Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~ ep19
Finally, the answers to your questions. Some of them.
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
We once had one body, but we never had one mind.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the act you've all been waiting for -- the man with thirteen voices inside his head, the Amazing One-Person Crowd!"
As the spotlight came on and the audience clapped, the figure on the stage sighed under his (their) breath.
In our original world, we would pretend it was only an act. That kept us safe.
He (they) surveyed the audience in the house. This was a wooden stage inside an actual building, not like the easily dismantled and constantly moving tents and rings of the Chronos Show. Actually, this building predated the Chronos Travelling Show by a good fifty years at least, and the show going on was taking place at least thirty years before the destruction of the Garden of Rings.
Not that time mattered all too much, nor were the many people in one body even aware at the time of any other worlds but their own, this one they were in -- the Field of Words.
The show began.
Truth for security. What a trade.
One by one, the different personalities emerged. The first, the little boy. The second, the businessman. The third, the old woman. Fourth, the doctor. Fifth, the teenage girl. Sixth, the lumberjack. Seventh, the little flower girl. Eighth, the mystic. Ninth, the shrine maiden. Tenth, the cat, who only spoke in meows and climbed all over the stage on four legs. (The audience loved it.) Eleventh, the honourable assassin. Twelfth, the serious knight. Thirteenth... thirteenth, the final one, who would scream and rant at the pain of the world, who would threaten everything that got in the way. The thirteenth made the audience shift and murmur, so that one was only brought out for small bits of time at best.
They would switch effortlessly, as if there were a shift taking place right inside the actor's head, as if he was becoming the new person, if not on the outside, definitely on the inside.
That, only they knew, was exactly what was going on.
But in the end, was it really worth it?
The performance went as it usually did. The one body with thirteen minds caught flowers and bowed to the crowd. Without a word, he (they) walked offstage, down the steps, past everyone who tried to wave hello or congratulations, and into his (their) dressing room.
They locked the door, slumped to the floor, and sighed.
It's much better to be free.
Present day. Not that "present day" meant much when they stood outside of time -- or did it? The Etherium did function enough in time for time to pass around and through it, even if no one inside could feel the effects. Besides, Tachimany had been noticing things changing in the Etherium ever since they and the others had started to search Kazahana City for the Moon Pieces. Too much was fading away, as if their mission to erase everything had turned in upon themselves.
They stood in the core room with the ones who were still left in the Etherium. Mireyes and Binbeat stood together by their side, and Kainatrol, bending her riding crop back and forth, paced in front of the rest of the group.
"It has been a number of days now, at least in the time of the Land of Legends, and this news does need to be brought to light. Our esteemed leader has left us," she said. "Eiender, the Ruler of Time, has elected of his own will to be erased as we are to erase the rest of existence, and we've gained enough pieces of the Moon Dial that he was able to make this a reality."
Tachimany in their eleven-bodied assassin form eyed Kainatrol, but even taking a form that could detect anything they were looking for, they saw someone who wasn't lying. Quite the opposite, they saw someone so confident in her own truth that Eiender's apparent wish to erase himself was not only what actually happened, it was something that she counted on truly being so. Some of their bodies moved around as they listened.
Kainatrol stopped to face the crowd of thirteen and pushed her eye mask up her nose. "Of the remaining agents here, Tachimany have the most seniority. After that, me. You will listen to them and we will work just like we did before. On that note, brand new Boss...es, have you any comments?"
Tachimany raised their eyebrows in unison. They shifted over to the form of five teenage girls, freeing up much more space, not that there was any lack of it to begin with.
"It's surprising that you're showing us the respect--"
"--of our preferred form of address, but--"
"--given the circumstances, it seems natural."
"We do have news--"
"--very important news."
"Oh?" Kainatrol turned her head off to the side. "What might that be? It doesn't concern the deserter, Mekuramast, now, does it?"
Tachimany shook their heads.
"Not Mekuramast, no--"
"--but certainly a deserter."
"Devance is active again."
"Accompanied by none other than--"
"--Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk."
Kainatrol froze and moved to face them again. "They're what!?"
"They're back," said one Tachimany body. "In fact, we were just going to descend to Kazahana City and investigate the matter ourselves."
-
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~
Episode 19: We Have To Do What? Money-Raising Adventure!
-
"Hey, which order are these displays supposed to go in? Should I arrange them by colour?"
"By general style would be good, but type of stone should also be a factor. Hey, Hoshi, you're doing okay, right?"
"Of course I'm doing okay! Any idiot can sweep the floor."
In Kazahana City, where it hadn't snowed naturally for years, when the clouds gathered over the town in March, that could only mean rain. Lots of it. The street vendors had packed up and moved inside, children zipped through puddles trying to figure out how they could produce the biggest splashes, and couples attached themselves to one another underneath umbrellas. Okamoto Yukari had gathered her friends together in her parents' souvenir shop to get out of the rain, and as it quite often was with Yukari, one thing had led to another.
"What are you doing, Asa!?"
Kawada Asa looked over at the voice while standing on her tiptoes on the seat of a chair, transformation phone in one hand, Scan Card in the other. "I'm working!"
Nakayama Yoko twitched repeatedly and marched over to her side. "Get down from there right now. You're not working, you're just scanning everything for Moon Pieces!"
"That's working, too!", Asa retorted, wobbling as she swiped the card and scanned another necklace on a display dummy. The phone beeped another negative. "Working to save every world that ever existed! If Earth -- I mean, the Land of Legends is gone, then so is the Okamoto family's store, so I'm doing my part to help out with this!"
"Are you insane?" Yoko pointed up at her. "You're not even thinking of your own safety! You're standing on your tiptoes on a chair, and you've already nearly fallen down at least three times! Get a ladder or a stepladder or something, and keep your feet flat and balanced! And work! We're supposed to be cleaning and setting up displays, not wasting time and injuring ourselves while making a bigger mess!"
"Yeah, but still..." Asa fumbled with the set of keys Yukari had passed around and opened a display case with a glimmering jewel necklace inside. It looked as expensive as its price tag, with a shining red heart-shaped gem held by a series of thin metal chains. She swiped the Scan Card and aimed her phone to scan the gem. The dial lit up just as Asa's foot slipped and her tenuous control of her balance gave out.
"Ah!"
"Asa--"
Yoko caught the other girl in her arms, bending her knees slightly for the impact. She looked down at Asa, face growing a little red at the other girl's shocked expression -- and, for that matter, at Yukari, Hoshi, Mia, and even Starry, who had all stopped what they were doing to stare at the would-be disaster. Yoko coughed.
"See? You could have cracked your head open, not to mention damaged all the jewelry, and you know none of us could afford to replace any of it--"
"Yoko," Asa interrupted, staring at the screen of her transformation phone. "Look."
The dial had lit up in green. The screen read "RETRIEVAL: X".
"I don't believe this."
-
One good thing about a team consisting of two girls and one fluffy creature was that everybody knew what everybody else was talking about. Ever since revealing their knowledge to the others, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia needed to be briefed on a lot of things, such as the many functions of the transformation phone, what a Moon Piece was, why it was a very bad thing that Asa and Yoko had recently lost all but one of theirs to the Etherium, and why they absolutely needed the remaining five that nobody had found yet. Only once all that was over were they able to explain the discovery proper...
"...and that necklace has a Moon Piece in it."
Mia stared at the necklace, as if she were inspecting every sparkle for a hint of magic. "There was something like that here? For how long?"
Yukari pulled up her glasses. "I think we've had it since about... halfway through second term."
"That's the same time that I came here with the Moon Pieces ~susu!" Starry's eyes lit up. "It makes perfect sense ~susu!"
Asa inclined her head to Yukari and poked her fingers together. "So, since there's a Moon Piece in that necklace, and we really, really need it--"
Yoko turned on Asa with a death glare. "Don't. Even. Ask."
Asa flinched. She took a sharp breath and looked back up at Yoko. "But it's for the fate of the world!"
"Fate of the world or not, we are not stealing any more items that belong to someone else and just happen to have Moon Pieces in them." Yoko swept her arm out to the side. "The paperweight incident was bad enough, and I still have no idea how you talked me into cooperating with that, but there is no way that I will take any part in stealing from Yukari's parents' store! We may have the Copy Cards, but how do you know whether the copies will be good enough imitations to make somebody who might actually want that necklace happy? Or how long the copies last?"
"But--"
Yukari stepped in. "Calm down, girls. Now, I'm not exactly a fan of the prospect of taking something from the store and replacing it with a well-made decoy, either, but I'm sure we can work something out."
"Like what?", Asa asked.
"Yeah, Okamoto," Hoshi said. "That thing costs way more than someone our age could even reasonably have."
Mia raised her hand. "We could always try and put some sort of plan together to come up with the money to get it fairly, I think."
Asa stared. "...Fundraising?"
"It's better than nothing," Yoko sighed.
-
A few blocks northeast of the Seiki Open Mall, a red-haired woman in pink sat down on her couch and turned the pearlescent heart on her necklace around between her fingers. The man beside her shook his head and held her other hand.
"So what you're saying is, as far as we know, things have gone from bad to worse."
A third figure, sitting on the chair beside the couch, nodded. "The Etherium has no less than four Moon Pieces. Depending on how their fight with Cure Night and Cure Sunday went, they might even have seven or eight. I wouldn't give up yet, though! There's still a chance that things can be fixed!"
Dawn cracked a smile. "You're always so positive, aren't you?"
"Thanks to you," she replied.
