. Most of them are of the worlds before they were destroyed, but some of them show things that happened afterward. I can't explain it with science."
"Wait... That girl, the one with the pigtails. Doesn't she look like Mia?" Sunday floated closer, dragging Night along with her. "Think it's her?"
"That's not Ogata-san!" Night sighed. "Why would she be here? That's..." She looked closer as they approached, and her eyes widened. "Sunday. Look at that necklace she's holding."
The pink-haired girl moved her hand for a second, giving a clear view of the necklace. It was a small, pearlescent heart on a gold chain.
"That's Dawn's necklace, isn't it?", Sunday asked. "Why does she have it?"
"Shh!"
The pink-haired girl shook her head and slipped the necklace back under her uniform. "Do you think we'll find something here, Dusk?"
"Absolutely!" The girl called Dusk gave the thumbs up and a bright smile. "If not information, then maybe some kind of energy that we could use to defeat them!"
"...I hope you're right," the other girl sighed. "Let's go."
"Dawn..." Dusk frowned. "Don't worry about--" The world -- no, echo -- around them faded out.
"Don't worry about... what?" Night rubbed her head as they ended up in front of the clock again. "What were they worried about?"
"Wait, if that was Dawn..." Sunday looked at Night. "Didn't you tell me that Dawn said she was a Pretty Cure once? That must have been her and Cure Dusk when they were our age!"
"So they were here too," Night mused. "Then it is possible to get out of here."
"Let's go back to the other one." Sunday pushed off of an imaginary wall and started to drag Night in the direction of the previous echo.
"What do you think we'll find there?" Night followed along, kicking her legs a little as she floated.
Sunday reached out to touch the clock and be sucked back into the Garden of Rings. "The truth."
-
"They're not dead."
Binbeat looked up from playing the organ. "Who's not dead?"
Mireyes swivelled her head to scan the empty room -- Binbeat always found it weird that she could see with her eyes covered -- and, finding no one but the two of them, lowered her voice. "Pretty Cure. Somehow, Kainatrol failed to erase them."
"What, really?" Binbeat hopped up onto the keys, releasing an awful mishmash of chords. "But Kainatrol zapped 'em like nothing! We all saw it! How do you not get erased after that?"
"Future Sight hasn't told me how they were protected," Mireyes said, levitating her crystal ball between her hands. "Don't sit on the organ, Binbeat."
"Aww, man." He got up and crossed his arms. "What are we gonna do about it?"
Mireyes looked into the crystal ball. "At the moment, nothing. Circumstances being what they are, it would be best to focus on other things. Don't stand on the bench, Binbeat."
Binbeat made a face and hopped off the organ bench. "Like what?"
"The matter of intruders," she said, an image flashing into her mind of one girl in a black colour-swapped Etherium outfit, three regular schoolgirls, and one little orange creature teleporting into the core room. "Or, if you would prefer, the Hidoinaa you unleashed upon Kazahana City when you thought I wouldn't notice."
"Geez," he grumbled. "Do you have eyes in the back of your head?"
The old woman paused for a moment and laughed. "Perhaps."
-
Asa: Okay! Now it's time for...
Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (All mascots add their respective sentence enders.)
Yoko: Out of all the story arcs, this one has, so far, changed the most from the author's original notes in the development process.
Starry: A lot of things have stayed the same, though ~susu. For example, the main backstory of Kairos, Kore, and Thera ~susu!
Mia: This episode used a few scenes we've seen before, just written from other characters' perspectives.
Kainatrol: I have an issue. This is my episode. The flashback at the beginning was mine. And I wasn't even in half of it!
Hoshi: Suck it up, lady. I wasn't in a big chunk of mine, either.
Mekuramast: Besides, none of us have the right to complain about screentime woes.
Tachimany: We do.
Asa: Geez, this is our show! Mine and Yoko's! Our show! Everybody else, quit trying to steal it!
Yoko: *sigh* See you all next time.
-
Next Episode: Moonlit Confessions! The End of the Vanishing Act!
Information: Fanseries wiki and fanseries ad comm
Episodes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Bonus 16 17 18 19 20 Bonus 21 22 23 24 Ending & Epilogue
My sister stole everything from me.
