"Gentler... gentler...!"
"?-?---?...~!"
Annalie is holding my hand across the [Hauntgirl] counter, bck bandages crumpled in a pile across the wooden top. As she hums a low, guttural tune with an inappropriate and gentle face... the wound on my hand closes with rapid and painful stitching! Flesh converges upon flesh like a time pse video, the wound sealing itself up into nothingness as she draws a final buzzing finger across it!
... and then there was no wound.
"Done!"
"How...?!"
Our local fake priestess beams with a radiant smile, releasing her goril grip on my wrist. I was NOT involuntarily jerking back from the pain, I was just wondering HOW Annalie's magick worked! Without any tools or expertise, Annalie just demon-disappeared all the pain on my hand, not even leaving a scar behind...!
"This is the blessing of Sharryn!"
"You literally SANG into the wound...!"
"Ehhhh...? But that's how the [Church of Sharryn's] magick works?"
Are the people from your church idols or something? Or is the long metal staff you carry around secretly a microphone stand?I've never heard of such a ridiculous thing! Just being able to do that alone would put even the bckest of jack doctors out of work! If Sachiko-senpai didn't take out the itty-bitty gss bits out st night, were you going to seal them into my hand permanently?!
"Isn't there something else you should tell Nana-chi, Ayano-dono?"
At the other end of the counter, Val-sama had been pouring tea into two little cups on saucers. Just as Annalie was finished, she slid two cups of tea down the counter, each stopping just short of her friends, not a single drop spilled! Beyond the rising steam, Val-sama pushes up her gsses, her eyes shaded by the morning sun's gre!
"A-arigatou?"
I-it wasn't like I was being ungrateful! I even said 'thank you' now! There! I was just wondering out loud how Annalie managed to pull this off, since she's dumb as a rock most of the time! Annalie was pretty pleased by my outward praise, but Val-sama much less impressed! As if she could hear the words unspoken in my mind, she perused her lips to speak---
[SFX:Jingle!]
Saved by the bell!
A tall, pink-haired friend steps in, taking off her white cloak as she gnces towards the trio at the counter. Her eyes of ice freezes even the most guilt-ridden of evil-doers, so I halt my bad thoughts towards Oracion too! However, coming up right behind her, twirling a red-headed plunger like it was a stick of leek...
... is Madi-san...!
"Ehe?! Aya-chan came here after all!"
"Aren't you all genki and mighty after losing this morFFFF---!!!"
Even before I could finish my sentence, the twirling plunger is thrown straight and true, smashing right into my face! My entire sight is obscured by the red; knocking my backwards into Annalie's arms as the offending object bounces off my small and cute face, in the sky!
"AHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"Hold Aya-chan still, Annalie! Moi' am gonna purge the daemons in Aya-chan's body!!!"
What is THAT about daemons suddenly!!! I am NOT going to let myself get caught by Madi-san and have her feed that plunger right into my face! The moment Madi-san catches that plunger in mid-air, she swipes! Almost catching the side of the face I am holding!
However!!!
This isn't my first collision with Madi-san, so I duck, scurrying off the side of the table and throwing myself over the sofa!
"You boob-for-brains!!! What are you DOING?!"
Madi-san had turned around and hopped off the table by now, thrusting the plunger at my face, while I ducked downwards; when I emerged again, I was met with another thrust of the red, which I duck dowards to get away from her attack once more!
Fed up with my duckin' and weavin', Madi-san parkours over the table like one of those vidya game assassins with doubtful creeds, bringing the plunger straight down on my face...!
[SFX:SQUELCHING]
As, this body is far too weak to keep up with Madi-san, and your small and cute detective finally falls victim to the messed up purple-haired biichii's machinations! The biichii wrenches and presses down and up on the face of the fallen detective in ugly quenching, not minding all four of my cute limbs filing for help...!
"What are you doing, Madison...?"
At this moment, I hear the sole voice of reason lifting Madi-san up like an unwanted birthday gift, the pressure from the plunger finally released! I can't see what's happening beyond the red rubber, but I am quite sure that Oracion had stopped this acto' attempted murder somehow!
"Its the daemons! There are daemons in Aya-chan's head! Don'cha all think Aya-chan's been actin' all funny all morning?!"
[SFX:Squelching]
Pulling really hard on the wooden end of this plunger, I finally manage to get it off, Oracion now lifting the dangling Madi-san up by the colr while she tries to strike my face with the plunger once more!
No help from Annalie ughing in tears, or Val-sama silently sipping her tea with the cup obscuring half her quivering face! Even without a mirror, I can still feel the circur burn where the plunger bit down on my face!