The blue-haired man looked up. "She's right, though. Four Moon Pieces aren't nearly enough to get the Moon Dial working, and even seven will only get it to work inside the Etherium itself. Repairing it requires all thirteen. Wasn't that why the Elder scattered the Moon Pieces in the first place?"
"You're right." Dawn drew out a rough black gem with one polished edge, the numeral XI carved into it. "I've still got my Moon Piece. It looks like we're going to have to start gathering them ourselves at this rate. I know the Elder wanted to buy Sunday and Night time to learn without going up against enemies with a full Moon Dial, but..."
The other woman smiled. "You believe in them, don't you?"
"You're rubbing off on me," Dawn said.
A fluffy white creature climbed up onto the couch and looked up at the humans. "I still worry about them ~sasa. We were supposed to come back and give you back your powers if this ever happened, but in the emergency, the Elder could only send Starry with the new transformation items ~sasa..."
"I understand how you feel, Sunbi," Dawn said. "I'm a parent too, aren't I? If one of my daughters were a Pretty Cure, I don't think I'd be able to sleep. The situation as it is is hard enough."
"That said," the other woman added, "from what I've been able to see, he's been doing the best he can. You should be proud of him! Just like I'm proud of Kawada-san and Nakayama-san for doing the best they can."
Moonla looked up from her lap. "You're right ~muu..."
"This is a time when all sorts of groups are moving against the Land of Legends, and Pretty Cure keep being summoned all over the world to defeat them. Yet Sunday and Night are the only ones fighting the Etherium. It's the perfect time for Eiender to go for the rest of the Moon Pieces." Devance turned his black eye mask around in his hands. "If it comes down to it, I hope the three of us will be enough help."
-
"Lemonade stand?", Asa suggested.
Mia sighed. "I thought only elementary school students had lemonade stands. Besides, it's barely March. Isn't it still too cold?"
"Hmm..." Yoko thought. "Dog walking?"
"There are what, five people in this town with dogs?" Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "I don't really think that's going to work here. How about a bake sale?"
"Have you forgotten the cake incident already?" Hoshi groaned. "After Asa's birthday, I don't want to see another cake for a year."
"It has to be something we can do really quickly!" Asa pumped her fist. "The sooner, the better! Like tomorrow!"
"Not tomorrow! Are you crazy!?", Hoshi exclaimed. "We can't put anything together that quickly, no matter what it is!"
"But then when can we?" Mia wrung her hands. "The cultural festival's in just a little over a week, and then we have finals to study for. We'll be too busy, and so will everybody else we know."
Yukari snapped her fingers. "Mia, that's perfect."
Mia blinked. "It is?"
"The cultural festival!" Yukari pushed her glasses up and began to walk around the room. "Everybody at school is dedicating their time to the cultural festival, and whatever we do will just be seen as a distraction and not get nearly as much attention as we need. So why not do something related to the cultural festival? We could run a mini-talent show and say it's for drumming up interest in the town so people will attend the festival!"
"You think that'll work?", Yoko asked.
"Absolutely," said Yukari. "Mia, you promote events around town for extra money sometimes, don't you? We'll be able to do this in no time."
Mia rubbed the back of her head. "Well, if you're sure, but I haven't handed out flyers since that time the magic show I was advertising turned out to be a trap. Do you think that people will wonder--"
"No, no! It's fine!" Yukari waved her hand in the air. "Hoshi! You live in Fubuki Town, right? You can handle advertising there. Asa, take the south end. Yoko, take the north end. Mia can work on central, and I'll do all we need to get this event actually set up. We can get this put up and done in the park. We have... what day is it?"
"Tuesday," Mia said.
"I'm sure I can get the park on Saturday afternoon, after school ends in the morning, so that's one, two, three... four days to get ready. We have until then to put together routines and advertise around. Any closer to the cultural festival, and everyone will be too busy."
"This is gonna be the greatest!" Asa cheered. "We'll have it done in no time!"
"It better work," Hoshi sighed.
Yoko shook her head. "Well, what else can we do?"
-
The first big hurdle was actually coming up with, putting together, and practicing their acts. In an effort to not repeat the Cake Incident, the group worked out what everybody was doing before they left the store. At least then, there wouldn't be five only slighly varying song and dance routines to the same popular song.
In the end, they had had to talk Asa out of doing a one-person dramatic reenactment of the climax of last week's DaiFighter episode, and Hoshi volunteered her to help with her Fubuki Style demonstration instead... which mostly meant holding the things that Hoshi was going to break apart. Mia volunteered to sing and also mentioned that she would ask Ami-sensei if they could borrow one of her inventions. Something about a robot that played the xylophone on its own. Yoko hesitated on demonstrating her own talent, but with some prodding, she agreed to take apart an engine and put it back together on stage. If anything, it would be informative to the crowd. Asa did grumble enough for her own segment that they let her do a speech on something, as long as -- and this was a big one -- she didn't bore people to death. Hoshi personally appointed herself as the judge of boring versus interesting. Yukari, itching to try out some new speakers, suggested on top of her own flute playing that everybody do a dance routine to finish the whole thing off. So that was that, then.
Building up interest proved to take just as much time. The girls split up according to Yukari's plan and began to hand out flyers after school. Mia put two large stacks in a small wagon and carted them over to the clock tower in the middle of town.
"Um, excuse me!" She timidly waved a flyer in the air. "We've got an event coming up, um, something you might want to see..."
"You have?"
Mia looked up at two identical white-haired men in suits. She coughed and shrunk back, offering out the flyer. "Well, yes... it's a talent show, sort of, that my friends and I are putting on, and..."
One of the men took it and read it over. The two of them smiled in unison.
"It looks interesting." They nodded to her and walked away, talking to one another. Mia let out a sigh of relief and picked up another flyer.
Getting their busy classmates to hear them out was harder, but just as Yukari had guessed, it went much more easily when the show was associated with the cultural festival rather than a distraction from it. Of course, official backing of some sort would convince the doubters. No problem.
"Absolutely!" Ami-sensei's eyes lit up, she clasped her hands together, and she practically sparkled. "The five of you taking the initiative to learn how to raise money is a wonderful thing! Truly, this class will be the shining beacons of societal progress!"
"It's not really that big of a deal, Ami-sensei..." Yoko sighed.
"What are you talking about, Yoko?" Asa pumped her fist in the air. "Of course it's a big deal!"
"Asa..."
Ami-sensei didn't seem to be listening. "I may just be a teacher, and I can't make your event official, especially since you're going to be using the proceeds for yourselves. But since I'm so proud that you're learning to do things yourselves, and because you're also going to be using your show to promote a school event, I'll put my full support behind it! If you need anything, anything at all, just tell me!"
Yukari dusted her hands off. That was that, then.
The next four days were probably the busiest that any of the five girls had ever had. With school winding up soon, the cultural festival to prepare for, and the talent show to throw together in hopes that it wouldn't blow up in their faces, they barely had any time for anything else. At least, and they appreciated this, no enemies had shown up to distract them even further.
The day was here.
-
Saturday. The girls' show would go ahead right on schedule.
Tachimany suspected, of course, at least something about that flyer they'd picked up from the red-haired girl with the pink bow. They'd never formally met her, uncanny resemblance to one of their enemies aside, but she had been wearing the Clair Academy middle school uniform, and they thought they recognized her from watching those two other girls. The new Pretty Cure.
Like they'd said, they were looking for the old Pretty Cure. There were plenty of groups of Pretty Cure all over the Land of Legends, weren't there? Still, the two had some kind of connection. Otherwise, Dawn wouldn't have kept appearing to give them the chance to win. Appearing out of nowhere, like...
...Well, like now. That was definitely her, walking up to them as they sat on a park bench to look to all the world like two identical businessmen.
"Hello."
One of Tachimany's bodies looked up. "We suppose you're after something."
"That should be my line." Dawn rested her hands on her hips and looked down on them. "What are you doing out here? Planning to attack the girls again?"
"We're actually looking for you today," the other body said, and both stood up to meet her eye level. "In particular--"
"--we're investigating--"
"--why you and the others--"
"--are active again."
Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Did Eiender put you up to this, or did someone else?"
"Unfortunately, the Boss--"
"--is no longer with us."
"We decided this ourselves--"
"--after you got your powers back."
Dawn stared. "He's gone? Excuse my disbelief, but even Dusk and I couldn't defeat him when we were younger."
"He's changed a lot since then," one body explained. "Faded out of sight."
"What we hear is that he erased himself," the other body added. "Which brings the conversation back to why you still care."
"Hmm." Dawn frowned. "I suppose it's only fair. Getting our powers back? In one case, they never left. You of all people should know about your own faction's abilities. They come from within you, don't they? They reflect who you really are. That's the kind of thing that won't just disappear once you decide that you don't want the universe to end. Your powers won't die until you do."
"That explains him, yes--"
"--but what about you and your friend?"
"Simple," said Dawn. "We turned in our transformation players when we gave the Moon Dial to the Elder, after everything was done with. That was just how things were done back then. Once you didn't need to fight anymore, you gave up your ability to transform. From what I hear, Cures these days tend to have more of a choice on the matter."
"But now?", Tachimany asked in unison.
Dawn reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out what looked like an antiquated pink portable cassette player and a deck of cards similar to the cards for Asa's and Yoko's transformation phones. "When you and your friends were creating havoc with the girls out of town, we got into contact with the Elder. She sent Sunbi and Moonla down with our old transformation players. It seems that that was the original plan to begin with, if there were ever an emergency. The circumstances of your invasion, however, meant that she sent down the new transformation items with somebody else, designated new Cures, and scattered the Moon Pieces to buy them time. There's your even exchange of information, Tachimany." She turned on her heel. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I do not have time for this right now."
