Previous Chapter
Finn stepped forward to catch the slowly falling piece of paper as Ryu lost her grip on it. The young woman seemed almost catatonic, simply standing there, hands held as if the paper was still present within them, her lips wobbling on her face as she stared into the blank spot she'd been holding it. She knew the woman in question, that much was obvious, and they had some deep emotional connection. Given her shock, it was most likely the case that she believed Revis to be dead. He patiently considered Ryu for a long few moments, as he folded up the paper and put it away. "Ryu," he said. "What do you know about this woman?"

"I- where?" She asked, looking at Finn. "Where did you meet her?" She had a clear focus on those sorts of questions, but Finn had a far greater interest in discovering who Revis was than in calming Ryu's nerves.

"We only met briefly. It's very important that I can see her again, Ryu. What do you know about her?"

Ryu just stared down at him, her expression quickly turning cold as ice. "Where."

"I will tell you, if you first tell me who she is."

Ryu's mouth opened and closed. "Alise Lovell."

Finn's brow furrowed at that. So Revis was a pseudonym, then? No, wait. Alise Lovell. The name was familiar, if distantly. He blinked a few times, processing it. Alise Lovell was a member of the Astraea familia. She had been a Level Four when she had last been seen alive. No, that didn't quite make sense. Astraea had left Orario, and Revis was a strong Level Six or a weak Level Seven. She wouldn't have been able to update her falna, unless-

"Where was she?" Ryu snapped, jarring Finn out of his thoughts.

"Ah, my apologies, Ryu," he said, giving a small bow. "May we speak more privately of the particulars?" Ryu glanced at Anya.

"Nya! I'll take over your shift, Ryu! Be nice to Ryu, Mister Deimne, or you'll never be able to come to the Hostess of Fertility again, nya! If you're really bad, Mama Mia will beat you up, nya!"

"I have every intention of being a gentleman with the young lady," Finn told Anya. Her expression briefly flickered, most likely because she had forgotten that he was more than twice Ryu's age. "Ryu?"

"Yes." She moved with quick steps, and he watched them with some curiosity. They seemed a tad faster than would have expected of the fast-walk of a Level Four, which was what Ryu Lion had been when she had been... forcibly retired, after a certain series of events. They soon arrived in a quiet side room. "Where is Alise?"

He took a deep breath, deciding precisely what to tell her. Then he spoke. "The woman in question was going by the name Revis," he began. "She attacked us in... the Dungeon." Ryu blinked at that, clearly disbelieving him. In fairness, it was a lie - they had been attacked in Knossos. For now, however, it was very much to the advantage of the Loki familia to keep the matter of Knossos out of the public's knowledge. "She fought like a Level Seven."

"A Level Seven," Ryu said, looking down at her hand, her expression distant. "I see."

"She is working with an individual called Enyo, who has some... truly nefarious plans for Orario, if my sources are correct, and they generally are." Ryu looked up at him, her expression once more of some disbelief. "If you have any idea what could motivate her to do such a thing-"

"Nothing." Her voice was hard as she spoke, and it was obvious she looked up to Alise. "You must be mistaken."

"I see," Finn agreed, giving her a pleasant smile. "Well. You may be right. Perhaps it is some mistake. We clashed only for the barest of moments, after all. I certainly hope it is - I am not certain I would win a fight with her, given her strength."

"Yes. She must have been doing something else," Ryu said, more to herself than him.

"You haven't seen Alise since... that time, have you?"

"No." The word came out quick and fast, like a stab with a dagger.

"I understand. Thank you for your time, Ryu." He took a step back, then departed from her presence, leaving her with her thoughts.

Alise Lovell. The Scarlet Harnel. Believed dead for four or five years now. He would have to consult with the Guild, to see if she had any Skills or Magic that might have explained her strength. He certainly wasn't enthused by the idea that Astraea had returned to Orario just to juice up the strongest of her soldiers and hand her over to Enyo. Could she have been Enyo? Hm. There were too many possibilities at the moment.

* * *

Syr could see the turmoil in Ryu's heart. That idiot Finn had really messed with Ryu's head, just to find out - what? That this 'Revis' character was actually Alise Lovell? Had they never met? Was he blind? An idiot? He had most certainly met her, back when she was alive, but still he needed to go and traumatize Ryu with his moronic questions. Ryu wasn't the sort of person who spoke out about her pain, so she just quietly brooded over her circumstances, stone-faced as always.

