you're tailor-made for this era

  Judecca's words hung in the air. Everything seemed warped.

  "Aw," Judecca said, fawning. "You're paying attention to me, now. Finally. I had been so irrelevant..."

  Nina melted. The line between herself and the world felt so thin.

  "Do I mind that? Well, don't worry. I permit you to look at me. Remember me... drink me up. Make me part of your eternity."

  Eternity? Nina was so finite.

  "Please." A fimbulwinter whisper, Judecca repeated herself. "Please."

  "No," Nina said. "No."

  "Please."

  "I cannot be loved," Nina said. "Indeed, nobody loves me."

  "I do!" Reiko had said. "I really love you, Nina! You have no idea how much you mean to me. You really do have no idea. I hate that you treat yourself like this..."

  "I cannot accept any tokens of affection." Nina did not wish to be sundered or violated again—that was what Reiko's love had done for her. "I am incapable of any act of love; nor am I capable of reciprocating your feelings. I will not be capable of doing so until this mission is fulfilled; the success of the Haze House Expeditionary Group – Route 13 requires its members to be alive."

  "Alive," Judecca said, "in agony."

  "Yes. I understand that hearing Kaninchen explain our role in the Agnes Project may have caused you mental stress. She was quite careful to couch her intent, and the intent of East and Midwest and the Second City; she did not say anything outright that explicitly confirmed our damnation, or that special harm would come to us, or that we would be exploited. Verily, I remain unsure that Kaninchen is capable of speaking forthrightly, even burdened by evil magic. Still, extrasensory perception operates on both what is said and what is left unsaid. I don't think wanting to do something so drastic to escape is completely without reason, even if it's difficult to articulate what you're running from. I myself fretted after hearing the explanation; I imagine that our colleagues did so as well."

  "Colleagues. Not friends, comrades, equals... Nina, you really can be ice cold."

  "I pale in kindness compared to the nicest of nice girls; not even they can brighten my mood, or warm my heart."

  "I hate hate hate hate hate hate that I hurt you. I want to make you feel good, one day. I really do want to make you feel good, and happy, and loved, and warm, like there'll be a real spring and summer for you one day and not just shitty eternal winter, kyehehe..." Reiko had said.

  "Still," Nina said to Judecca, "I believe that you should be afforded life, that it is worthwhile for you to continue to live, and that eternity through death is a worse fate than you deserve. Especially eternity through death at my hands."

  "Why?" Judecca said. "What's wrong with your hands..."

  "What do you mean what's wrong!?" Nina said.

  "What have you done with them, Nina?"

  "What haven't I done?"

  "What are you planning to do next?"

  Nina shook.

  "My star of the story," Judecca said. "Let me fit into your arrangement..."

  "I can part you from the warped space. You have barely progressed as an interface."

  "Don't," Judecca said.

  "For your own sake..." Nina said.

  "You can't. That's—"

  "You're in the way!" Nina said.

  It was tussle and toppling and topsy-turvy, Nina with her clothes blotched atop of Judecca, the girl beneath her's neck and dress almost with a dotted line—cut with the katzbalger here! Cutting with scissors was fine, too, if that didn't suffice. If Nina couldn't cut she could stab her! With a tripalium! It was scraping, it was a scramble, delayed from salvation, dallying together, and then at last Nina held Judecca in place.

  The image of the katzbalger roiled her head.

  The connection between Judecca and the warped space. A real partisan of humanity would say that alone made Judecca crazy and wish to keep them there but Nina didn't believe in things like that, but she was pragmatic, it was at least an influence, and thinking like that worked for Tabitha. Nina cut.

  Judecca threw herself in the way.

  Nina veered back.

  Judecca bled.

  The connection flickered.

  They found themselves apart. Judecca stood alone on a hilltop. Nina with all the other girls.

  Oh, the guy? Their teacher? Who was that? Did he even do anything? Did he ever redeem anyone? Could he ever?

  "You're going to try to break her connection to the space, right? Without killing her," Kaninchen said. "Our responsible leader."