The Garden of Rings was beautiful, the striped tents of the Chronos Travelling Show standing out atop a hill and bustling with people filing in to get to their seats. The wagons the performers stayed in were less nice, and thus shunted off to the side and hidden behind a few trees. A young woman with board-straight dark red hair climbed into one of them, shaking.
She stole my spotlight.
"It can't be..." She stared at a poster on the wall -- Chronos Travelling Show! Featuring some of the greatest acts from around the world -- and took in the image of a tall red-haired ringmaster and his two young daughters. She scowled and tore the picture down to crumple it, not bearing to look at the wall underneath it.
The attention of our father, the audience, the other members of the show...
"It can't be. She can't be doing this." The poster was balled up and thrown out of the cart, and the woman shut her eyes to keep from shaking. It was a few moments before she opened them again and her hand reached out to the side, closing around a pair of rusted old scissors.
"What are you doing?"
Her heart jumped, and she looked over at the door she'd left open. There stood two white-haired businessmen in gold outfits, looking her over.
Even our dream.
"Cutting my hair," she said, defiantly raising the scissors and chopping off a large chunk of her hair to chin-length. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"We've seen you around before," said one of the men -- rather, one of the bodies.
"You're unhappy, aren't you?", said the other.
"Unhappy?" She glared with bright yellow eyes and snipped off another section. "Is that what they're calling it now? Exactly who are you?"
They looked at each other and shifted into the form of five girls a number of years younger than her. Her head shot up and she stared.
"We were here--"
"--to investigate this world--"
"--and possibly find someone--"
"--whose only wish--"
"--is the same as ours."
The red-haired woman's eyes went from the mysterious visitors to her riding crop on the pile of rags she slept in. "What would that be?
The five girls looked up and spoke in unison. "To make it so that this world and everybody on it never existed."
But now, I've got everything under control.
Present day, five minutes ago. Kainatrol stood with the Moon Dial, seven of thirteen Moon Pieces sitting inside. Mireyes and Binbeat stood to one side, Tachimany to the other, and Mekuramast completing the circle. In the middle were Cure Night and Cure Sunday, looking around the fading core room.
Sunday posed. "There's nothing you'll stop at unless we stop you ourselves!"
"Where have I heard that before?", Night said.
Kainatrol gave a smirk and moved behind the Moon Dial. The Etherium had less of a concept of time than the Land of Legends or any other world that hadn't been erased and added to the pile. The Moon Dial, complete or incomplete, would be stronger here.
"You might be right, but you won't ever know..." She put her hands on the broken sundial. "Moon Dial!"
The deep red glow of her power concentrated first in her eyes, then spread over her body, connecting with the Moon Dial and washing over it too. She could feel its power fading the core room in and out of existence. Focus. She had to get rid of the interlopers first. It would be a good way to test out the power of the Moon Dial after being without it for so long.
"Erase these two. Completely!"
And like that, they were gone, the last act of the girl in blue to grab her partner's hand.
At first, Kainatrol stared. Then she laughed.
"Hmhm... just like that? Hahaha..." She breathed in the red glowing power before letting it dissipate and returning the room to normal. "That's one thing out of the way. Now, if you'll all excuse me?" Her bright yellow eyes locked on to every person in the room as she picked up the Moon Dial. "You may go. I'll be taking this to the Boss."
As the others teleported out, Mekuramast watched as Kainatrol spun on her heel and walked out of the room through a wall that moved itself out of the way and resolidified once she was gone. His eyes caught something on the ground where the girls had been standing. He walked over and knelt down, examining a small snowglobe with a figure of a sad girl standing inside it. It must have dropped on the ground when Pretty Cure disappeared; a crack had formed on the side of the glass.
Elsewhere, unknown time. Sunday and Night opened their eyes to a series of blue and red circus tents on top of a hill, surrounded by people walking or taking horse-drawn carts down cobbled streets.
"We're not dead... but where are we?"
-
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~
Episode 17: The World of the Past! The Pain of Two Sisters!