She actually took a couple shifts for Ryu, just to give Ryu the chance to calm herself down. Mostly, Ryu had used the free time to sit around brooding some more. The crack that slid along her perfect marble soul was half-twisted in place, all her jumbled up feelings serving to transform the old trauma in all sorts of strange ways. She didn't like it at all. It was not a beautiful soul marred by a tiny flaw, but a tiny flaw slowly expanding and threatening to bring down the whole edifice. She didn't even know what to say - Ryu was just that impenetrable. She could tell Ryu that she cared about her, that things would be okay, that Finn was an idiot, and the elf would just quietly nod, say something to the effect of, "Okay," and go right back to brooding.

She did have one ace up her sleeve, though. That beautiful soul. Her Cassandra. Her Cassandra, who could see deep inside of Ryu, just as clearly as Syr herself could. So, she pushed Ryu out of her brooding when Cassandra showed up, quietly watching from the sidelines as Ryu approached Cassandra's table in the hope that Cassandra could do something to fix it. Of course, Cassandra was joined by Drake, annoyingly, and Erza, naturally, but Ryu's mental health was more important than getting rid of Drake.

She'd mostly made peace with the two-for-one deal. It wasn't as if Drake's soul was ugly like the filthy maggot-soul's. She still didn't want her Ryu to fall in love with him, though.

* * *

Cass looked at Ryu, and could instantly tell something was wrong. Drake and Erza didn't seem to notice, placing their orders calmly, but Cass could see the pain in the way that Ryu walked, her steps seeming to drag a quiet agony behind her. "Cass?" Ryu asked, looking at her for her order.

"You... aren't... okay..." Cass said. Ryu blinked a few times at that, looking down at the notepad on which she was taking their orders to avoid a confrontation. "What... is wrong?" She continued. "I... care about you..."

"I care about you as well!" Erza said, her voice energetic and bright and earnest. "If anything is the matter, you can count on my assistance!"

"I care about you too, Ryu," Drake added. He was more shy about it. He didn't like to... promise more of his feelings than he could... guarantee. Ryu's gaze went to Drake in particular, her eyes seeming to bore into his soul. "Really. I do." That was enough for Cass to know that Ryu had feelings for Drake, ones that she wasn't fully aware of herself. Her lips gave the tiniest twitch, a restrained smile, her breathing leveling out just slightly, as she turned her gaze back to the notepad.

"Thank you. The matter..." she paused, looking back up. "...is actually related to the Loki familia, so I suppose you all deserve to know." Ryu launched into the explanation, as she understood it. Drake nodded along, knowing most of what she was saying already. He occasionally corrected some minor inaccuracy in Ryu's recollection.

Cass wasn't paying too much attention to the specific details, though. Ryu had a friend who she thought was dead, but was alive now. She wanted Ryu to reconnect with her friend. But the friend was with a bad person, Enyo, for a reason that nobody knew. Drake paused at one point as Ryu spoke - she recognized the movement. He was getting some important information from another body. Cass looked at Drake when Ryu finished explaining. "Drake... you know... something."

Drake took a deep breath. What he knew wasn't good. "Revis... may not be Alise." Ryu's gaze went to Drake, her expression intense. She wasn't happy with those words, but she wanted to know what they meant. "Revis is probably a creature. An intelligent monster, basically."

Erza interrupted then. "Her being a monster is no obstacle to friendship," she proclaimed, raising a hand in a fist. She was thinking of Al-if-feez, Cass knew.

"It's not," Drake agreed. "But it might not be... a situation where Alise is just herself. It could be something like... a monster wearing her face. It's particularly likely, given she's working with Enyo."

"Oh." Ryu looked down at the notepad. "I see." There was a quiet acceptance there, as if she had been told that Alise had never been alive at all.

"Look, we can- I have some ideas," Drake said. "It might not be like that. Maybe she is Alise, deep down inside, but she's being mind controlled, like some member of the Ishtar familia." He wanted to say Freya familia, but he knew Syr was listening to them. "I want to try to help, alright? So, we'll come back tonight?" He got up then, making Ryu's head jerk up in confusion.

"You have not gotten your meal."