  Young-hoon said nothing at all in response to that.

  "Yes," Nina said.

  "I'll be fine with whatever you choose to do," Emi said.

  "'Cause you love her?" Aine said.

  "She said that about you, too," Emi said.

  "That's just her opinion," Aine said.

  "I can't be loved," Nina said, automatically.

  "Now, I wouldn't go that far!" Aine said. Of course she said that. The nadeshiko of the new era was made to be adored, caressed, nadenade sareta. Could anyone imagine it? Being worried that touching Aine would corrupt them, corrode their spirit? Nope! Not happening!

  "I think that you're more than deserving of love, Nina," Emi said.

  "Under her spell..." Sarai said, "Priorities?"

  Reverberate! Teal magic tainted green!

  "She deserves love, surely! The sole focus. The only thing that matters. Your entire world her orrery," Judecca said. Did her mouth move? That hilltop seemed so far away.

  "Nina," Leuce said.

  "Yes?"

  "You are permitted to choose what you want; you should choose according to strategic considerations. If Society's Therapists can add Kaninchen to the ritual, then the ritual has no real numerical requirement—"

  "Don't fucking say that," Sarai said.

  "If you say so," Leuce said.

  "She's not wrong," Tabitha said. "Can she be. Can she be salvaged. In that zone..."

  "I like Judy," Sarai said.

  "You've known her for one day," Tabitha said.

  "Yeah, and?"

  "If you're from Portland, you were taught..."

  "I know, I know! Fucking forgive me, Tabs! Am I too Haze for you? Always believing in redemption? That you don't have to slit their throats once they're tainted by ill morality, once they step out of bounds?"

  "Young-hoon can do it," Maxine said—could he? He held the pistol; Marzena handed him one cartridge, Maxine created another.

  "...You're not too Haze for me," Tabitha said.

  "Thanks..." Sarai said.

  "You two are so sweet," Judecca said.

  "We did try to be kind to you," Tabitha said. Her words didn't travel, but they were picked up by the air.

  "And you succeeded, in spite of everything," Judecca said. "Your jealousy, talentlessness... death desire."

  "So why?" Tabitha said. "Why are you doing this?"

  "I hope you two can reach escape velocity together."

  "Escape velocity? I won't run away, Judy."

  Manifestation. An azure crystal dagger and the knowledge of it appeared in Judecca's hands, her own magic.

  "Equal to each other, and equally indispensible."

  She pointed it at Sarai. Everything remained still. Sarai shook under the shadow of quivering Death. Did anything croak out of her mouth? Judy, I still want to be friends! Please.

  She stopped. Its motion passed over this girl and that girl.

  Then it was death and destruction for Nina, another ill angle atop her geometry. Blink and her vision collapsed, each stupid saccade she saw flashing away and no longer cohering and no longer coherent and incoherent and code, lack of ability, nonsense like each photon or colour no longer any part of an image but beamed into her mind telepathically like a message log or worse—

  Emi moved in front of it, the witchkilling thing.

  "Equally indispensible!" Judecca said. "Nobody more important and more worthy of keeping alive than anyone else."

  Emi bounded up the hill. The machine gun fire had ceased, hadn't it? Judecca kept all at bay with her connection. The grass and dirt were still unchurned. Nothing lurked in the ruins and waste. The path was clear. Emi wouldn't need to use Nina's bullet-reflecting magic.

  "'Cause you'd do that for anyone, Emi, right?"

  "You know, I try to love everything ever in the universe, but," big pause, "sometimes it feels like it's all only ever worthwhile for you, Nina," Reiko had said.

  "What about Michiko?" Nina had said.

  Reiko had made a shy smile.

  Run along the mountains up to the glow of the moon, Emi! You've got this! Nina believed in you! Only her belief mattered.