-
"That's what I want to know," Night said. "We should hide before somebody sees us, though. These outfits don't exactly fit in." She gestured at their Pretty Cure uniforms and then at the frills, lace, long skirts, and wide hats that the people around them were wearing. "It'll be trouble if--"
"Wait!" Sunday grabbed Night's wrist before she could leave. "Isn't it weird?"
Night sighed. "Everything about this is weird, but this isn't the time for--"
"No, you don't get it," Sunday said. "It's the fact that it's weird. Like you said, we stand out, so it'd be normal for people to notice us, right? But look." She indicated the crowds, all chatting and moving along, going about their business. "They don't even see us."
"Wha-- ah!" Night stumbled, cut off, as a woman in a stuffy grey dress walked right through her. Regaining her footing and holding her head, she stopped to catch her breath.
"Night?" Sunday walked to her side, hand still on her wrist.
"That felt weird." Night shook her head and then stopped. Her eyes grew wider. "People can't see us, they're walking through us... we are dead, aren't we? We're ghosts."
"We can't be ghosts." Sunday let go and put her hands on her hips. "If the hero becomes a ghost, it'll be in the first episode, and we're probably way past that point by now."
Night groaned. "Stop being ridiculous. With the way you think sometimes, I don't know why I--"
"Why you what?"
"...never mind." She looked away.
"Come on!" Sunday walked into Night's field of vision, shocks running through her when she passed through people. "I know we're not dead."
"How can you be so sure?" Night kept her eyes down.
"Look at me, Yoko, okay?" The force of her partner's voice startled Night into looking up. Sunday, satisfied, continued. "I know we're not dead. Remember what she said before that light hit us? Remember what the Moon Dial does? It doesn't kill people. It erases people. It makes it so they never existed. If we don't exist, would we be here right now? Would we be thinking or seeing or doing stuff?" She grinned triumphantly. "Something obviously saved us!"
"You..." Night raised her head, looking at the enthusiastic grin her partner only sported when she was completely sure about something... usually something to do with what being a hero meant. "Maybe. But in that case, how do you explain all these people?"
"I don't know." Sunday sweatdropped, suddenly not so sure of herself. "Unless maybe they're ghosts..."
"Sunday?"
"What is it?"
Night's gaze was fixed on a poster, one of many on the lampposts and building walls leading up to the tents. "Look at that."
It looked fresh, but the style was as old as the clothes and buildings around them. The poster declared in large sepia type:
CHRONOS TRAVELLING SHOW
New and improved, in its twenty-first year!
Featuring some of the best acts from around the world!
Underneath was a large image of a man in a flashy suit, surrounded by smaller images of various performers. Night pointed at one circle in particular. A man with straight hair that fanned out past his shoulders -- the image was in black and white, so it was impossible to tell what colour it was, but it was at least on the lighter side -- wore a small top hat and carried a wand, smirking confidently at the viewer with pale eyes. At his side stood a smiling woman with shoulder-length dark hair, straight as a board.
"Mekuramast?" Sunday tilted her head. "But who's that other person? It sort of looks like Kainatrol if her hair were longer, but those two can't stand each other. He told me so himself."
"Shouldn't we investigate this?", Night said. "We might at least get a clue about getting back from here."
"Now you've got it!" Sunday smiled. "This is the kind of adventure that always gets you un-stuck!" She ran off towards the main tent before Night could even say anything, leaving the girl to sigh and shake her head.
"Am I turning into her now?"
-
Back in Gessou Village, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia had long finished their own boxed lunches.
"Yoko's taking a while..." Yukari frowned. "I swear I saw Ami-sensei drive off a few minutes ago, but if Yoko's fixed the van, then where would she have gone after that?"
Mia looked at Yoko's and Starry's abandoned lunch boxes. "Kawada-san's taking a long time, too. Does she know where we are?"
Hoshi slammed her palms on the picnic table and stood up, cringing at the splinters and paint chips digging into her skin. "I got a bad feeling about this."
"Everyone ~susu!"
The three of them turned their heads to see Starry running around the corner of the Aki Guest Lodge, gasping for breath. Hoshi grabbed him when he got close enough and lifted him up.
"What are you doing out of the phones?", she asked. "Where's Nakayama?"