"I haven't really ordered it either," he said, with a small laugh. "Cass hasn't even said what she wants. We'll go home and get ready, alright? I'm not going to abandon your friend just like that, because of a possibility." He thought it was a slim possibility, Cass could tell. But he wanted to do the right thing anyway.

Ryu definitely liked that fact. "Thank you, Drake," she said. "Thank you all. You are... good friends," she said.

Erza just wrapped Ryu in a big surprise hug, squeezing the slender elf girl tight. Cass smiled and decided to join in too.

* * *

Back at the Twilight Manor, I was simultaneously discussing ideas with both Loki and Rei. "Julia can't come with us, because of the fly thing." The Thanatos situation had resulted in her getting struck by the curse of the Neverborn, and she was absolutely miserable because of it. She couldn't actually sneak around effectively any more - a giant swarm of flies was a bit conspicuous - and she wasn't able to have sex either.

That's not quite right. She could have had sex. If she had asked me, I would have had sex with her. But she knew that it would be really gross to me, to have sex with her while flies swarmed all over my body, and definitely unpleasant, and Julia wasn't the kind of person to try to impose like that. I mentally promised to make it up to her once things were done.

Either way, we were counting out the forces available to us. I didn't trust Finn to remain a neutral party because Rei didn't. Erza and Cass and Ryu were all about the same Level, and I was one Level lower. Julia had Leveled up after Thanatos, but as a Level Four who couldn't properly apply her stealth powers, she wasn't going to help much. Rei could provide assistance, and we'd probably need her to go into Knossos.

In the end, we came up with the best plan we could. Erza, Cass, a single Rei, Ryu, and myself would go into Knossos on our own to try to hunt down Revis. I'd just hope that our contingencies would work.

* * *

Revis stood among the corpses of several former Thanatos members. She had not been able to stem the bleeding of their forces, despite Enyo's orders. Many were unpleasantly willing to die. Others had fled to the surface, where she didn't follow. She needed to be stronger to risk going to the surface. If she were caught above, then she would likely be killed by the Loki familia, or the Freya familia, or both.

"You will serve Enyo," she told the others there, the ones that hadn't tried to rush her or blow themselves up. "If you don't, I will kill you." They swallowed, filled with fear. That would be good enough. "Check the device," she ordered, pointing to it. She couldn't manipulate it. She wasn't a descendant of Daedalus.

"There won-khh!" Her fingers were instantly wrapped around the speaker's throat, a young red haired girl, scruffy and weak. Something about her brought some vague old memory to the front. Herself, looking in - a mirror? A pool of water? She dragged the girl to the device. It was a stone pedestal which had fused with layers of ivy, above which was a watery, blue-white veil, surrounding a red jewel.

She slammed the girl's cheek into the stone pedestal. "Check it," Revis ordered. The girl wasn't a member of the Thanatos familia, but the Ikelos familia, and thus still had her falna. It didn't matter. She had become more powerful since eating Olivas's magic stone, and she hunted in the Dungeon at times, or ate the magic stones of some of the middling-power Violas, trying to build up her strength so that she could simply crush the Loki familia when they next came.

The girl tilted her head up to the device, meeting the red jewel with her eyes, and the veil came to life, illuminating scene after scene. One scene in particular drew her interest. A Loki familia member she recognized, the busty short-haired one, and presumably her friends or comrades, by the way they moved together. Male, tall, lightly-attired, wielding knives. Female, armored, wielding a sword. Female, armored, with gauntlets far more valuable than her armor. The last one caught her interest.

Elf. Female. Blonde. Sword. Lightly attired. Slender. Stick thin. A name bubbled to her mind, coming from nowhere. Ryu Lion. She let go of the useless Ikelos familia member to stare in silence at the scene. Nobody moved at all, not even the girl in question. Either they were intimidated by her presence, or they were also interested in the girl.

There were feelings somewhere inside her, for this girl. She wanted to... do something, with, or to, her. What was it? The impulse was vague, ephemeral. Like the sensation of knowing that you do not have all the things you prepared for your journey, but not knowing what you have forgotten.

It annoyed her. She would kill the other four, then figure out what it was that she wanted with Ryu Lion. "Do not attempt to flee like the rest of your family," she told the girl.

"Like I could," the girl spat, gesturing to her leg, the one that Revis had broken earlier.