-
Yukari, true to her word, had talked with the town workers in charge of the park and had the stage set up again. At present, she was out at the entrance taking admission, and the rest of the group was huddled backstage and taking occasional glances past the curtain at the gathering audience.
"There still aren't that many people..." Yoko looked back at her friends. "Was this just a bad idea?"
"Don't give up now," Asa said. "We got some people to show up, didn't we? I just wish my mom hadn't been too busy. She always is."
"I didn't even ask my parents," Yoko sighed. "I'd have to answer too many questions about what I was doing and why we were raising money and why I thought this was a good idea. I'd probably have to anyway if they spent any time being social in town. They just leave every day to go back into the city for work."
"My parents came," Mia said. "They told me they wouldn't miss it!"
"They must be pretty nice," Yoko mused.
"Course they are, Nakayama." Hoshi facepalmed. "Remember when we went to Ami-sensei's house? Ogata's mom and Ami-sensei have been best friends since they were our age. For that alone, she's gotta be a saint."
"What's wrong with Ami-sensei?", Asa asked.
Hoshi gestured to Asa. "See what I mean?"
Asa pouted. "Worst best friend ever."
Starry waved down from the rafters of the makeshift stage. "Hurry and get onstage ~susu! It's almost time to start ~susu!"
"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi sighed and led Asa onstage behind the closed curtain. "Let's go make idiots of ourselves already."
"That's the spirit!" Asa beamed.
Yukari continued to take admission fees at the front. It was, she had to admit, difficult to enforce payment when they were in a park and people could easily sneak in another way, but most people in Kazahana City followed the rules. Even systems of conformity had their good sides, she mused. It didn't mean they didn't need to change, but it meant something right now. She smiled at the next person in line.
"Welcome! That'll be--" Yukari blinked and stared before shaking her head. "Ah, sorry! I've seen you before."
The woman in front of her smiled, pushing back a piece of cherry red hair. "Okamoto Yukari-san. It's been a while. How are your friends doing?"
Yukari fumbled with her glasses and smiled back, hesitating. "Pretty well, I think... we're all very busy at the moment."
"I've heard all about this." She smiled. "Well, not all about it. I think I'm still missing a key bit of information, but I'm sure you and the girls know what you're doing."
"You are?" Yukari's glasses nearly fell off her face.
The one they called Dawn laughed and handed over the admission fee. "Don't worry so much right now. I'm just here to support all of you. It isn't because of that. There's someone I'd be disappointing if I weren't here." She walked into the clearing, and Yukari soon lost her in the crowd.
Yoko pressed play on the sound system supplying the introduction music, and the small crowd quieted down outside. She walked out to the podium in front of the closed curtain and tapped the microphone.
"Good afternoon, everyone." She breathed in and out, reading ahead on the introduction on the paper in front of her, and looked out at the small audience. "Welcome. You'll find that our event this afternoon serves multiple purposes. One, and the thing you've probably heard the most about, is that we, a small group of students at Clair Academy's middle school division, have put this together to advertise the school's upcoming cultural festival to Kazahana City and the surrounding area. That's certainly true, but it's only one part of this event..."
Yoko knew that she wasn't supposed to look directly at audience members. Years of class presentations had informed her of that. She instead scanned just above them, giving the illusion that she was -- wait, wait, what was that? Putting aside the rules, she focused in just to see that she wasn't seeing anything. There, four or five rows back, was Mitsuishi Seira. Alright, it wasn't surprising to see her there. Of course the other girls would have advertised to her at school. It also wasn't surprising to see her with Takashi at any given time, as she was right now. Seeing both of these things happen at the same time was another thing entirely. Sure enough, and defying his usual way of being, there was Nakayama Takashi, in the proximity of his twin sister without either avoiding her or trying to make her life miserable.
One of these days, Yoko would have to figure out just how many miracles could happen in the span of one school term.
"Yes, well." Yoko coughed and looked back at a tree just behind the clearing they were in. "That's true, but it's also teaching us a lot of things. How to put together an event like this on our own. How to work together. Things anybody's going to need in their life. Like our teacher says, it's something that will improve the world." Yoko inwardly rolled her eyes at the introduction as she read off the rest of it. She hadn't wanted to lie, and, well, this was the "compromise" that had resulted in. Yukari had deemed it the sort of thing that would move the hearts of the common people, and Mia had said that it sounded like a daytime drama. Apparently, to her, that was a good thing, even if Hoshi and Asa disagreed.
Hoshi and Asa... Hoshi was Asa's best friend, right? And Yukari was Yoko's best friend, or the closest thing to it. But then what was Asa to Yoko, or Yoko to Asa? They weren't just partners. They hadn't been since they started using each other's first names. They definitely weren't just regular friends after going through the imprinted memories of the past of erased world, or after talking their problems out at Gessou Lake when everybody else was in the guest lodge.
Yoko chased the train of thought out of her head. Sappy speeches made her think too much.
"With the introduction aside, please welcome our first act, in which Kondou Hoshi, with the assistance of Kawada Asa, will demonstrate the style of martial arts handed down from the Fuyuki family, founders of her hometown, Fubuki Town!"
She walked off the stage and, still hidden from the audience's view, Starry pulled open the curtain.
-
Dawn's interest in the event had cemented it. Tachimany needed to attend. They'd walked in in the form of one boy, paid, hidden in a bush, and transformed into ten white cats with gold-coloured collars. The cats began to weave through the crowd, climb up the trees, and slip around the stage. They searched. They watched.
They watched the blue-haired girl, the one who was Sunday, hold boards for the angry girl with the messy brown hair to destroy. Another cat body padded through the crowd, looking for a woman with cherry red hair and a pink dress. There she was, with the grown-up versions of the excitable girl she'd fought alongside and the sullen boy who had fought on the Etherium's side until his infiltration of the school went wrong somewhere along the line. That was one thing down.
They watched the girl on the stage with the same red hair, just a few shades lighter, and a pink hair bow. Whatever she was singing, judging by the younger people in the audience, was probably the latest trend. She wasn't good, really, but Tachimany knew the world of entertainment. You didn't have to be good. You just had to not be bad, and even that got you a few followers -- or a lot -- if you were lucky enough. Luck and persistence were first and second. Talent was third. Actually, talent was fourth to not being a freak with voices in your head.
One of them pawed around backstage. The cat body hid behind a curtain as the grey-haired girl walked over to a folding chair just by the wings and picked up her bag. She checked her phone for the time, mumbled something about having to switch off with Yukari for ticket duty, and ran out the back. Tachimany moved forward, investigating the items around -- wait. What was that? Another one of those robots that had been all around the teacher's house... carrying a xylophone.
What.
Moving past that whatever-it-was, their other cat bodies started to congregate backstage.
-
Yukari had switched off ticket duty with Yoko. Mia was still singing, but Yukari's turn was up next. She walked behind the stage and approached the door up to the backstage area.
Somebody was stepping out.
She hid behind a tree and looked out. Nine girls dressed like shrine maidens were walking out in a clump. Two looked like they were carrying something out, but it was hard to tell considering their number. Yukari moved to step and confront the intruders when she saw white eye masks with gold-coloured jewel accents appear on all of their faces at once.
She stayed behind the tree.
Tachimany looked at each other and shook their heads.
"There wasn't any sign of them--"
"--so they must be in the crowd."
"But they knew we would be here."
"At least they suspected it."
"So the next thing to do--"
"--is to find them."
They began to move behind the stage, obscuring what they were carrying.
"They'll come to us."
"That's if we're lucky--"
"--but the odds are good."
Yukari, still hiding, stared. She started to follow after them, moving behind trees and bushes. With one hand, she pulled out her phone and began to text Yoko's number without looking.
Something's come up. Get everyone else to go before me. Just buy a little time, okay?
With that sent off, she continued to track Tachimany. They moved behind the stage, through the trees, and into another, smaller clearing. They set something down -- Yukari still couldn't see what -- and moved into a circle around it.
"Now."
They all said it in unison, clasped one another's hands, and concentrated. A golden glow surrounded them, and a magic circle in the same colour drew itself underneath.
Yukari moved forward to step out.
Another light flashed to the right.
All of Tachimany turned their heads to look. Yukari hid back behind the tree and slowly looked around the side.
There, standing on a sturdy branch of a blossoming cherry tree, were two women. One had bright pink hair, short and fluffy, with a heart-decorated ribbon at the back. Her uniform was pink and yellow, with a layered skirt and bows, but longer than Sunday's or Night's dresses. At her belt was what looked like a portable cassette player in a case. The other woman with her had one, too, and a lavender dress with blue accents. Her hair was long and flowing, and such a dark purple that it seemed black. Both of them posed on the branch and pointed down at Tachimany.
"Rising with the sun, I am Cure Dawn!"
"Falling with the night, I am Cure Dusk!"
"We are Pretty Cure!"
"In the past and in the future..."
"...we guard eternity itself!"
Yukari's eyes widened. She ducked behind the tree again.
One of the Tachimany bodies stepped forward with a confident smile. "Hello again."
"You've certainly changed."
"Even your uniforms have changed."
Dawn nodded. "You can't expect us to look the way we did in middle school, after all. Even if you people haven't changed."
"We were just waiting--"
"--for you to arrive."
"This paid off quickly enough."
Dawn shifted her feet on the tree branch and tensed up. "You mean to say that you were looking for us?"
"Well, of course."
"You, her, and--"
"--where is he, now?"