"Hoshi ~susu..." The little orange creature panted and flailed his little arms. "Asa and Yoko were taken away ~susu!"
"Wait, what?" Hoshi's head snapped back. "You mean, by those guys they're fighting?"
Starry nodded. "Help ~susu!"
Mia quivered in her seat. "But none of us have any special powers! What are we supposed to do?"
"Come on!" Yukari stood up. "Remember that communicator Asa brought with her? It's still set up in the room! We could at least get someone else to help!"
Three middle school girls and one fluffy creature bolted to their room in the Aki Guest Lodge, leaving their lunchboxes behind. The Communicator to Mars was set up on the desk, the Moon Piece standing beside it.
"Wasn't the Moon Piece in the machine when we left?", Yukari mused.
"Forget it," Hoshi said. "Just turn the thing on."
Starry scrambled onto the desk, picked up the Moon Piece, hopped up to deposit it in the claw on the top, and landed back on the desk. The machine crackled to life with an image of the Temple of the Dial forming on the screen. Inside, turning to look at the screen, was a wrinkled old woman just a little taller than Starry himself. She hobbled over to look at it closer, using her staff as a walking stick.
"Elder ~susu!", Starry said. "There's an emergency ~susu!"
"I know," the Elder said, nodding her head. "Monsters in Kazahana City while Pretty Cure are away. I've already allowed Sunbi and Moonla to go to take care of it."
"Papa and Mama ~susu?" Starry blinked.
"That isn't--" Hoshi flinched, remembering her manners, and bowed. "Sorry, Elder, but that isn't the emergency we're talking about."
The Elder turned her head to examine the three girls behind Starry. "Are these three Pretty Cure? I had thought there would only be two."
"We're not Pretty Cure," Mia explained, slightly red-faced. "They're in trouble and they need help."
"Starry said they were kidnapped by the Etherium, and he ran to us for help," Yukari said. "But the three of us don't have any powers to get there."
"They've had three Moon Pieces taken away, too ~susu..." Starry looked down.
The Elder shook her head. "This is a problem. If the Etherium has the number of Moon Pieces that you say, along with whatever they gathered in the town today, I cannot leave the Garden of Days unguarded, yet Pretty Cure need help and the only people I would have called are already dealing with the problems in your hometown."
"But if you don't help Asa and Nakayama, what's the point?" Hoshi dug her short fingernails into her palms. "They're the ones who are supposed to help you, aren't they?"
The Elder frowned. "You are correct. Still... I'll help if it's absolutely needed, but the Garden of Days is vulnerable if your words are true. If there's anybody else at all with the ability to get you to the Etherium, please..."
The four of them in the guest lodge went silent. Suddenly, Yukari's eyes lit up.
"...I can think of one."
-
Kainatrol's short heels clacked on the floor in places where it bothered to be a floor, but made no sound in places where it wasn't anything at all. She reached a place where the wall was melting and dissolving, and placed the Moon Dial in front of it.
"Seven down and six to go, Boss."
The air rippled. "As expected with you in charge. You've done well enough."
She raised her head. "Well enough?"
"Yes," said the voice from nowhere. "Well enough that you have proven yourself worthy to carry on until the end of the plan. Now..."
"Now?", Kainatrol asked, sounding as though she really already knew.
"Erase me."
Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "You're sure this is the right way, of course."
"For twenty-six years, yes." The voice got quieter. "Nothing deserves to exist. Those here are not immune to this. Now, do as you were told."
"Absolutely." She and the Moon Dial became covered in a dark red aura that shot a beam out at the ripple in the air much as it had at the Cures. The warping wall behind it made a resounding crack and froze the way it was. When the light faded, she dusted off her gloved hands.
"That's done with." Kainatrol stepped back from the incomplete Moon Dial and looked at the empty air. "You had one misconception, Lord Eiender. Nothing deserves to exist... but me."
"So this is what you've been up to."
She swirled around to face Mekuramast, walking up to her and twirling his wand.
-
Night had protested the idea of sneaking into the travelling show without paying, but reluctantly agreed once Sunday pointed out that it would be impossible to pay, since nobody could see them anyway. Besides, the ring-stamped coins that people were exchanging looked unfamiliar, and the ticket stand didn't seem to take yen. Once in, the two of them wandered around the area and through the ring.