  Hadn't it been early afternoon? Time had kept passing, but there had been so much daylight. Now it was early evening. The moon shone above. The moon with its sinus and laci and maria and the zamharir of the oceanus Procellarum stirred stormy an endless ice mirror. Everything on the shifting ground was reflected, in cool colour palette. The warmest it all became was grey! Grey of rock! Grey of ruins! Grey of shattered stone. Grey when the endless black dripped into snow and light.

  Hey, hey, Nina! Judecca's thoughts intersected, overlapped with her own, cut through her. Her shield kept Judecca out of her experiences—Aine had thought her so interesting, wasn't it Aine who had wanted to see them? Aine was lying to your face, Nina. Aine was under your spell, Nina. You proved yourself Haze House heroic already, worthy enough to protect her, a princess. Loosen the shield. Open yourself up. Reveal everything you've done to Judecca!

  Her psychic shields did not loosen for a second. Judecca was lesser than April. April? Who was April? Just say it. Just say it, Nina! Reveal it to her. The names of every girl whose story you had stolen.

  No? Okay.

  Just remember, Nina. As Emilie ran up the hill. Remember those snowy mountains. Why did she love you, Nina? Because you were one of those pretty pale porcelain sick girls, Nina, of the type that you can steal away to Swiss chateaus. Did Judecca fit the ideal Haze model? The type of girl Haze higher-ups and hanger-ons, the Senklerov family, etc., would allow to marry into their line, could contribute? No? Why not?

  At the top of the hill Judecca's coily black hair was blown in the wind, shrouded her brown eyes. Emi's blue eyes sparkled.

  Hark! Valkyrie with an argr axe!

  With some weird motion Emi batted at Judecca, aiming for concussion. The enchantment burst out, Nina willing not death not cutting but immobilisation. Written on a three dimensional shape Nina could not close off Judecca's degrees of freedom or flight; she warped away.

  Emi was left alone, atop the mountain.

  Something closed in.

  Nina cancelled distance.

  Weaker than her except with magic she grabbed Emi with her arms.

  A second later she leapt out.

  From the location a pillar of killing ice or water plasma licked the early evening sky.

  They landed.

  "You really won't do it," Judecca said.

  Sarai sent telepathy at them but she and the rest of Route 13 were so far away now; Nina and Emi were now past the end of her range.

  "But she's valuable to you, right? Nina. Already, even if you bat it away, and don't admit it. Just because she's nice," Judecca said.

  "Nina," Emi said.

  "Yes?"

  "Haio said that Tabitha and Sarai are going to fire immobilising magic at Judecca, that we should watch ourselves."

  To Emi specifically?

  "Okay."

  "What should we do next?"

  "I don't know." Why would Nina know?

  Reiko had said—

  No. Her light was here.

  Reiko said—

  No. That wasn't Reiko.

  "Nina I don't know how you got that but don't fucking use that on Judecca please please please you have to understand. You're a victim, right? Not a perpetrator. Although that awful power can... it's how she wants it to be extended, right?" Aria Beauregard said.

  "I won't. I would never."

  Reiko had said, "I don't really care about extending my influence, past you and Michiko. I know that it's what I should do, right? And I guess that it's necessary, to better the world? I don't really want to share myself with anyone else, though... but I mean, if you were to network with someone else! If you were to connect to them, with my ability! I wouldn't mind. I want you to be able to get everything you deserve."

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  "Okay. Thank you. It's useful, right, for always winning?"

  "Only for those who deserve victory," Nina said.

  "Huh? But you... I understand. Also, Haio's a real bitch, by the way. Only wanted to connect with Emi..."

  "We all have our reasons for using and not using preternatural power as it suits us, I think," Nina said.

  "If you put it like that, fine. Fine fine."

  Something burst out, distance to distance, Sarai to Judecca. "Sarai told me to tell you not to taint her, too," Aria said. "But I dunno. Better tainted than dead, right?"

  "I don't know. Sometimes it's 'better dead than perfected,'" Nina said.

  "You actually get it!" Aria said.

  "Maybe," Nina said, as if she wasn't gratified that Aria understood, colleagues, co-sufferers.