A throwing knife awash in dark blue light was flung down, stabbing the ground between Tachimany and the tree. They looked up. A blue-haired man in a black suit was standing on top of a lamppost, already drawing out another knife. He sighed. "I'm getting too old for dramatic introductions."
"You are pushing two hundred," Dusk laughed. Dawn just shook her head.
Tachimany moved out of the circle and spread out in front, all facing Dawn, Dusk, and Devance. They shifted from nine shrine maidens to four doctors and smirked.
"Of course, the main consideration--"
"--is supposed to be the new Pretty Cure--"
"--but as long as we're in charge--"
"--we're investigating you as well."
"In charge? You?" Devance stared. "Then he's really..."
"Unfortunately."
"By his own choice--"
"--according to someone--"
"--we can tell isn't lying."
Yukari held her breath and listened, not about to risk looking out again. She heard Tachimany walk on the grass and Dawn and Dusk take in sharp breaths.
"What do you think you're doing with that thing?", Dusk demanded.
"What is that thing?", Dawn asked.
Gold light flashed in the clearing. Yukari saw the glow flicker past her and heard something rumble and grow. The light faded. She slowly looked over the side.
There, in the clearing, stood a clanking metal monstrosity with glowing golden eyes, a spring for one arm and a pipe for another, holding a stick and standing in front of a xylophone half the size of a tree.
"Hidoinaa!", it announced.
Yukari stared... and facepalmed.
-
Seriously. What had been with that text? It wasn't like Yukari to suddenly bail, and the xylophone-playing robot was gone, too. Yoko would normally worry, but Yukari seemed to know what she was doing... whatever she was doing.
Yoko shook her head and began her engine demonstration, starting it up and drowning out the noise of a monster that would otherwise send her and the others running to help.
-
Dawn and Dusk jumped down from the tree and charged the robot monster. As Yukari watched intently, it seemed to her completely out of their league. Every punch dented it, every kick sent it off-balance. Devance descended from the lamppost and hung back, supporting by aiming throwing knives at the thing's mechanical joints. It would crash over, cry out, and pull itself up again, playing on the giant xylophone to attack.
For all its noise, it kept being drowned out by the engine Yoko was explaining and demonstrating onstage. For its height, it never reached over top of the trees. The performers and the audience had no idea it was just in a clearing behind the stage. Yukari wasn't sure whether to sigh with relief or hold her breath.
Tachimany, for their part, stood with identical confident looks on their faces.
"Even out of practice--"
"--you've gotten stronger."
"Though you still might not--"
"--be able to defeat us all."
Dusk leapt on top of the xylophone itself, landing with a ring of one of the keys. "Dawn! We have to finish this quickly, don't we?"
Dawn nodded and jumped onto another key. "I'm glad you understand!"
They looked at each other, made eye contact, and grabbed each other's inside hands.
"Dawn Phasing!"
"Dusk Phasing!"
Dawn and Dusk extended their outside hands and charged up a large, glowing ball of pink and purple light.
"As the days move on..."
"you will be lost to time!"
They launched a colossal beam of energy at the robot, crackling and radiating off of everything.
"Pretty Cure Era Cycle!"
With enough strength, it crumpled inward and burned up in blue fire along with its xylophone. Dawn and Dusk landed on the ground in front of the restored, regular xylophone-bot.
"Why would you do this?" Dusk turned around and marched up to Tachimany. "Only to test us? Don't you realize that there are reasons that we were here that have nothing to do with you? How can you people keep being like this?"
"She's right." Dawn followed her partner forward and, for the first time that Yukari had seen her like this, glared. "Play around some other time."
Devance nodded and stood a few steps behind them. "We'll face you again, but stay away from the show this time."
Tachimany shifted into eight figures in gold hooded cloaks.
"It's surprising--"
"--that you would say that--"
"--when the three of you should know--"
"--that that's not how it works."
"Nobody cares--"
"--about their enemies' schedules--"
"--when nobody cares--"
"--about the world they're in."
A voice came from behind them. "Do you really not care?"
The eight Tachimany turned around and Dawn, Dusk, and Devance looked past them. Yukari emerged from behind the tree, quivering but focusing on the people in front of her.
"I said," she continued, "do you really not care?"
"Of course not," one Tachimany said.
"There's no reason to," said another."
"After all--"
"--we erased our own world--"
"--because we didn't care about it--"
"--and it didn't care about us."
Yukari took a deep breath and shook her head. "Then why are you leaving our performance be?"
"What?", asked eight Tachimany.
"Okamoto-san?" Cure Dusk blinked.
Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "That monster was just tall enough to still be hidden by the trees and just loud enough to still be drowned out by Yoko's engine demonstration. You didn't attack the show directly. You just wanted to draw out the three adults and fight them. Back last fall, when your allies attacked another show Mia was promoting, they were the ones putting on the show and they targeted the whole audience just to get Asa's and Yoko's attention."
"But in this case--"
"--attracting the attention--"
"--of the new Pretty Cure--"
"--would go against the idea--"
"--of testing only the previous."
"Their newly regained powers--"
"--and their increased strength--"
"--are the issue here."
Dawn put a hand on Dusk's arm. "Maybe the girl has a point."
"Thank you." Yukari bowed slightly. "All of you Tachimany, I don't know a lot about you. Maybe you don't know a lot about us, either. In the end, though, I think you might have wanted to let us be."
Tachimany shifted into one boy and stared into Yukari's face. "Just for a show to go on?"
Yukari flinched and didn't look right at him (them), but kept talking. "I might just be projecting myself on here. I wanted to help everyone. My friends and my family and the world. I know you and your friends hate the world, but you can't all be bad. I know you can't."
"It's not that simple to keep from choosing between one and the other!" The white-haired boy shook his head violently. "There will always be people who are hurt by what you do or scared of what you really are. Our world was -- every world is filled with selfish people. There's no reason to try and live peacefully in a place like that. All you'll do is deny yourself and destroy yourself!"
"Maybe that's true!", Yukari yelled back. The three adults looked on, drawing closer to one another. Yukari continued. "Maybe you're right about some things. It's hard for a lot of people to belong. That's true. Sometimes it hurts more than people like me can imagine. It would probably be insulting you and all of the other people who have actually gone through those kinds of things for me to even try to say I understand. I don't. But I do know that, even though our world's not perfect, it's not so bad that it doesn't deserve to exist, either. In fact, the only way to change it and make it better is to try and work for everyone's happiness, no matter how much it hurts or how hopeless it looks!"
Tachimany shifted into eight again, hiding their faces under their cloaks.
"You're right--"
"--you don't know."
"You have people you actually love--"
"--who have no reason not to love you."
"You have reasons to care--"
"--about the Land of Legends--"
"--because you don't know any better!"
"If you know you can never understand, then why do you even try?"
Devance looked up. "She's right."
"You as well? Still?", Tachimany asked.
Devance nodded and looked away. "You can't brush what I say off as easily as you can for a kid like her. You know that I hated my own world. I hated everything for a long time. I know more than you do about being alone."
"You used to understand," said another Tachimany. "How unnatural it is to be alone. We have never been alone, not even when there is only one..."
Devance put one of his throwing knives away on his belt. "I know. The only way to kill you is to kill all of you at once. Otherwise, you'll just regenerate your bodies all at once, and your minds will still all be intact. You still have yourselves. But nobody is saying that that makes you less able to say anything."
"You only can't say anything because you don't care," Dawn said. "Because you haven't found a reason to yet."
"There's a reason for everyone to care." Dusk smiled. "Nobody is asking you to abandon your cause just yet, but if there's anything right in the world, then I'm sure you'll see it! These children seem to see something good in all of you. If this is the way that the future goes, then surely everything will turn out better this time!"
Dawn raised her eyebrow at Dusk. "You really never change."
Tachimany moved at once, going for prop weapons under their cloaks... and didn't. A gold magic circle drew itself underneath them, and they disappeared.
Yukari looked at the ground and sighed. "I can't believe that worked... I should probably get back."
"As should we," Dawn said. "But we've missed a lot of the important part."
"Important part?", Yukari asked.
Devance and Dusk were already retreating into the trees. Dawn drew out her pearlescent heart necklace from the pouch for her transformation tape player. "I suppose there isn't much point in hiding it at this stage. Tell Mia that I didn't mean to miss her part."
"Mia? What does Mia have to do with--"
Dawn started to turn to walk away. "Oh, and while we're at it, could you pass on your thanks to... Nakayama-san, I believe. For fixing my van."
As the red-haired woman retreated, Yukari shook, processing what she had heard.
-
That's right.
Tachimany finished their last page of observations. Note-taking was much easier with multiple bodies to write with. This wouldn't take long to present at all, and then they could get on with looking for those last few Moon Pieces.
We are never alone.
-
Asa: Now it's time for...
Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (All mascots add their respective sentence enders.)
Hoshi: This took forever. What was the author doing? Slacking off?
Yukari: It's also unusually long. Then again, these chapters just keep getting longer.
Kirei: We also saw the three of us actually fight for the first time, but the scene wasn't that good. The author says she's sorry.
Yoko: Mia. Please tell me something. Did you know about this?
Mia: What? No!
Asa: But if Mia's mom and dad were Dawn and Mr. Dawn this whole time, then does that make Mia, like... the secret third Pretty Cure or something?
Starry: You mean like how DaiFighter is the son of the previous DaiFighter, and the girl GoldFighter was trying to save is his sister ~susu?
Yoko: I think all we've established is that Asa watches too much TV.
Tachimany: See you all next time.
-
Next Episode: Fateful Cultural Festival! Kainatrol Steps It Up!