"We can't go backstage!" Night fumed. "Even if we're not going to get caught, it's completely wrong to just go around breaking the rules like that!"
"We're investigating," Sunday said. "Therefore, we can go wherever we want. Cops do it all the time, right?"
"You do watch too much TV," Night said, resigning herself to walking backstage.
"I didn't get that off TV." Sunday sweatdropped. "My next-door neighbours get the cops called on them once a week for their parties."
Night looked away awkwardly. She stopped as something caught her eye. "Sunday, look."
Sunday turned and caught what Night was looking at. The performers were milling around, preparing to file into a line. At the front stood the magician from the poster. To see him up close and in colour, it was definitely Mekuramast. His eye mask was gone, though, and his suit was the same sepia tone as the poster's print had been, rather than white.
"It must be like when Omemi-san transformed," Sunday said. "Remember? Her uniform turned white, and her glasses turned into a mask. His suit's not white yet, and he has no mask."
"Then we're in the past?", Night whispered, out of habit. "But, wait... didn't he say that his world was erased?"
"Yeah, and..." Sunday blinked. "Yeah, that would mean that the past didn't happen either! Then what's going on?"
"Shh," Night said.
"Huh? But no one can hear us anyway--"
"Still!" She turned her attention back to the not-yet-Mekuramast. The woman who had been in the picture walked up beside him in a plain blue dress, filing into the line like the other performers were doing.
"How is it?", she asked.
He snuck a look at the audience while the assistant taking attendance was distracted. "It looks like a full house tonight."
"Looks like Kainatrol, sounds like Kainatrol..." Sunday frowned. "But she doesn't look exactly like her."
"If she got a haircut and a change of clothes, she would," Night said. "That happens when we transform, so why shouldn't it be the same for her?"
"It works differently for bad guys," Sunday instructed. "So far, all we've seen are colour-swaps."
The woman smiled in a manner very unlike the one Sunday and Night were comparing her to. "That should cheer Thera up from whatever she's been thinking about lately."
"Thera?", Night whispered.
A voice came from the ring, and Pretty Cure watched as their quarries rolled a black cart onstage as the spotlight fell on them. "Thank you all very much for attending. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Chronos Travelling Show! For our first act, please welcome Kairos, the Master Magician, and his assistant, Kore!"
As the audience applauded, Sunday and Night looked at each other.
"We're no closer to finding a way out," Night said. "Let's just give up on investigating."
"No way!" Sunday shook her head. "I want to find out where we are and what's going on."
Night twitched. "If you haven't noticed, the Etherium has three of our four Moon Pieces, Kazahana City is under attack while we're on vacation, and everyone thinks we're dead! We need to get out!"
Sunday cringed only slightly, standing her ground. "Night... I know that. But if we don't have any idea what to do, we can't get out. This is the only thing I know." She took a deep breath and smiled. "Besides, have my ideas ever failed you before?"
"A few times," Night sighed. "All right. Let's look around."
"Sure!" Sunday gave a wider smile with relief. "First things first: let's find out who this Thera is."
-
"No, no, no way."
In the guest lodge room, Hoshi put her hands on her hips, trying to ignore the pain from her splinters.
"We are not asking Omemi for help. You know what she's like. Do you want to be in her debt?"
Mia hesitated. "I know, but there isn't much of a choice, right? Besides, even she can be a good person. You've seen it!"
"Yeah, maybe once every million years." Hoshi rolled her eyes. "There's got to be a better way, even if we can't just go ourselves."
"I don't like the idea of being in debt to her either, but Mia's right," Yukari said. "She's got a good side. Besides, she's gotten nicer these days, hasn't she?"
"Still..."
"Didn't think you girls were the type to talk behind somebody's back."
Everyone in the room turned to the door. Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses and leaned against the door frame. "What is it you need me for?"
"Forget it, Omemi," Hoshi said. "We're in enough trouble without having to be at your mercy for the next couple years."
"It's an emergency," Yukari cut in. "You know we can't ask the Elder for help."