  She watched Sarai and Tabitha's attack. It was standard magic, a net trawling through the air. It'd slow or stop Judecca if it hit.

  Judecca cut through it. There was an ice sword that was all her own, non-standard, unique like every snowflake is meant to be until someone trods on them and they all end up grey ice and slurry, sophisticated, so many factors she could not explain to Tabitha and Sarai—couldn't teach them!—since she was so much more powerful.

  The moon shone forth then, vengeful. The surface of Europe began to be displaced by the surface of Europa; ice cut through grass.

  "Even now, you're not really listening to me..." Judecca said. "You're thinking about other girls, ingratiating yourself to them. Your story's so important. So be it."

  The drones were paused; the drones were not paused. Unfrozen, the Eye of Avalon attachment now bore on: Emi.

  A thin black beam shot from the sky above them. Emi deflected it with the axe. Nina's enchantment wavered.

  "If I kill them in front of you, maybe that'll change your mind?"

  Another one. Emi deflected it again.

  "Emi and Aine. They're so under your spell. They're so part of your story!"

  Two at once. Some acuteness and acumen slipping into her Emi twirled with the axe and dispersed both.

  Nina imagined an arrowhead, felt the laser paths in reverse. One arrowhead travelled up and clipped the drone; her extrasensory perception told her that it was damaged, but not destroyed. Another missed, ineffective. The arrowheads would lose her time and mental effort, but Emi was too close to her for her to use the artillery.

  "I'm jealous. I'm really jealous..."

  Then there was reprieve.

  "You pay attention to them. You take care of their needs. You comply with them, even if they're really just complying with you."

  No. The reprieve only came for Emi.

  "If I took that away from you, the ancient law of retaliation would kick in, right?"

  It was targeted at Aine. Nina saw the arcs before they were launched; medium-range elliptic missiles, toroidal topology of the repeating motorway wrapped again weirdly. Nothing ran parallel to anything else. Everything intersected.

  Some light shined above the main group. Sophia's shielding spell—why would it be anything else?

  Sophia was speared at and speared again. Missiles that exploded hexagonal into freezing magic. Obsidian lances that mocked Nina's artillery. The illegal aspect of the warped space peeking in, poking in. Depleted she fell.

  Another wave.

  "Ah, but your shielding magic taints what it shrouds, right?"

  Nina saw the arcs before they were launched. She pointed a katzbalger, drew a black square over the rest of the girls.

  Missiles, obsidian lances, the illegal aspect—Nina tired and grew sicker, but they were all consumed.

  "You're really irresponsible. Leaking all of that enmity everywhere... not really caring where it spews out. The world allows you that, ain't that right? Since you're our top star..."

  The third wave came at Emi and Nina. The elliptics became cruise missiles, a swarm of swoopers, killers. Emi raised her axe as if it would do anything, empty instinct, but it was all Nina's magic, Nina's shroud.

  Her body felt brittle. Everything burst and went boom. Her vision was flashing light, flashing colours: green, teal, glades, glacier, vermillion.

  Vermillion? Something broke.

  Nina was broken.

  How much was attached?

  She didn't check.

  Say it. Say it again. Nina Inoue was born broken, boundlessly. Homeostasis failing her boundary broken; body bleeding, failing hemostasis—she gurgled. Keep saying it. Since she was broken she could not break further. Since she had negative value she could not be devalued or dejected further. Emi. Emiliya. Emi! Stop it! Don't look at her like that. Don't cry or scream or succumb to your hatred or fear it didn't matter. In the end Nina was beneath a body.

  She held herself together. She begged Emi not to touch her. She shouldn't. She shouldn't sully herself even though this entire mission was filth and sullying! She was nice, and normal, and not even an esper, and now she was using curses and who knew what that would do to her spirit.

  "This, everyone, is witchcraft."

  Did Judecca or Sarai say that? Was it Nina's own knowledge of herself? What she was... what she needed the Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands to change? Every voice blurred into every other voice.