Revis didn't respond. She just turned, recalling the paths that Knossos took, and rushed off. Turn left here. Right here. Open this door with the orb. There is a hidden passage in the wall, strike here. Tap this. Remove this. Open this. Left. Right. Forward. Skip that door, it's a trap.

Then she paused her movements, listening closely. They would have moved since entering Knossos. It took her a second to isolate their position, and she moved again, striding forward slowly and carefully. She kept quiet, holding her breath, sword in one hand as she stalked towards the group. "She's here." The voice was female. "Revis? Yoooo?"

"Alise?" That was Ryu Lion's voice. How Revis knew that, she didn't recall. But that was Ryu's voice. The name also carried a certain sense of instinctual familiarity, making her mind hone in on the speaker over the others. She stepped slowly but surely forward, keeping herself stealthy. They may have been merely pretending to know of her presence. The various devices in Knossos to monitor unwanted intruders did not bring sound with them. "Alise?" Ryu repeated, more loudly this time.

Revis spotted them, then. The male was the leader, that was obvious by the way they moved. She would kill him first. She lunged forward, taking advantage of her superior strength and speed, dashing along the ground too fast for them to track her. The armored one with the sword tried to bring up her blade; the one with the gauntlets tried to interpose herself; neither succeeded. She continued forward by raw momentum, sword in hand, plunging it into the man's chest -

Except she didn't. She carved through empty air past him, sliding along the ground, put off balance by the lack of a weight at the end of the movement. She turned around - and instead of seeing him where she should have been, she saw someone else. A young woman, Red hair, green eyes. She looked like Revis's reflection, though her hair was longer, softer, her expression sweeter, her skin more flush and full of life. "Do you really want to live your whole life, not even remembering me?"

The words made her still. They struck at her core. She blinked rapidly, trying to will the illusion - the hallucination, away, but it remained there, looking at her, one hand on her hips as she stared. "I was pretty amazing, you know? It's sad that you don't remember me at all. The saddest, in fact!"

"Alise," came Ryu's voice from Revis's side, her gaze momentarily sliding off the youthful figure. Off Alise. That's who the image was of.

"Ah, Lion," Alise said. "She used to be your friend, you know?" Revis's brow knit. Those words didn't sound true, yet also, they did. "Friendship. Love. Compassion. Your brain got really messed up, huh?" She bonked herself on the head. "Wake up, Alise."

Revis twitched at that, looking at the figure again. She was... just confused. "Alise?" Ryu repeated. "Alise. It's me." Her voice warbled with emotion. "Alise, please."

Revis's mouth worked for a second. "Who are you?"

"Who am I? I'm Alise, of course. That's Lion. You know this already, you know? Do I have to tell you this planet goes around the sun, too?"

"It's me, Ryu, Alise!" Ryu said. "Remember? We were both part of the Astraea familia. Do you remember?"

"Astraea..." Revis said. That name sounded familiar too, though she couldn't place it.

"Yes. Astraea," Alise said. "Come on. Dig deep. That skull's not just for show, right? Inside it lies a keen mind, honed to the sharpest edge! Think a little harder! Grind those goopy brain meats for something other than the Demi Spirit or Enyo! What's your justice?"

"My justice..."

"Everybody's got their own justice, you know? Are you an automaton or are you me?" Revis stared at Alise, who just smiled, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. "Oh? Did you really not catch that yet? Honesty, I thought it should have been obvious. Well, at least you're persistent, right?"

"Alise-" Ryu said again, starting to step forward.

"Don't," the Far Eastern girl with the scars said, raising one gauntleted hand, stopping Ryu's movement. "She's... not talking... to you."

"It's all in there, you know. Well, probably." Alise grinned. "If it wasn't, you couldn't remember me as well as you are right now."

"Who are you?" Revis demanded again.

"I'm your memories of the person you used to be. Probably. I guess I could just be a delusion about what that person was like, though. How would I know? But come on. You don't think you were born in the Dungeon, do you?" Revis felt a rush of emotion, a furious anger targeted at Alise. "Something's breaking through beyond confusion! Good! You can do it!"

Revis looked at Ryu again. The face was familiar. The eyes were familiar. The lips were familiar. The ears were familiar. The slender body was familiar. Did she- when did she-? "Alise," Ryu said, one more time, and this time, Revis felt something other than anger and hate and quiet irritation and impatience. "Alise. I... I missed you."