"Oh, so it's that kind of thing." Emiru moved into the room and shut the door, making sure to listen for the click before she continued. "No one's listening. Go on."
"Omemi-san?" Mia shuffled her feet. "I hate to ask this of you, but you're the only one who can help. We, the four of us..." She gestured to herself, Hoshi, Yukari, and Starry. "We need to get into the Etherium. Even if we don't have any powers, we can't sit back and do nothing while Kawada-san and Nakayama-san need us."
As Emiru took this in, Hoshi stepped forward with a glare. "Just because we need you, don't get all full of yourself."
Emiru smirked and looked right into her eyes. "What do you think I'm going to do, eat you? Abilities aside, I'm just an ordinary girl."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Hoshi said. "The fact that you're an ordinary girl. I know what you do when somebody needs you, and I know what you do to make people need you. Like, say, bribing someone with a chance to talk to the person she likes in exchange for blackmail on his sister. Or how about the reason you got those powers of yours in the first place?"
"Hoshi!"
"Kondou-san!"
"Hoshi ~susu..."
Hoshi ignored her three companions. "So here are the terms. No messing around with us. We make you feel needed again. Got it?"
"You're so crude, Kondou," Emiru said, her glasses gleaming. "But other than that, the way you're acting is very familiar."
Starry looked up at her from the desk. "Are you going to take us there ~susu?"
Emiru took her glasses off and stared through them. They shone and twisted into a different shape. When they cast off their light, they had become a black eye mask with dark blue-green stones at the top corners.
"Black ~susu?" Starry blinked. "Wasn't it white like the others before ~susu?"
Light washed over Emiru's uniform, and it too turned black, though her bow, her shoes, and the stripes on her skirt turned dark teal. She put on her mask and nodded.
"It just happened on its own. I call it Reverse Form," she said. "The clothes turning black instead of white, I mean. Ladies and orange thing, allow me to introduce myself. 'Emiru' is fine, but 'Millusion' works just as well. Let's get going, shall we?"
Mia slowly smiled. "Omemi-san..."
Millusion concentrated, making a dark blue-green teleportation circle appear below their feet. "Kawada and Nakayama are in trouble, you said. I don't want to owe them forever, now, do I?"
-
"And you were the one who said I was lying the whole time." Mekuramast spun his wand as he approached. "You've got some nerve."
"I wasn't lying," Kainatrol said, bending her riding crop in her hands. "Just omitting key facts. Like I was saying the entire time, I was only doing what he wanted me to do."
"I don't doubt that there's some truth to that," Mekuramast shot back, "but forgive me if I don't believe you didn't have a hand in that."
"What do you care that I erased the Boss?" She walked closer. "He wanted it, you know. You saw him ask for that himself. 'Nothing deserves to exist' -- that's why he got rid of his body. The old Pretty Cure fed him some speech about how 'nothing' meant him, too."
He didn't move. "And you landed on that like a hungry hawk, didn't you? He probably didn't decide to erase himself without your input. You're that kind of person."
"You doubt me?"
"You're the one who likes leading people on so much that she manifested a mind control ability," he said. "If anything, this just proves how self-centered you are."
"Touche." She smirked and let the riding crop snap back to its straight position. "From the one who's so attached to the past that his ability is his old job. Am I wrong?"
Mekuramast stopped spinning his wand. "Maybe I am after all. There's no harm in saying it here."
"Oh?"
He nodded. "There's nothing and nobody here. I have nothing to turn into a Hidoinaa. You have no civilians to brainwash. It's one-on-one. Something you never get into if you can help it. You always watch from the sidelines and never do anything yourself."
"Tch." Kainatrol smacked her hand with the riding crop and began to circle him. "Other than erasing people and places from time, do you know what else the Moon Dial does?"
Mekuramast jumped back and shot out his arm, sending a scarf whip flying from his sleeve. Kainatrol put out her own hand, knocking the scarves carelessly away with a glowing red shield that dissipated as soon as it came.
"It makes the user stronger."
-
Sunday walked between the carts hidden at the side of the tent display, wide-eyed and searching for clues. Night tagged along reluctantly behind her.
"Any sign of them yet?"