  "We mortal and meaningless, find that injuries mean everything to us. Who else amongst us can endure their injuries like this? Not even Kaninchen, right? The Nobility doesn't even work for her! I saw that too, through the Eye of Avalon."

  The other girls and their teacher so far away said things. Nina could not hear them.

  Innards inverted. All that was within was now exposed to heaven, outside. The trial reached its peak: a nice girl would die here, a witch denied and defied death. Well, Azrael abhorred her, for death did not take her! If there was an angel for her it was Azazel and illicit, evil knowledge. It should be censored! She should be censured for what she had done to others' stories. If you recorded her (nevermind the cursed or the looping effect or the loss of all meaning compared to her) it'd have to be censored, pixellated gore, each droplet, giblet, viscera, viscelet, standardised, regulated, orderly. Her mosaic cried out…

  "Is this love?" Aine said.

  Did Aine's telepathy stretch that far? Nina found herself clinging to a red ribbon.

  "You're accusing me of so many things, such forwardness, like I'm the most greedy, desiring girl ever... maybe that's because you don't know what it is yourself, Judy?"

  "...it's love. It's surely love. Nothing else."

  "And not enmity? Hatred?"

  "It's NOT enmity, it's NOT hatred, DON'T say that, don't, don't, don't..."

  "Seeing what you did through Marzena's eyes—"

  "You were looking through Marzena's eyes? Of course you'd just invade her."

  "You turned our Nina into mush."

  Nina had been mush many times. It was okay. It was already okay.

  "It must be really fun for you. You had all day to confess! Instead, you're just toying with her. Sophia, a real expert at everything, which is why she has all the big books, is telling me that this is all you, right? Warped spaces are pretty dumb..."

  That wasn't right. That was a prejudice. Anomalies and warped spaces consistently demonstrated sophisticated intelligences, even the weak ones that had barely poked their way in. (Shut up, Nina. She's helping you. Nina shouldn't object. Not even if Aine rifled through her phone for evidence for the defense.)

  "It's not fun. I'm not her enemy. I didn't mean to turn her into mush."

  "Emi and I, though, that's fine?"

  "Nina is everyone's exception. You two exist only under her influence, familiars..."

  "I don't think that's true. If it was, are you jealous?"

  "...I am! Assuredly! I want that seat! I want to be relevant! I don't want this story stolen away from me!"

  When did she become whole again? Emi shocked, enthralled, but not disconcerted, holding her with no healing magic.

  "I'm glad you're okay," Emi said. Her tone was multivariate, totally inscrutable. Relief? Who'd feel relief, knowing she was alive? Relief seeing her anti-miraculously piece herself together?

  "Are you just attention-whoring, then?"

  "As if you've never attention-whored in your life, Anny."

  "Not like this?"

  Something inaudible, then Judecca said, "Shut up, Sophia. You don't get it."

  She heard Judecca but it was all responses to things that didn't matter, or maybe they did but there was only Aine, only Aine could be received through red-thread telepathy.

  Nina lay there, inert. Emi held her hand. There was a conversation. Nina didn't make much sense of it. She couldn't hear half of it, anyway! Everything was frozen until she heard Aine's order.

  "Well, since Nina has said she'll save you, I guess you deserve to be saved," Aine said.

  It began to whir, that red ribbon. Bloodied, it became a bandsaw.

  The distance was closed. Emi, Judecca, Route 13. Everything was drawn together, Nina its centre.

  Red against green became alternate trichromacy, alternate tripalium. Nina and Judecca struggled against each other again, the other girl shifting with the illegal aspect. Her precision became nothing. Frozen zones and jolts of the textureless thing became a minefield around her but Nina drew closer, got so close to Judecca.

  She swung the bandsaw. The entire illusory space wavered.

  At close range Tabitha fired the net spell. Judecca's ice sword cut through it again.

  "Tabitha, I wish you'd see..." Judecca said.

  "What?" Tabitha said.

  "I wish your intuition was greater. It's already great now. It's great that you're just. I wish it couldn't be perverted."

  "Shut up," Tabitha said.

  "I'm sorry!" Judecca said.