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
We once had one body, but we never had one mind.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the act you've all been waiting for -- the man with thirteen voices inside his head, the Amazing One-Person Crowd!"
As the spotlight came on and the audience clapped, the figure on the stage sighed under his (their) breath.
In our original world, we would pretend it was only an act. That kept us safe.
He (they) surveyed the audience in the house. This was a wooden stage inside an actual building, not like the easily dismantled and constantly moving tents and rings of the Chronos Show. Actually, this building predated the Chronos Travelling Show by a good fifty years at least, and the show going on was taking place at least thirty years before the destruction of the Garden of Rings.
Not that time mattered all too much, nor were the many people in one body even aware at the time of any other worlds but their own, this one they were in -- the Field of Words.
The show began.
Truth for security. What a trade.
One by one, the different personalities emerged. The first, the little boy. The second, the businessman. The third, the old woman. Fourth, the doctor. Fifth, the teenage girl. Sixth, the lumberjack. Seventh, the little flower girl. Eighth, the mystic. Ninth, the shrine maiden. Tenth, the cat, who only spoke in meows and climbed all over the stage on four legs. (The audience loved it.) Eleventh, the honourable assassin. Twelfth, the serious knight. Thirteenth... thirteenth, the final one, who would scream and rant at the pain of the world, who would threaten everything that got in the way. The thirteenth made the audience shift and murmur, so that one was only brought out for small bits of time at best.
They would switch effortlessly, as if there were a shift taking place right inside the actor's head, as if he was becoming the new person, if not on the outside, definitely on the inside.
That, only they knew, was exactly what was going on.
But in the end, was it really worth it?
The performance went as it usually did. The one body with thirteen minds caught flowers and bowed to the crowd. Without a word, he (they) walked offstage, down the steps, past everyone who tried to wave hello or congratulations, and into his (their) dressing room.
They locked the door, slumped to the floor, and sighed.
It's much better to be free.
Present day. Not that "present day" meant much when they stood outside of time -- or did it? The Etherium did function enough in time for time to pass around and through it, even if no one inside could feel the effects. Besides, Tachimany had been noticing things changing in the Etherium ever since they and the others had started to search Kazahana City for the Moon Pieces. Too much was fading away, as if their mission to erase everything had turned in upon themselves.
They stood in the core room with the ones who were still left in the Etherium. Mireyes and Binbeat stood together by their side, and Kainatrol, bending her riding crop back and forth, paced in front of the rest of the group.
"It has been a number of days now, at least in the time of the Land of Legends, and this news does need to be brought to light. Our esteemed leader has left us," she said. "Eiender, the Ruler of Time, has elected of his own will to be erased as we are to erase the rest of existence, and we've gained enough pieces of the Moon Dial that he was able to make this a reality."
Tachimany in their eleven-bodied assassin form eyed Kainatrol, but even taking a form that could detect anything they were looking for, they saw someone who wasn't lying. Quite the opposite, they saw someone so confident in her own truth that Eiender's apparent wish to erase himself was not only what actually happened, it was something that she counted on truly being so. Some of their bodies moved around as they listened.
Kainatrol stopped to face the crowd of thirteen and pushed her eye mask up her nose. "Of the remaining agents here, Tachimany have the most seniority. After that, me. You will listen to them and we will work just like we did before. On that note, brand new Boss...es, have you any comments?"
Tachimany raised their eyebrows in unison. They shifted over to the form of five teenage girls, freeing up much more space, not that there was any lack of it to begin with.
"It's surprising that you're showing us the respect--"
"--of our preferred form of address, but--"
"--given the circumstances, it seems natural."
"We do have news--"
"--very important news."
"Oh?" Kainatrol turned her head off to the side. "What might that be? It doesn't concern the deserter, Mekuramast, now, does it?"
Tachimany shook their heads.
"Not Mekuramast, no--"
"--but certainly a deserter."
"Devance is active again."
"Accompanied by none other than--"
"--Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk."
Kainatrol froze and moved to face them again. "They're what!?"
"They're back," said one Tachimany body. "In fact, we were just going to descend to Kazahana City and investigate the matter ourselves."
-
Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~
Episode 19: We Have To Do What? Money-Raising Adventure!
-
"Hey, which order are these displays supposed to go in? Should I arrange them by colour?"
"By general style would be good, but type of stone should also be a factor. Hey, Hoshi, you're doing okay, right?"
"Of course I'm doing okay! Any idiot can sweep the floor."
In Kazahana City, where it hadn't snowed naturally for years, when the clouds gathered over the town in March, that could only mean rain. Lots of it. The street vendors had packed up and moved inside, children zipped through puddles trying to figure out how they could produce the biggest splashes, and couples attached themselves to one another underneath umbrellas. Okamoto Yukari had gathered her friends together in her parents' souvenir shop to get out of the rain, and as it quite often was with Yukari, one thing had led to another.
"What are you doing, Asa!?"
Kawada Asa looked over at the voice while standing on her tiptoes on the seat of a chair, transformation phone in one hand, Scan Card in the other. "I'm working!"
Nakayama Yoko twitched repeatedly and marched over to her side. "Get down from there right now. You're not working, you're just scanning everything for Moon Pieces!"
"That's working, too!", Asa retorted, wobbling as she swiped the card and scanned another necklace on a display dummy. The phone beeped another negative. "Working to save every world that ever existed! If Earth -- I mean, the Land of Legends is gone, then so is the Okamoto family's store, so I'm doing my part to help out with this!"
"Are you insane?" Yoko pointed up at her. "You're not even thinking of your own safety! You're standing on your tiptoes on a chair, and you've already nearly fallen down at least three times! Get a ladder or a stepladder or something, and keep your feet flat and balanced! And work! We're supposed to be cleaning and setting up displays, not wasting time and injuring ourselves while making a bigger mess!"
"Yeah, but still..." Asa fumbled with the set of keys Yukari had passed around and opened a display case with a glimmering jewel necklace inside. It looked as expensive as its price tag, with a shining red heart-shaped gem held by a series of thin metal chains. She swiped the Scan Card and aimed her phone to scan the gem. The dial lit up just as Asa's foot slipped and her tenuous control of her balance gave out.
"Ah!"
"Asa--"
Yoko caught the other girl in her arms, bending her knees slightly for the impact. She looked down at Asa, face growing a little red at the other girl's shocked expression -- and, for that matter, at Yukari, Hoshi, Mia, and even Starry, who had all stopped what they were doing to stare at the would-be disaster. Yoko coughed.
"See? You could have cracked your head open, not to mention damaged all the jewelry, and you know none of us could afford to replace any of it--"
"Yoko," Asa interrupted, staring at the screen of her transformation phone. "Look."
The dial had lit up in green. The screen read "RETRIEVAL: X".
"I don't believe this."
-
One good thing about a team consisting of two girls and one fluffy creature was that everybody knew what everybody else was talking about. Ever since revealing their knowledge to the others, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia needed to be briefed on a lot of things, such as the many functions of the transformation phone, what a Moon Piece was, why it was a very bad thing that Asa and Yoko had recently lost all but one of theirs to the Etherium, and why they absolutely needed the remaining five that nobody had found yet. Only once all that was over were they able to explain the discovery proper...
"...and that necklace has a Moon Piece in it."
Mia stared at the necklace, as if she were inspecting every sparkle for a hint of magic. "There was something like that here? For how long?"
Yukari pulled up her glasses. "I think we've had it since about... halfway through second term."
"That's the same time that I came here with the Moon Pieces ~susu!" Starry's eyes lit up. "It makes perfect sense ~susu!"
Asa inclined her head to Yukari and poked her fingers together. "So, since there's a Moon Piece in that necklace, and we really, really need it--"
Yoko turned on Asa with a death glare. "Don't. Even. Ask."
Asa flinched. She took a sharp breath and looked back up at Yoko. "But it's for the fate of the world!"
"Fate of the world or not, we are not stealing any more items that belong to someone else and just happen to have Moon Pieces in them." Yoko swept her arm out to the side. "The paperweight incident was bad enough, and I still have no idea how you talked me into cooperating with that, but there is no way that I will take any part in stealing from Yukari's parents' store! We may have the Copy Cards, but how do you know whether the copies will be good enough imitations to make somebody who might actually want that necklace happy? Or how long the copies last?"
"But--"
Yukari stepped in. "Calm down, girls. Now, I'm not exactly a fan of the prospect of taking something from the store and replacing it with a well-made decoy, either, but I'm sure we can work something out."
"Like what?", Asa asked.
"Yeah, Okamoto," Hoshi said. "That thing costs way more than someone our age could even reasonably have."
Mia raised her hand. "We could always try and put some sort of plan together to come up with the money to get it fairly, I think."
Asa stared. "...Fundraising?"
"It's better than nothing," Yoko sighed.
-
A few blocks northeast of the Seiki Open Mall, a red-haired woman in pink sat down on her couch and turned the pearlescent heart on her necklace around between her fingers. The man beside her shook his head and held her other hand.
"So what you're saying is, as far as we know, things have gone from bad to worse."
A third figure, sitting on the chair beside the couch, nodded. "The Etherium has no less than four Moon Pieces. Depending on how their fight with Cure Night and Cure Sunday went, they might even have seven or eight. I wouldn't give up yet, though! There's still a chance that things can be fixed!"
Dawn cracked a smile. "You're always so positive, aren't you?"
"Thanks to you," she replied.