"Nope... Hey, wait!" Sunday pointed at one of the carts. A sign stuck out of the ground beside it on a flimsy stake, reading: Kore, Thera. "That's got to be theirs!"
"I still have a bad feeling about this," Night sighed as they approached the cart. A piece of fabric attached to the top was rolled up, exposing the inside. Upon a pile of rags and staring at a poster of a tropical island glued to the walls sat a young woman with shoulder-length dark red hair and yellow eyes.
"Her again?" Sunday blinked. "Wait, she can't duplicate herself, can she? That's the other guys."
Night watched as the redhead sighed and shook her head, taping another poster for the travelling show over the one of the island. "But if Kore's on stage, then is this...?"
"Thera!"
Sunday and Night turned around and stepped aside as a tall, red-haired man in a flashy suit marched over to the cart. The young woman inside spared another glance at the travelling show poster to make sure that it was covering the other one, then turned to look at the man.
"Yes?", she asked. The Cures blinked at the same time -- this one had Kainatrol's exact voice, too.
"Quit daydreaming around and get ready, Thera," said the man. "Your act's coming up."
"Yes, Father," Thera said, trying to keep the acid out of her voice. "I'll be backstage in a minute."
"As long as you are," he said, turning around and walking away. "Your twin sister's got more sense than you. She at least puts the show first."
Sunday held her head. "Twins? Magical duplicates I could buy, but twins? That's only in soap operas!"
"Yes," Night deadpanned. "Obviously, Takashi and I are living in a soap opera. The next thing you know, I'll be married to five different people because I think four of them are dead."
"That's different," Sunday said, red-faced and without much force behind her statement. "Wait, you watch soap operas?"
"My mom watches soap operas," Night said. "Although they're a little less ridiculous than what happens back home these days..."
Thera walked between them, a twist of anger on her face as she made her way to the main tent, and they stepped out of the way out of habit. Night looked away.
"Night?" Sunday walked up to her. "What's wrong? You've been acting weird all day."
"Sorry." Night shook her head. "I just..."
The scene around them faded in and out. Sunday frowned. "I know this is serious, and I know you're upset about something. You can tell me what it is, okay?" She flinched. "I mean, you don't have to say it right now, but..."
The world around them was losing its colour, like it had slowly gained it when they first arrived. Night's eyes lit up. "Hold on!" She grabbed Sunday's hand again as the world faded from view. They were pulled backwards, the world's image shrinking, until they were back in the void with an image of a clock in front of them.
"What just happened?", Sunday asked.
"What was any of that?" Night shook her head. "Either way, we need to get back to where we were, but..."
They looked around the area as they floated through the air. Whiteness everywhere, but, unlike the area they'd seen before, there was no sign of there being a room or even walls. Nothing but large clocks, suspended in midair, passing around.
"These must be all the other worlds they erased," Sunday said. "But I thought there'd be nothing left of them, so..."
"They're echoes."
"What?" Sunday looked at Night -- no, it wasn't her voice. "Who's talking?"
"Talking?" Night raised an eyebrow.
"Someone definitely was--" Sunday stopped and looked down. Her hand was brushing past another clock. She pulled it away, and the noise stopped. "Hey, Night. There's something in here."
"Something?" Night, still holding onto Sunday with one hand, pushed off empty air with her legs and floated over to examine the clock. They looked at each other and hesitantly touched the clock. It pulled them into... nothing, it looked like, at first. The surroundings were the same as the outside: a white expanse with clocks floating around. Their only clue that they had actually entered the clock was the presence of two figures who didn't seem to notice they were there. Two girls in outfits like theirs.
"Echoes? What do you mean by that?" The one who said that had fluffy pink hair, tied into two pigtails with red heart-decorated bows. Her uniform was constructed a lot like Sunday's, with the frilly underskirt and layered shoulders, but it was pink like her hair, with yellow accents and a white bow at the front. She wore some sort of necklace and fidgeted with it with one hand.