  A pillar nearly sundered the earth about them but Kaninchen hit it with a screw in time and nullified it. Useless Young-hoon did nothing as a spear of ice headed towards Aine next to him but ball lightning burst in front of her and it shattered. Then there were more, hail against Emi, but some line of telepathy travelled into Judecca. Haio saw the aspect and nearly hurled; the aspect rebuffed her presence within Judecca. The ice magic went haywire and burst. Leuce shielded herself, Sophia shielded everyone else.

  Marzena pointed her VIS 150 at Judecca which seemed awry since the aim was to part her from the space and certainly not to kill her.

  "I won't accept it from you," Judecca said. "It has to be Nina."

  "Oh, you don't need—to accept it from me."

  Nina waited for a second for one of the other Route 13 girls to do something but each was as befuddled as the other.

  "Sobol, execute," Marzena said.

  A sharpshooter or fighter of battles [not] on some platform past the atmosphere or [not] on the surface of the moon hanging gloomy in the early evening sky [or nowhere nonexistent] fired, the VIS 150 did not. A shield of ice automatic deflected the shot but not its ill intent which scattered..

  Had Marzena meant to kill her? She giggled there, looked all-knowingly at nobody at all. Or at Sobol?

  Marzena's pointless ill-aimed ill intent was her defining character trait in the original visual novel (not originally original but one about Marzena inspired by another novel), but that was all irrelevant and in this world ill intent was Nina's aspect so when it scattered Nina gathered it back together, link by link, a manrikigusari to chain Judecca with loyalty and life.

  Leuce followed up Marzena's attack with a laser of her own, thinner and sharper than Sophia's. Sarai tried to stop her but was too far away but in any case Judecca was safe and blocked it with an automatic shield of ice.

  Judecca was safe. Judecca was distracted. The manrikigusari wrapped about her. They faced each other, Nina and Judecca.

  The illegal aspect burst out of Judecca's body, repelling all.

  Nina's world: ice cold, heading towards absolute zero. Nina's wish: sink to the bottom with me, and do not let me alone. With Nina they were so far from the harrowing of hell. The moon hung in the sky.

  Nina looked at the logic. It did not make a complete system. Without the adversity granted to it by Kaninchen, it could not even make a loop complete enough to seal them. It did not access any foreign system of verification. Really, it was quite weak. Judecca dominated it, as Aine had said Sophia had said. And wasn't Aine reliable? Like April, the sole source of truth and verification?

  Nina swung the bandsaw.

  Something textureless left zero swarf.

  The illegal aspect remained only as a memory within Judecca's head. The space could no longer keep itself.

  Right?

  Nina didn't even notice when Judecca had started holding her hand.

  "Judecca, you are no longer an interface."

  "Since Nina says that, it must be true. My sole source."

  Despite all the ice magic, it did not freeze her, as Kornelia had.

  "There is no longer any reason to keep us here. The altered dimensions fade; we surely return to standard reality."

  "Not completely! I won't do it! I won't let them out. Not unless you..."

  "I won't!"

  "Then you'll all have to stay."

  That wasn't true, right?

  Judecca held her hand. She looked at her with lovelorn eyes.

  It was against adversity. Hadn't Kaninchen said she needed to do the impossible? Nina who could only corrupt and corrode, did it so naturally she didn't even think of the suffering of those beneath her shroud and shield—what form did it take? Why couldn't she see it? She was sorry—Nina who could only destroy, that Nina had to save her. She had to save Judecca from herself! Her illusions! Her willingness to destroy others for no good reason.

  She pulled Judecca to her. Maybe she really wanted this... maybe she really wanted to be saved all along?

  Remember Lady Gifu? Tsumugi-chan. The first incident, at the fireworks show. Her enmity radiated. She was sixteen; Nina was eleven. Both had been forced to be there by obligation, though Nina had grown to hate all social situations. She read Tsumugi's pains through telepathy. It seemed so easy, even though she was a Noble.