The blue-haired man looked up. "She's right, though. Four Moon Pieces aren't nearly enough to get the Moon Dial working, and even seven will only get it to work inside the Etherium itself. Repairing it requires all thirteen. Wasn't that why the Elder scattered the Moon Pieces in the first place?"
"You're right." Dawn drew out a rough black gem with one polished edge, the numeral XI carved into it. "I've still got my Moon Piece. It looks like we're going to have to start gathering them ourselves at this rate. I know the Elder wanted to buy Sunday and Night time to learn without going up against enemies with a full Moon Dial, but..."
The other woman smiled. "You believe in them, don't you?"
"You're rubbing off on me," Dawn said.
A fluffy white creature climbed up onto the couch and looked up at the humans. "I still worry about them ~sasa. We were supposed to come back and give you back your powers if this ever happened, but in the emergency, the Elder could only send Starry with the new transformation items ~sasa..."
"I understand how you feel, Sunbi," Dawn said. "I'm a parent too, aren't I? If one of my daughters were a Pretty Cure, I don't think I'd be able to sleep. The situation as it is is hard enough."
"That said," the other woman added, "from what I've been able to see, he's been doing the best he can. You should be proud of him! Just like I'm proud of Kawada-san and Nakayama-san for doing the best they can."
Moonla looked up from her lap. "You're right ~muu..."
"This is a time when all sorts of groups are moving against the Land of Legends, and Pretty Cure keep being summoned all over the world to defeat them. Yet Sunday and Night are the only ones fighting the Etherium. It's the perfect time for Eiender to go for the rest of the Moon Pieces." Devance turned his black eye mask around in his hands. "If it comes down to it, I hope the three of us will be enough help."
-
"Lemonade stand?", Asa suggested.
Mia sighed. "I thought only elementary school students had lemonade stands. Besides, it's barely March. Isn't it still too cold?"
"Hmm..." Yoko thought. "Dog walking?"
"There are what, five people in this town with dogs?" Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "I don't really think that's going to work here. How about a bake sale?"
"Have you forgotten the cake incident already?" Hoshi groaned. "After Asa's birthday, I don't want to see another cake for a year."
"It has to be something we can do really quickly!" Asa pumped her fist. "The sooner, the better! Like tomorrow!"
"Not tomorrow! Are you crazy!?", Hoshi exclaimed. "We can't put anything together that quickly, no matter what it is!"
"But then when can we?" Mia wrung her hands. "The cultural festival's in just a little over a week, and then we have finals to study for. We'll be too busy, and so will everybody else we know."
Yukari snapped her fingers. "Mia, that's perfect."
Mia blinked. "It is?"
"The cultural festival!" Yukari pushed her glasses up and began to walk around the room. "Everybody at school is dedicating their time to the cultural festival, and whatever we do will just be seen as a distraction and not get nearly as much attention as we need. So why not do something related to the cultural festival? We could run a mini-talent show and say it's for drumming up interest in the town so people will attend the festival!"
"You think that'll work?", Yoko asked.
"Absolutely," said Yukari. "Mia, you promote events around town for extra money sometimes, don't you? We'll be able to do this in no time."
Mia rubbed the back of her head. "Well, if you're sure, but I haven't handed out flyers since that time the magic show I was advertising turned out to be a trap. Do you think that people will wonder--"
"No, no! It's fine!" Yukari waved her hand in the air. "Hoshi! You live in Fubuki Town, right? You can handle advertising there. Asa, take the south end. Yoko, take the north end. Mia can work on central, and I'll do all we need to get this event actually set up. We can get this put up and done in the park. We have... what day is it?"
"Tuesday," Mia said.
"I'm sure I can get the park on Saturday afternoon, after school ends in the morning, so that's one, two, three... four days to get ready. We have until then to put together routines and advertise around. Any closer to the cultural festival, and everyone will be too busy."
"This is gonna be the greatest!" Asa cheered. "We'll have it done in no time!"
"It better work," Hoshi sighed.
Yoko shook her head. "Well, what else can we do?"
-
The first big hurdle was actually coming up with, putting together, and practicing their acts. In an effort to not repeat the Cake Incident, the group worked out what everybody was doing before they left the store. At least then, there wouldn't be five only slighly varying song and dance routines to the same popular song.
In the end, they had had to talk Asa out of doing a one-person dramatic reenactment of the climax of last week's DaiFighter episode, and Hoshi volunteered her to help with her Fubuki Style demonstration instead... which mostly meant holding the things that Hoshi was going to break apart. Mia volunteered to sing and also mentioned that she would ask Ami-sensei if they could borrow one of her inventions. Something about a robot that played the xylophone on its own. Yoko hesitated on demonstrating her own talent, but with some prodding, she agreed to take apart an engine and put it back together on stage. If anything, it would be informative to the crowd. Asa did grumble enough for her own segment that they let her do a speech on something, as long as -- and this was a big one -- she didn't bore people to death. Hoshi personally appointed herself as the judge of boring versus interesting. Yukari, itching to try out some new speakers, suggested on top of her own flute playing that everybody do a dance routine to finish the whole thing off. So that was that, then.
Building up interest proved to take just as much time. The girls split up according to Yukari's plan and began to hand out flyers after school. Mia put two large stacks in a small wagon and carted them over to the clock tower in the middle of town.
"Um, excuse me!" She timidly waved a flyer in the air. "We've got an event coming up, um, something you might want to see..."
"You have?"
Mia looked up at two identical white-haired men in suits. She coughed and shrunk back, offering out the flyer. "Well, yes... it's a talent show, sort of, that my friends and I are putting on, and..."
One of the men took it and read it over. The two of them smiled in unison.
"It looks interesting." They nodded to her and walked away, talking to one another. Mia let out a sigh of relief and picked up another flyer.
Getting their busy classmates to hear them out was harder, but just as Yukari had guessed, it went much more easily when the show was associated with the cultural festival rather than a distraction from it. Of course, official backing of some sort would convince the doubters. No problem.
"Absolutely!" Ami-sensei's eyes lit up, she clasped her hands together, and she practically sparkled. "The five of you taking the initiative to learn how to raise money is a wonderful thing! Truly, this class will be the shining beacons of societal progress!"
"It's not really that big of a deal, Ami-sensei..." Yoko sighed.
"What are you talking about, Yoko?" Asa pumped her fist in the air. "Of course it's a big deal!"
"Asa..."
Ami-sensei didn't seem to be listening. "I may just be a teacher, and I can't make your event official, especially since you're going to be using the proceeds for yourselves. But since I'm so proud that you're learning to do things yourselves, and because you're also going to be using your show to promote a school event, I'll put my full support behind it! If you need anything, anything at all, just tell me!"
Yukari dusted her hands off. That was that, then.
The next four days were probably the busiest that any of the five girls had ever had. With school winding up soon, the cultural festival to prepare for, and the talent show to throw together in hopes that it wouldn't blow up in their faces, they barely had any time for anything else. At least, and they appreciated this, no enemies had shown up to distract them even further.
The day was here.
-
Saturday. The girls' show would go ahead right on schedule.
Tachimany suspected, of course, at least something about that flyer they'd picked up from the red-haired girl with the pink bow. They'd never formally met her, uncanny resemblance to one of their enemies aside, but she had been wearing the Clair Academy middle school uniform, and they thought they recognized her from watching those two other girls. The new Pretty Cure.
Like they'd said, they were looking for the old Pretty Cure. There were plenty of groups of Pretty Cure all over the Land of Legends, weren't there? Still, the two had some kind of connection. Otherwise, Dawn wouldn't have kept appearing to give them the chance to win. Appearing out of nowhere, like...
...Well, like now. That was definitely her, walking up to them as they sat on a park bench to look to all the world like two identical businessmen.
"Hello."
One of Tachimany's bodies looked up. "We suppose you're after something."
"That should be my line." Dawn rested her hands on her hips and looked down on them. "What are you doing out here? Planning to attack the girls again?"
"We're actually looking for you today," the other body said, and both stood up to meet her eye level. "In particular--"
"--we're investigating--"
"--why you and the others--"
"--are active again."
Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Did Eiender put you up to this, or did someone else?"
"Unfortunately, the Boss--"
"--is no longer with us."
"We decided this ourselves--"
"--after you got your powers back."
Dawn stared. "He's gone? Excuse my disbelief, but even Dusk and I couldn't defeat him when we were younger."
"He's changed a lot since then," one body explained. "Faded out of sight."
"What we hear is that he erased himself," the other body added. "Which brings the conversation back to why you still care."
"Hmm." Dawn frowned. "I suppose it's only fair. Getting our powers back? In one case, they never left. You of all people should know about your own faction's abilities. They come from within you, don't they? They reflect who you really are. That's the kind of thing that won't just disappear once you decide that you don't want the universe to end. Your powers won't die until you do."
"That explains him, yes--"
"--but what about you and your friend?"
"Simple," said Dawn. "We turned in our transformation players when we gave the Moon Dial to the Elder, after everything was done with. That was just how things were done back then. Once you didn't need to fight anymore, you gave up your ability to transform. From what I hear, Cures these days tend to have more of a choice on the matter."
"But now?", Tachimany asked in unison.
Dawn reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out what looked like an antiquated pink portable cassette player and a deck of cards similar to the cards for Asa's and Yoko's transformation phones. "When you and your friends were creating havoc with the girls out of town, we got into contact with the Elder. She sent Sunbi and Moonla down with our old transformation players. It seems that that was the original plan to begin with, if there were ever an emergency. The circumstances of your invasion, however, meant that she sent down the new transformation items with somebody else, designated new Cures, and scattered the Moon Pieces to buy them time. There's your even exchange of information, Tachimany." She turned on her heel. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I do not have time for this right now."