"I didn't miss you," Revis said, even as her vision began to blur. She reached up with her free hand to wipe something out of her eyes, some sort of clear fluid having begun to start occluding her vision. She didn't understand it.

"You did not remember, correct? You did not remember what happened. I thought that you died with everyone else on the thirtieth floor. I am sorry for not realizing you were alive."

Revis's gaze fell on Ryu Lion once again. The thirtieth floor. A flash of recollection. A monster, titanic in its scope, invincible in its prowess, slaughtering everyone. The phantasmal recollection of watching her friends be torn apart, burned alive, eaten, chopped in half, blinded and mauled. The faces and events were vague, but the hurt was still there. No one was spared.

No one except Ryu.

Ryu got to live.

Revis had died for Ryu.

A snarl manifested on Revis's lips. "Oy, oy! You're completely ignoring me! I chose to sacrifice myself for Lion's sake, you know? You can't get mad on my behalf about it! Heck, it's really Kaguya and Lyra who should be mad at me, to be honest." Revis ignored the voice, her hand tightening its grip on her blade.

"Alise?" Ryu's voice trembled - and then smoke simply flooded the air around them, bursting forth from seemingly every direction in the span of a heartbeat, Ryu vanishing into it. "Alise! Alise!" Her voice cried out, desperate, full of an emotion that Revis only barely recognized. It was the sort of emotion someone expressed when Revis was hurting someone they cared about. She just used the screaming to try to triangulate on her target, but she heard footsteps move far faster than they should have, clearly swooping forward to pick up Ryu. She tried to follow them, but they made their way around a corner in a scant second, and Revis's legs were too slow to keep up, even as she heard Ryu desperately screaming and crying out for Alise.

* * *

We'd had to use one of the contingencies to escape Revis. Smoke bombs, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice, to obscure our position. Not to evade Revis herself, but to allow Cass's skill, Chiropteran Speed, to take effect, letting us outrun the Level Seven monstrosity. And by "us," I mean, "Cass, with all of us loaded up on her shoulders." To a Level Five, carrying the full weight of four other adult humans is a rounding error.

I could guess, based on how Revis had been acting, how she'd been looking at me, and what she'd been saying, that whatever her heart's desire was - it was talking to her, through me. I'd kept my mouth shut, obviously, hoping that it would play out for the better, but in the end, it seemed like it hadn't.

We didn't stop running until we were out of Knossos, Rei once more transforming into Gran to forcibly open a door before shutting it behind us. We all took a break there, in the basement under Daedalus Street, just catching our breaths.

Ryu was still crying. Tears streamed down her face, her whole body half-twisted into a ball. "Alise... Alise..." she warbled pitifully. I wrapped her in a hug, and Erza joined in a second later, squeezing us both together like that. "Alise!" She wailed.

"It's alright, Ryu," I told her, doing my best to assuage her. "We were breaking through, right? She's recovering. It'll take time. But she was talking to you. Remembering things. Right? That's the first step to getting her back."

Elsewhere, another Rei spoke to a different body of mine. "You know, Revis was chill until Ryu reminded her of the Thirtieth Floor. I'm pretty sure the me that's there is thinking that but not saying it because she doesn't want to make Ryu cry even more, but that was definitely a bad choice."

"I... I should die..." Ryu said, her voice quiet. "If Alise wants to kill me, then I should die... I am only alive because she saved me... if she does not wish me to live..."

"That is a terrible thought, Ryu!" Erza proclaimed. "You are my friend, and I would hate for you to die! Even if Alise wanted you to die, then she is wrong!"

Ryu broke down in sobbing again at that, and I gave her another affectionate squeeze. "You don't deserve to die, Ryu. You are a good person. I know it." I told her, trying to put as much emotion as I could into the words. I had heard the rumor about her: that if you were in truly dire straits, you could go to the Hostess of Fertility, and seek help there.

Ryu proved to be inconsolable - ultimately, I wound up carrying her back to the Hostess. It would have been a princess carry, if she hadn't been curled up in the fetal position, pressing her forehead against her knees. Syr was the one who greeted us, taking one look at Ryu and giving her friend a pitying smile. "Come on, Ryu. Let's get you tucked in. You need to sleep, okay?" Ryu just let out a warbling noise in response, but she actually uncurled from her fetal position, letting me place her on the floor, letting Syr guide her inside and put her to bed. I stayed outside for the moment, not really knowing what else to do.