  Tsumugi had been stage-frightened; she had been punished for showing it. Each time she had chastened herself and swallowed down her anxiety. Her fear grew deeper; she parted herself from her body. That made her start to hate everyone: her house, those in its domain. She stopped caring about caring for others.

  Eleven year old Nina had noticed; she broke away from the other five and found her just before the backstage. She offered a hug although nobody ever seemed to hug her because that was what the shows she had watched said you did for someone who was hurting badly, so badly.

  Tsumugi had slapped Nina, then! Throttled her, thrashed her, staked her with purifying magic.

  She could not even save Tsumugi. The 2060 incident led to the 2063 incident. Only April should be able to harm March; April set everything right.

  She could not even save Tsumugi. Not from herself. Tsumugi couldn't even talk about it! Gifu House punished minor leaks with torture, the secrets of the city-states they ruled with life imprisonment or death. What would become of a daughter who had leaked so many issues and volumes of their annals? So much magic? Truths April was barred from seeing and Nina addled, scared, could not piece together.

  No, rather than saving her, she had dragged her into perdition! Tsumugi had a story, ordained for her; Nina stole it all away.

  The same went for the story of the salvation of Shin Kumamoto. Did the same go for Reiko? What had been behind Reiko? Nina didn't know, to this day.

  That spark in Judecca's eyes said she wouldn't mind a hug…

  Nina looked again.

  What spark? It was the same fear as Tsumugi.

  Lovelorn? Lost to love. Lost. Not saved. Perdition, forever.

  "Oh. You actually hate me," Nina said. "You see me as this absolute enemy..."

  "No! I really love you. You just hate yourself! Nina! Nina. Don't be crazy..."

  "Enmity is my aspect, so to work against me requires love, right?"

  "...no? What are you talking about HAHA I just love you! Straightforwardly! As Emi and Aine do!"

  "You're more scared of my touch than April was... you hate this..."

  Her arm shaking Judecca said, "I don't hate this at all. I love your touch HAHA I really do."

  Nina pulled further against her magic out of the remnants of the collapsing space but she could feel Judecca's disgust and bad feelings. Did this ever end well for her? Did anyone end up well with her?

  Nina already knew the answer.

  "Who even is April, anyway?" Judecca asked.

  Nina had said too much.

  "One of the girls whose story you stole away? You're such a flirt..."

  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry I have to do this to you, but we need to get out."

  She kept pulling. The illicit concept that defined the warped space was already all gone.

  Judecca pulled against her.

  It was determined:

  "You hated holding my hand. All of the lovey-dovey stuff made you sick."

  "No! I really liked it!"

  "You had to fake it to make the magic work. It's like the teacher-student system. Those of us immersed in the ichor of the post-Babylon World can understand that intuitively."

  Judecca grimaced.

  "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you."

  Reiko had repeated those words, so many times. So sincere, so desperate for Nina to remain, Reiko had said: "To me, the only thing that is real in this world is your love. I wish that only my love was real to you, as well. That's all I want for..."

  Could Reiko be believed? Judecca couldn't. Her version came out totally meaningless.

  "Girls who are more normal don't really get that, right? You kept hinting at Tabitha and Sarai, hoping they would," Nina said.

  "Huh? But you're the most important one to me. Why would I send coded messages to them?" Judecca said.

  "That's not true. You hate me a lot. You're running all of that hatred in reverse, through the power of love, something I am beneath, something that is really anathema to me. The moment you admit it is hatred, it becomes enmity again."

  "That ain't it. That totally ain't it. That's ten thousand IQ logic! What I feel is pure and straightforward..."

  Nina barely remembered what 'IQ' was.

  "If your feelings towards me are enmity, I govern them. You think I'm this force that perverts the course of the mission, like Sarai does... a witch. If you become my enemy, you can't win. I'm a loser, but I govern hatreds."

  "But my feelings towards you are love, and so you have no hold on them."

  "The moment you admit it, the illusion fails."

  Nina kept pulling Judecca and her magic, unwinding her, disentangling her from the warped space.