-
Yukari, true to her word, had talked with the town workers in charge of the park and had the stage set up again. At present, she was out at the entrance taking admission, and the rest of the group was huddled backstage and taking occasional glances past the curtain at the gathering audience.
"There still aren't that many people..." Yoko looked back at her friends. "Was this just a bad idea?"
"Don't give up now," Asa said. "We got some people to show up, didn't we? I just wish my mom hadn't been too busy. She always is."
"I didn't even ask my parents," Yoko sighed. "I'd have to answer too many questions about what I was doing and why we were raising money and why I thought this was a good idea. I'd probably have to anyway if they spent any time being social in town. They just leave every day to go back into the city for work."
"My parents came," Mia said. "They told me they wouldn't miss it!"
"They must be pretty nice," Yoko mused.
"Course they are, Nakayama." Hoshi facepalmed. "Remember when we went to Ami-sensei's house? Ogata's mom and Ami-sensei have been best friends since they were our age. For that alone, she's gotta be a saint."
"What's wrong with Ami-sensei?", Asa asked.
Hoshi gestured to Asa. "See what I mean?"
Asa pouted. "Worst best friend ever."
Starry waved down from the rafters of the makeshift stage. "Hurry and get onstage ~susu! It's almost time to start ~susu!"
"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi sighed and led Asa onstage behind the closed curtain. "Let's go make idiots of ourselves already."
"That's the spirit!" Asa beamed.
Yukari continued to take admission fees at the front. It was, she had to admit, difficult to enforce payment when they were in a park and people could easily sneak in another way, but most people in Kazahana City followed the rules. Even systems of conformity had their good sides, she mused. It didn't mean they didn't need to change, but it meant something right now. She smiled at the next person in line.
"Welcome! That'll be--" Yukari blinked and stared before shaking her head. "Ah, sorry! I've seen you before."
The woman in front of her smiled, pushing back a piece of cherry red hair. "Okamoto Yukari-san. It's been a while. How are your friends doing?"
Yukari fumbled with her glasses and smiled back, hesitating. "Pretty well, I think... we're all very busy at the moment."
"I've heard all about this." She smiled. "Well, not all about it. I think I'm still missing a key bit of information, but I'm sure you and the girls know what you're doing."
"You are?" Yukari's glasses nearly fell off her face.
The one they called Dawn laughed and handed over the admission fee. "Don't worry so much right now. I'm just here to support all of you. It isn't because of that. There's someone I'd be disappointing if I weren't here." She walked into the clearing, and Yukari soon lost her in the crowd.
Yoko pressed play on the sound system supplying the introduction music, and the small crowd quieted down outside. She walked out to the podium in front of the closed curtain and tapped the microphone.
"Good afternoon, everyone." She breathed in and out, reading ahead on the introduction on the paper in front of her, and looked out at the small audience. "Welcome. You'll find that our event this afternoon serves multiple purposes. One, and the thing you've probably heard the most about, is that we, a small group of students at Clair Academy's middle school division, have put this together to advertise the school's upcoming cultural festival to Kazahana City and the surrounding area. That's certainly true, but it's only one part of this event..."
Yoko knew that she wasn't supposed to look directly at audience members. Years of class presentations had informed her of that. She instead scanned just above them, giving the illusion that she was -- wait, wait, what was that? Putting aside the rules, she focused in just to see that she wasn't seeing anything. There, four or five rows back, was Mitsuishi Seira. Alright, it wasn't surprising to see her there. Of course the other girls would have advertised to her at school. It also wasn't surprising to see her with Takashi at any given time, as she was right now. Seeing both of these things happen at the same time was another thing entirely. Sure enough, and defying his usual way of being, there was Nakayama Takashi, in the proximity of his twin sister without either avoiding her or trying to make her life miserable.
One of these days, Yoko would have to figure out just how many miracles could happen in the span of one school term.
"Yes, well." Yoko coughed and looked back at a tree just behind the clearing they were in. "That's true, but it's also teaching us a lot of things. How to put together an event like this on our own. How to work together. Things anybody's going to need in their life. Like our teacher says, it's something that will improve the world." Yoko inwardly rolled her eyes at the introduction as she read off the rest of it. She hadn't wanted to lie, and, well, this was the "compromise" that had resulted in. Yukari had deemed it the sort of thing that would move the hearts of the common people, and Mia had said that it sounded like a daytime drama. Apparently, to her, that was a good thing, even if Hoshi and Asa disagreed.
Hoshi and Asa... Hoshi was Asa's best friend, right? And Yukari was Yoko's best friend, or the closest thing to it. But then what was Asa to Yoko, or Yoko to Asa? They weren't just partners. They hadn't been since they started using each other's first names. They definitely weren't just regular friends after going through the imprinted memories of the past of erased world, or after talking their problems out at Gessou Lake when everybody else was in the guest lodge.
Yoko chased the train of thought out of her head. Sappy speeches made her think too much.
"With the introduction aside, please welcome our first act, in which Kondou Hoshi, with the assistance of Kawada Asa, will demonstrate the style of martial arts handed down from the Fuyuki family, founders of her hometown, Fubuki Town!"
She walked off the stage and, still hidden from the audience's view, Starry pulled open the curtain.
-
Dawn's interest in the event had cemented it. Tachimany needed to attend. They'd walked in in the form of one boy, paid, hidden in a bush, and transformed into ten white cats with gold-coloured collars. The cats began to weave through the crowd, climb up the trees, and slip around the stage. They searched. They watched.
They watched the blue-haired girl, the one who was Sunday, hold boards for the angry girl with the messy brown hair to destroy. Another cat body padded through the crowd, looking for a woman with cherry red hair and a pink dress. There she was, with the grown-up versions of the excitable girl she'd fought alongside and the sullen boy who had fought on the Etherium's side until his infiltration of the school went wrong somewhere along the line. That was one thing down.
They watched the girl on the stage with the same red hair, just a few shades lighter, and a pink hair bow. Whatever she was singing, judging by the younger people in the audience, was probably the latest trend. She wasn't good, really, but Tachimany knew the world of entertainment. You didn't have to be good. You just had to not be bad, and even that got you a few followers -- or a lot -- if you were lucky enough. Luck and persistence were first and second. Talent was third. Actually, talent was fourth to not being a freak with voices in your head.
One of them pawed around backstage. The cat body hid behind a curtain as the grey-haired girl walked over to a folding chair just by the wings and picked up her bag. She checked her phone for the time, mumbled something about having to switch off with Yukari for ticket duty, and ran out the back. Tachimany moved forward, investigating the items around -- wait. What was that? Another one of those robots that had been all around the teacher's house... carrying a xylophone.
What.
Moving past that whatever-it-was, their other cat bodies started to congregate backstage.
-
Yukari had switched off ticket duty with Yoko. Mia was still singing, but Yukari's turn was up next. She walked behind the stage and approached the door up to the backstage area.
Somebody was stepping out.
She hid behind a tree and looked out. Nine girls dressed like shrine maidens were walking out in a clump. Two looked like they were carrying something out, but it was hard to tell considering their number. Yukari moved to step and confront the intruders when she saw white eye masks with gold-coloured jewel accents appear on all of their faces at once.
She stayed behind the tree.
Tachimany looked at each other and shook their heads.
"There wasn't any sign of them--"
"--so they must be in the crowd."
"But they knew we would be here."
"At least they suspected it."
"So the next thing to do--"
"--is to find them."
They began to move behind the stage, obscuring what they were carrying.
"They'll come to us."
"That's if we're lucky--"
"--but the odds are good."
Yukari, still hiding, stared. She started to follow after them, moving behind trees and bushes. With one hand, she pulled out her phone and began to text Yoko's number without looking.
Something's come up. Get everyone else to go before me. Just buy a little time, okay?
With that sent off, she continued to track Tachimany. They moved behind the stage, through the trees, and into another, smaller clearing. They set something down -- Yukari still couldn't see what -- and moved into a circle around it.
"Now."
They all said it in unison, clasped one another's hands, and concentrated. A golden glow surrounded them, and a magic circle in the same colour drew itself underneath.
Yukari moved forward to step out.
Another light flashed to the right.
All of Tachimany turned their heads to look. Yukari hid back behind the tree and slowly looked around the side.
There, standing on a sturdy branch of a blossoming cherry tree, were two women. One had bright pink hair, short and fluffy, with a heart-decorated ribbon at the back. Her uniform was pink and yellow, with a layered skirt and bows, but longer than Sunday's or Night's dresses. At her belt was what looked like a portable cassette player in a case. The other woman with her had one, too, and a lavender dress with blue accents. Her hair was long and flowing, and such a dark purple that it seemed black. Both of them posed on the branch and pointed down at Tachimany.
"Rising with the sun, I am Cure Dawn!"
"Falling with the night, I am Cure Dusk!"
"We are Pretty Cure!"
"In the past and in the future..."
"...we guard eternity itself!"
Yukari's eyes widened. She ducked behind the tree again.
One of the Tachimany bodies stepped forward with a confident smile. "Hello again."
"You've certainly changed."
"Even your uniforms have changed."
Dawn nodded. "You can't expect us to look the way we did in middle school, after all. Even if you people haven't changed."
"We were just waiting--"
"--for you to arrive."
"This paid off quickly enough."
Dawn shifted her feet on the tree branch and tensed up. "You mean to say that you were looking for us?"
"Well, of course."
"You, her, and--"
"--where is he, now?"