Syr emerged a minute or two later, her expression cold as she looked at me. "Amazing. I had no expectations of you and yet you failed to reach even those. She's worse than she was before you tried to help. I don't know what any woman sees in you, much less Cass."

I'll give Syr one thing - she's very good at twisting the knife, slamming the door shut to punctuate her comment.

The moon hung in the sky; Cass gently hugged me, and I patted her head, not really knowing what else to do. Erza joined in with her own compressive hug, and I let out an inward chuckle at that. Not an outward one - that would have required breathing.

When Erza released me, I looked over at Rei. "One of the other yous mentioned why you thought it went south," I said. "Want to try again?"

"I will lend my aid," Erza said.

"It's something that it's best I do alone," I said. I was probably being stupid, about to waste twelve hard-earned points I would never get back, if Revis killed that body - but I felt personally responsible, and I could help. "Really, Erza," I told her, giving her a smile.

"Very well..." Erza said, sensing my seriousness.

"Yeah. Let's go," Rei said, grabbing my hand, dragging me to the nearest door to Knossos, transforming into Gran to open it again. "Good luck, man. You're gonna need it."

"Thanks, Rei. Best you stay out here."

"Duh."

I stepped into Knossos, and Rei closed the door behind me, leaving me in the cold darkness of the place. I let my anima flare, just slightly, blue light trailing across the walls. "Revis!" I called out, loud as I could. "Alise!" I walked forward, following a straight line through a seemingly endless hall, avoiding any of the side paths even though I was sure I was going to get lost anyways, that I wouldn't penetrate deeply unless I actually understood the place, but I'd have rather had the chance.

It didn't take ten minutes for Revis to try to decapitate me again, forcing me to Duck Fate and then activate You and Yours Stance, the woman in question staring at me in silence as she was given a view of - well, whatever she was seeing. "This isn't like you, Alise," I told her. "You're better than this."

Revis looked down at that, seeming to actually think about my words. "I'm not Alise."

"The fact that we're having this conversation suggests otherwise." Revis hesitated at that. "You can't blame Ryu for what happened." I had basically no real idea what had happened, but I was pretty sure that Ryu had not been responsible.

"I... died, because of her."

"How, exactly?"

"The Juggernaut. I died. Because of her... weakness." She almost sneered the word out. "She was weak. I was weak. We were all weak. But she was the weakest link, other than the ones who died."

"Isn't that everyone except you and her?"

"No." Revis let the word hang in the air, perhaps responding to something the illusion was saying. "It was everyone except her."

Talking about her death definitely wasn't improving her condition any. "Do you remember anything besides the Juggernaut? Before it, I mean?"

She paused at that. "I remember you, Alise. You're who I used to be." She tightened her grip on her sword. "You were weak. I'm stronger. I don't regret losing you at all."

I knew that wasn't true. You and Yours Stance showed someone their heart's desire. If she saw Alise, that was because she truly wanted to see her. "Liar."

Revis's expression darkened into a vicious glare. "I'm happy now-"

"Liar," I interrupted. It probably caused a sharper reaction than if I'd slapped her. "Admit how you really feel," I ordered, taking advantage of You and Yours Stance's ability to force actions on other people's part. It wasn't perfect, but it worked a lot of the time.

"Confused," she said. "Upset. Emotional. Everything was... clear, before I saw you. Now I feel strange and remember things from another life."

"Good. It shouldn't be clear. Who were you working for?"

"Enyo. The Demi Spirit."

"Do you like those people?" I barely knew who they were, but I could guess, 'not nice.' Revis didn't immediately respond, which was pretty much enough of an answer. "Do you like them as much as you used to like Ryu Lion?"

"...no," Revis admitted.

"You don't have to keep going like this," I told her. "Ryu is your friend. She cares about you. More than Enyo and the Demi Spirit do. Come with me. Talk to Ryu. Be her friend again."

Revis's expression contorted. "Fuck you," she said, arm snapping out, aiming to cut off my head in a single swift stroke. I Ducked Fate again, dodging backwards. "You're playing with my head. You're not Alise."

"No. You are."