The other girl, one with a lavender dress and long, flowing hair so purple it looked black, closed her eyes and lifted a finger as if giving a lecture. "By 'echo', I mean an impression left of what used to exist, but doesn't. Of course, such a thing hasn't been proven to exist. If it had, the Etherium would have done its best to destroy them, and in doing so, would have destroyed itself." She gestured towards the various clocks. "These are echoes. They're sort of like memories replaying. Most of them are of the worlds before they were destroyed, but some of them show things that happened afterward. I can't explain it with science."
"Wait... That girl, the one with the pigtails. Doesn't she look like Mia?" Sunday floated closer, dragging Night along with her. "Think it's her?"
"That's not Ogata-san!" Night sighed. "Why would she be here? That's..." She looked closer as they approached, and her eyes widened. "Sunday. Look at that necklace she's holding."
The pink-haired girl moved her hand for a second, giving a clear view of the necklace. It was a small, pearlescent heart on a gold chain.
"That's Dawn's necklace, isn't it?", Sunday asked. "Why does she have it?"
"Shh!"
The pink-haired girl shook her head and slipped the necklace back under her uniform. "Do you think we'll find something here, Dusk?"
"Absolutely!" The girl called Dusk gave the thumbs up and a bright smile. "If not information, then maybe some kind of energy that we could use to defeat them!"
"...I hope you're right," the other girl sighed. "Let's go."
"Dawn..." Dusk frowned. "Don't worry about--" The world -- no, echo -- around them faded out.
"Don't worry about... what?" Night rubbed her head as they ended up in front of the clock again. "What were they worried about?"
"Wait, if that was Dawn..." Sunday looked at Night. "Didn't you tell me that Dawn said she was a Pretty Cure once? That must have been her and Cure Dusk when they were our age!"
"So they were here too," Night mused. "Then it is possible to get out of here."
"Let's go back to the other one." Sunday pushed off of an imaginary wall and started to drag Night in the direction of the previous echo.
"What do you think we'll find there?" Night followed along, kicking her legs a little as she floated.
Sunday reached out to touch the clock and be sucked back into the Garden of Rings. "The truth."
-
"They're not dead."
Binbeat looked up from playing the organ. "Who's not dead?"
Mireyes swivelled her head to scan the empty room -- Binbeat always found it weird that she could see with her eyes covered -- and, finding no one but the two of them, lowered her voice. "Pretty Cure. Somehow, Kainatrol failed to erase them."
"What, really?" Binbeat hopped up onto the keys, releasing an awful mishmash of chords. "But Kainatrol zapped 'em like nothing! We all saw it! How do you not get erased after that?"
"Future Sight hasn't told me how they were protected," Mireyes said, levitating her crystal ball between her hands. "Don't sit on the organ, Binbeat."
"Aww, man." He got up and crossed his arms. "What are we gonna do about it?"
Mireyes looked into the crystal ball. "At the moment, nothing. Circumstances being what they are, it would be best to focus on other things. Don't stand on the bench, Binbeat."
Binbeat made a face and hopped off the organ bench. "Like what?"
"The matter of intruders," she said, an image flashing into her mind of one girl in a black colour-swapped Etherium outfit, three regular schoolgirls, and one little orange creature teleporting into the core room. "Or, if you would prefer, the Hidoinaa you unleashed upon Kazahana City when you thought I wouldn't notice."
"Geez," he grumbled. "Do you have eyes in the back of your head?"
The old woman paused for a moment and laughed. "Perhaps."
-
Asa: Okay! Now it's time for...
Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (All mascots add their respective sentence enders.)
Yoko: Out of all the story arcs, this one has, so far, changed the most from the author's original notes in the development process.
Starry: A lot of things have stayed the same, though ~susu. For example, the main backstory of Kairos, Kore, and Thera ~susu!
Mia: This episode used a few scenes we've seen before, just written from other characters' perspectives.
Kainatrol: I have an issue. This is my episode. The flashback at the beginning was mine. And I wasn't even in half of it!
Hoshi: Suck it up, lady. I wasn't in a big chunk of mine, either.
Mekuramast: Besides, none of us have the right to complain about screentime woes.
Tachimany: We do.
Asa: Geez, this is our show! Mine and Yoko's! Our show! Everybody else, quit trying to steal it!
Yoko: *sigh* See you all next time.
-
Next Episode: Moonlit Confessions! The End of the Vanishing Act!