A throwing knife awash in dark blue light was flung down, stabbing the ground between Tachimany and the tree. They looked up. A blue-haired man in a black suit was standing on top of a lamppost, already drawing out another knife. He sighed. "I'm getting too old for dramatic introductions."
"You are pushing two hundred," Dusk laughed. Dawn just shook her head.
Tachimany moved out of the circle and spread out in front, all facing Dawn, Dusk, and Devance. They shifted from nine shrine maidens to four doctors and smirked.
"Of course, the main consideration--"
"--is supposed to be the new Pretty Cure--"
"--but as long as we're in charge--"
"--we're investigating you as well."
"In charge? You?" Devance stared. "Then he's really..."
"Unfortunately."
"By his own choice--"
"--according to someone--"
"--we can tell isn't lying."
Yukari held her breath and listened, not about to risk looking out again. She heard Tachimany walk on the grass and Dawn and Dusk take in sharp breaths.
"What do you think you're doing with that thing?", Dusk demanded.
"What is that thing?", Dawn asked.
Gold light flashed in the clearing. Yukari saw the glow flicker past her and heard something rumble and grow. The light faded. She slowly looked over the side.
There, in the clearing, stood a clanking metal monstrosity with glowing golden eyes, a spring for one arm and a pipe for another, holding a stick and standing in front of a xylophone half the size of a tree.
"Hidoinaa!", it announced.
Yukari stared... and facepalmed.
-
Seriously. What had been with that text? It wasn't like Yukari to suddenly bail, and the xylophone-playing robot was gone, too. Yoko would normally worry, but Yukari seemed to know what she was doing... whatever she was doing.
Yoko shook her head and began her engine demonstration, starting it up and drowning out the noise of a monster that would otherwise send her and the others running to help.
-
Dawn and Dusk jumped down from the tree and charged the robot monster. As Yukari watched intently, it seemed to her completely out of their league. Every punch dented it, every kick sent it off-balance. Devance descended from the lamppost and hung back, supporting by aiming throwing knives at the thing's mechanical joints. It would crash over, cry out, and pull itself up again, playing on the giant xylophone to attack.
For all its noise, it kept being drowned out by the engine Yoko was explaining and demonstrating onstage. For its height, it never reached over top of the trees. The performers and the audience had no idea it was just in a clearing behind the stage. Yukari wasn't sure whether to sigh with relief or hold her breath.
Tachimany, for their part, stood with identical confident looks on their faces.
"Even out of practice--"
"--you've gotten stronger."
"Though you still might not--"
"--be able to defeat us all."
Dusk leapt on top of the xylophone itself, landing with a ring of one of the keys. "Dawn! We have to finish this quickly, don't we?"
Dawn nodded and jumped onto another key. "I'm glad you understand!"
They looked at each other, made eye contact, and grabbed each other's inside hands.
"Dawn Phasing!"
"Dusk Phasing!"
Dawn and Dusk extended their outside hands and charged up a large, glowing ball of pink and purple light.
"As the days move on..."
"you will be lost to time!"
They launched a colossal beam of energy at the robot, crackling and radiating off of everything.
"Pretty Cure Era Cycle!"
With enough strength, it crumpled inward and burned up in blue fire along with its xylophone. Dawn and Dusk landed on the ground in front of the restored, regular xylophone-bot.
"Why would you do this?" Dusk turned around and marched up to Tachimany. "Only to test us? Don't you realize that there are reasons that we were here that have nothing to do with you? How can you people keep being like this?"
"She's right." Dawn followed her partner forward and, for the first time that Yukari had seen her like this, glared. "Play around some other time."
Devance nodded and stood a few steps behind them. "We'll face you again, but stay away from the show this time."
Tachimany shifted into eight figures in gold hooded cloaks.
"It's surprising--"
"--that you would say that--"
"--when the three of you should know--"
"--that that's not how it works."
"Nobody cares--"
"--about their enemies' schedules--"
"--when nobody cares--"
"--about the world they're in."
A voice came from behind them. "Do you really not care?"
The eight Tachimany turned around and Dawn, Dusk, and Devance looked past them. Yukari emerged from behind the tree, quivering but focusing on the people in front of her.
"I said," she continued, "do you really not care?"
"Of course not," one Tachimany said.
"There's no reason to," said another."
"After all--"
"--we erased our own world--"
"--because we didn't care about it--"
"--and it didn't care about us."
Yukari took a deep breath and shook her head. "Then why are you leaving our performance be?"
"What?", asked eight Tachimany.
"Okamoto-san?" Cure Dusk blinked.
Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "That monster was just tall enough to still be hidden by the trees and just loud enough to still be drowned out by Yoko's engine demonstration. You didn't attack the show directly. You just wanted to draw out the three adults and fight them. Back last fall, when your allies attacked another show Mia was promoting, they were the ones putting on the show and they targeted the whole audience just to get Asa's and Yoko's attention."
"But in this case--"
"--attracting the attention--"
"--of the new Pretty Cure--"
"--would go against the idea--"
"--of testing only the previous."
"Their newly regained powers--"
"--and their increased strength--"
"--are the issue here."
Dawn put a hand on Dusk's arm. "Maybe the girl has a point."
"Thank you." Yukari bowed slightly. "All of you Tachimany, I don't know a lot about you. Maybe you don't know a lot about us, either. In the end, though, I think you might have wanted to let us be."
Tachimany shifted into one boy and stared into Yukari's face. "Just for a show to go on?"
Yukari flinched and didn't look right at him (them), but kept talking. "I might just be projecting myself on here. I wanted to help everyone. My friends and my family and the world. I know you and your friends hate the world, but you can't all be bad. I know you can't."
"It's not that simple to keep from choosing between one and the other!" The white-haired boy shook his head violently. "There will always be people who are hurt by what you do or scared of what you really are. Our world was -- every world is filled with selfish people. There's no reason to try and live peacefully in a place like that. All you'll do is deny yourself and destroy yourself!"
"Maybe that's true!", Yukari yelled back. The three adults looked on, drawing closer to one another. Yukari continued. "Maybe you're right about some things. It's hard for a lot of people to belong. That's true. Sometimes it hurts more than people like me can imagine. It would probably be insulting you and all of the other people who have actually gone through those kinds of things for me to even try to say I understand. I don't. But I do know that, even though our world's not perfect, it's not so bad that it doesn't deserve to exist, either. In fact, the only way to change it and make it better is to try and work for everyone's happiness, no matter how much it hurts or how hopeless it looks!"
Tachimany shifted into eight again, hiding their faces under their cloaks.
"You're right--"
"--you don't know."
"You have people you actually love--"
"--who have no reason not to love you."
"You have reasons to care--"
"--about the Land of Legends--"
"--because you don't know any better!"
"If you know you can never understand, then why do you even try?"
Devance looked up. "She's right."
"You as well? Still?", Tachimany asked.
Devance nodded and looked away. "You can't brush what I say off as easily as you can for a kid like her. You know that I hated my own world. I hated everything for a long time. I know more than you do about being alone."
"You used to understand," said another Tachimany. "How unnatural it is to be alone. We have never been alone, not even when there is only one..."
Devance put one of his throwing knives away on his belt. "I know. The only way to kill you is to kill all of you at once. Otherwise, you'll just regenerate your bodies all at once, and your minds will still all be intact. You still have yourselves. But nobody is saying that that makes you less able to say anything."
"You only can't say anything because you don't care," Dawn said. "Because you haven't found a reason to yet."
"There's a reason for everyone to care." Dusk smiled. "Nobody is asking you to abandon your cause just yet, but if there's anything right in the world, then I'm sure you'll see it! These children seem to see something good in all of you. If this is the way that the future goes, then surely everything will turn out better this time!"
Dawn raised her eyebrow at Dusk. "You really never change."
Tachimany moved at once, going for prop weapons under their cloaks... and didn't. A gold magic circle drew itself underneath them, and they disappeared.
Yukari looked at the ground and sighed. "I can't believe that worked... I should probably get back."
"As should we," Dawn said. "But we've missed a lot of the important part."
"Important part?", Yukari asked.
Devance and Dusk were already retreating into the trees. Dawn drew out her pearlescent heart necklace from the pouch for her transformation tape player. "I suppose there isn't much point in hiding it at this stage. Tell Mia that I didn't mean to miss her part."
"Mia? What does Mia have to do with--"
Dawn started to turn to walk away. "Oh, and while we're at it, could you pass on your thanks to... Nakayama-san, I believe. For fixing my van."
As the red-haired woman retreated, Yukari shook, processing what she had heard.
-
That's right.
Tachimany finished their last page of observations. Note-taking was much easier with multiple bodies to write with. This wouldn't take long to present at all, and then they could get on with looking for those last few Moon Pieces.
We are never alone.
-
Asa: Now it's time for...
Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (All mascots add their respective sentence enders.)
Hoshi: This took forever. What was the author doing? Slacking off?
Yukari: It's also unusually long. Then again, these chapters just keep getting longer.
Kirei: We also saw the three of us actually fight for the first time, but the scene wasn't that good. The author says she's sorry.
Yoko: Mia. Please tell me something. Did you know about this?
Mia: What? No!
Asa: But if Mia's mom and dad were Dawn and Mr. Dawn this whole time, then does that make Mia, like... the secret third Pretty Cure or something?
Starry: You mean like how DaiFighter is the son of the previous DaiFighter, and the girl GoldFighter was trying to save is his sister ~susu?
Yoko: I think all we've established is that Asa watches too much TV.
Tachimany: See you all next time.
-
Next Episode: Fateful Cultural Festival! Kainatrol Steps It Up!