* * *

Revis glared at the figure before her, who wore that same infuriating smile. "You can't cut off my head. It's on your neck, after all." This wasn't Alise. This wasn't - this was an illusion. The man had been there both times, to be replaced by Alise. It was always an illusion. "Am I? Then how do I know all these things only Alise knew? How do I know who Kaguya and Lyra are? How do I remember how it felt," she said, hands going to her stomach, "when the Juggernaut slammed its claws right into my chest, puncturing me? You just want me to be an illusion, because then you don't have to feel anything again."

"I liked how it was before you."

"We can't always get what we want. You're a mature girl. You can deal with something as small as this."

"I don't want to feel anything!" She roared the words out. "I want to go back to the way it was before, damn you!" She sliced out again, and once more, her blade simply missed, despite being absolutely on target. The faint blue glow emanating from Alise grew brighter, and it infuriated her. Maybe this was a ghost. Maybe it really was in her mind. "I am Revis, not Alise."

"You can be whoever you want to be." There was a pause. "But you want to be me. Otherwise I wouldn't be standing here."

"So, what, you're the ghost of Revis Past?" Alise snorted at that. Almost absently, Revis tried decapitating her again, but of course it didn't work any better than the previous attempt. "I can't be you, even if I wanted to be."

"I think..." Alise stepped towards her, one hand caressing her cheek, "...you can do anything you put your mind to." She wore a gentle smile. "You can go up there and meet the one true friend you have in the whole world, and apologize for making her cry, and she will absolutely forgive you."

Revis knew that Alise was right. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. "How?"

"How? She'll be at the Hostess of Fertility. It's where she works now."

"Show me."

"Aha... I can't," she said. "I can't go outside, sorry. You'll have to make the last leg of that journey on your own."

Revis idly sliced at the figure's throat one last time - and it did nothing, once again. She growled at turned towards the exit, retrieving her key from her waistband. When she was finally outside again, she didn't go to the Hostess of Fertility first thing - she simply looked up at the sky.

Stars glistened in the heavens. Old memories bubbled to the surface, her goddess telling her about the stars: "They're actually gargantuan furnaces hotter than any on this world, suns with worlds all their own. Worlds with lakes of methane, planets with air so dense you could swim in it, worlds of endless electrical storms and volcanoes, worlds covered in oceans or ice. Yet we, the gods, came to this one in particular, because you are that special."

Kaguya disbelieving Astraea. Lyra joking. Ryu's quiet expression as she contemplated those words. The images carried with them feelings, and her vision once more distorted, her hands reaching up to wipe away the unwanted fluid. She wandered the streets, looking for the Hostess of Fertility, though she had no real idea where it was. Eventually, she just grabbed somebody, demanded the location from them, and then made her way there.

The man was there already, as was the Far Eastern girl and the armored redhead, though not the busty short one. There was also a silver-haired girl, who scowled at both her and the man as she arrived. "You'd better not mess with Ryu," she said, pointing a finger at Revis accusatively, "or you will regret it! Come on," she said, jerking her head, leading her right to Ryu's room, stepping inside before she could.

Revis heard the sobbing. She stepped inside and saw Ryu curled up in her bed. The part of her that was Alise wanted to make some joke. The part of her that was Revis didn't know how to joke. "Sorry, Lion," she said, making Ryu stop, twisting on her bed to turn over her way, looking up at her with watery eyes.

Oh. That's why she kept having this problem with seeing - she was crying.

Ryu's lips moved. "Alise?"

"In the flesh," Revis said, with a melancholic smile on her lips. "I don't remember much, sorry."

"That is alright. I am just glad that you are alive." The expression on Ryu left no doubt she was absolutely sincere.

"I am too."

* * *

Alise's soul was a completely obscene clusterfuck. It wasn't quite as bad as the filthy maggot-soul, but it was still awful. It wasn't really Alise's soul at this point. It was like if you had taken a hunk of meat, cut it into eighths, rearranged them, then stitched them back together - the result was just some gross parody of the original. If you mentally tweaked your image, you could see the old beauty, imagined this part there and that part there. Alise's soul would never have been as pretty as her Ryu's, but she would have been pretty. Now it was just passably ugly.

Seeing no ill intent from the monster-that-used-to-be-Alise, Syr glanced over in the direction of Drake. He was at a respectable distance, not even looking their direction, wanting to give them some privacy but also to be available if Revis tried something.

Fine. She'd admit it, at least to herself.

She could see what her Cassandra saw in him.

Next Chapter