"Do NOT abuse the blue! What logical reasoning could have led you to THAT?!"
"You ARE acting really sus this morning! Since when has moi' accomplice tried to fight back like that?!"
"Since I ever met you on Bylon Isnd and you kept trolling me with your 'magick exists' schick...!"
Can you imagine that! This biichii has never heard of the word 'character growth' it seems! YOUR character is stuck in whatever winrar 9000s era it came from, while the detective of this story has grown to sniff out the untruths in your conspiracy-pted wooden head!
"Did you two have a fight...?"
"We HAD an agreement! All I did was to tell her that her conspiracies can be solved by rational, scientific and detective means, and she's picking a fight with me over it! That purple-haired biichii is trying to make our truth-seeking fight personal! You guys believe me, right?!"
In a few rapid words and gestures, I expin to the girls the [Truths X+Y], pulling out my own unlit dice to show them that Madi-san's madness doesn't hold up!
"zettai! zettai ni!! [2] Madi-san is blending her personal grudge against me and---"
As I scan my eyes around the room for support, I am met with incredulous disbelief from the [Trono Palido] girls, who are now looking at me with varying degrees of disbelief!
Sipping the st of her tea with closed eyes, Val-sama doesn't look my way,
"Ohohoho... if Ayano-dono says so."
Annalie was more blunt, just like her bangs!
"But Aya-chan... is a liar...? Madison wouldn't be mean to you without a reason..." Her eyes peer at me quizzically, still not understanding my all too-important fight to uphold the mystery genre!
The final cut came from Oracion, who thought for a moment, and let go of Madi-san's colr,
"I don't think so Annalie... Ayano... is normal. Lying is normal, for her."
"Argh!" The stab to my heart is final, even if it affirmed me, the detective of this story! I am NOT a liar! I just sometimes make up things to save my own skin every so often!
Pulling out HER own twenty-sided truth dice...
"Ehehehe! That's four votes off the sus-station! Are you still gonna tell me that the sus one is not you?!?! And I KNOW I am right because---"
Madi-san stops in mid-sentence.
The bck dice, which had been lit up on all twenty sides st night...
... has three unlit sides now...!
I figured out this morning that the dice are more like Rubick's Cubes than actual truths. A puzzle to solve and fit in to uncover the mystery of WHO//HOW for the mystery side, and the WHY//HOWs for the conspiracy side. If the lit sides of this dice represent how close we are to the 'truth'...
"I knew it!!! You didn't have everything figured out!"
Reality is the greatest bullet against delusions!
Praise to Sachiko-senpai's magick dice! The ONLY true and absolute verdict on this! For all your big-boobed bluster about my head is swimming with daemons, you can't say it in red, can you?!?! Ahahaha...! Where would such random thing come from anyway?! How would it be delivered?! You haven't expined even a scurvy dog's worth of the mystery at all...!
"Not... daemons?"
Obviously! Is THAT what you were trying to do? Kill the demons in my head?! With a plunger?! If I don't hear a WHO//HOW, I am NOT going to accept your silly conspiracy thinking!
"If you can't have a 'WHO' figured out, you can't say you've solved a mystery...!"
"That's why I keep telling you, Aya-chan, the 'WHO' is not important in a conspiracy...!
"... but we do have a 'WHO'."
Surprisingly, the person who said that was not the usually sensible Val-sama, but Oracion...! Aside from Annalie, who wasn't involved in the events of st night, all our thoughts turned to one central figure...!
"""""Fox-mask...!!""""
Puffing out her chest, Madi-san crosses her arms under those deranged udders like she had already won!
"There's your 'WHO', Aya-chan!"
"But we don't even know Fox-mask's identity...!" This brainless Frxnchwoman! Do you solve a mystery just by spotting a ghost on an EMF reader?! At the very least pull her mask off before you conclude that! And don't give me that nodding as if that was what you were going to do all along!
"About that... I might have a clue."
"Eh? You do, Ora-sis?"
"You know this, Annalie, but the rest don't.
Actually, I recognized Fox-Mask's methods st night..."
"Y-you did? How?!"
Oracion clicks her teeth, as if recalling some bad memories...!
"That's because...
I was the 'goddess' of a certain cult...!"
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes With Aya-chan![1] zettai- Zettai means 'definitely'! It is DIFFERENT from zettai ryouki! One is an expression of certainty, the other is an expression of yabainess!!! Get that straight, I am NOT the yabai one here!
AnnouncementDun dun duuun! >Showdown will go on hiatus for Christmas week! Will there be chapters?! Not of the main story, ehehehe! May you have a blessed week as House Deroux goes off on Christmas break! We will return during the New Year's week! Right here, on Scribblehub.com!