  "There's no illusion. I love you. It's all real."

  Her extrasensory perception scried the green grass about them.

  Green grass turned teal.

  If Nina stretched her ESP, or changed the angle, 'it's all real', then in reality she saw the wasteland of the Moon.

  Nina puked. No, not ichor! There was nothing mystical or magical here. It was mainly real vomit, though there was a little blood.

  Since Nina was under April's custody, since April led the other five girls, when April said she had stupid sci-fi films and drama and anime to see her reaction Nina had to participate. To do otherwise sinful! Nina had done so much evil against Shin Kumamoto. She had to work endlessly to redeem herself. She had to watch, vomit, vertigo. April held her leash.

  Heart-pounding head-spinning silly news stories about cities and companies that worked so hard to expand humanity's reach past the extended Earth into the stars into heaven space and the outside barrel-shaped colonies where you could see the city from the city everything spinning centrifugal.

  She didn't understand herself! Hell and naraka and the outer darkness were all fine. Only this.

  Was Nina crying? Was Nina fine?

  She threw up again.

  Puke, snot, filth, tears. She was nothing compared to the marble Earth above them so big but given seventy years it had gotten bigger, engorged, but that wasn't visible.

  Judecca stared at her.

  There was nothing admirable here, right? If she was 'in love' (impossible) then Judecca would realise she was just a gross loser.

  "You're mortal," Judecca said.

  Nina threw up again.

  Stalked by mirrors, the mirror Kornelia mirroring Kaninchen, Reiphontes mirroring Reiko, Nina suffered on the surface of the mirror moon.

  Not in love Judecca did not rush to aid her. Emi did; Aine followed behind her.

  The surface of the moon said: so many covet you. The power of the moon had predicted: 'if she steals, she will succeed.' Nina thought she could see her own stupid face in the stone but was just puke and blood and ichor and ice melting, gross grass a slurry beneath her.

  There was nothing there to be jealous of. How could Nina make Judecca feel irrelevant? Cursed?

  Useless. Perhaps she should be the one begging Judecca to kill her.

  "This is your magic, right?" Aine said.

  "The zamharir of the moon..." Judecca said.

  "Perhaps there are things about Nina and her magic that you find weird, and evil, and that you hate, but there are things about your magic that scare her, clearly!"

  Nina could barely see it but Emi had prepared the axe.

  "...perhaps," Judecca said.

  It all clicked for everyone, then. They had reached the centre of mass. The end of inversion! At the bottom of hell sinking deeper could only bring you up and out.

  Emi set down the axe. Once again she was at Nina's side. "It'll be okay, Nina. It'll be okay."

  "It won't," Judecca said. "Not now, proceeding along her course."

  Judecca curtsied.

  "I concede. Tabby! Sara! I'm sorry... for losing, for not telling you things..."

  When had everyone else gotten here?

  "I just wanted you to be safe! Safe, not saved. Not by her and in her orbit and forever in debt to her and..."

  The two factions. Tabitha and Sarai at Judecca's side, Leuce actually laughing, Maxine and Young-hoon lagging behind, Marzena staring into space! (Fuck space! Nina really hated space...)

  Then in Aine's faction Haio walked over, Sophia ran, Aria somewhere in the middle of the road.

  "Holy exquisite. Precious. Amazing. Kornelia, are you watching? Are you jealous? I didn't write this, I never could have predicted most of this, but I put this together, and you didn't..." Kaninchen said.

  Nina could hear it again.

  Early evening meant five o'clock meant the end of the work day for professionals and information workers for labourers worked til seven. The motorway picked up, overfilled. Rush hour sound was here, part of reality and here to stay!

  A blue sign said: The NORTH, Luton & (plane symbol) M1 (up arrow).

  Nina was special, so special: did others really covet that? Really? Or were they in agreement with Nina that her defining curse shouldn't be in the nice rewritten world generated by the Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands?

  Who knew?

  She retched empty. No more acid came out of her.

  Drowsy, drained, Nina passed out—again.