"I look like, Anastasia?" Jotou fluttered her lashes.
"What’s this supposed to an?" Asobi glanced to Iridina.
"It’s her mind, she should tell ," Iridina shrugged.
"So this is unprecedented?"
"More like irrelevant. I’m more intrigued by, all of this," the mouse-girl crouched down to wave her hand over the grass. "SNAP!" A flower coated in the miasma stretched up and tried to bite at her hand.
Jotou put her left arm in front of Asobi, "I assu that’s unprecedented too?" the blonde’s blue eyes narrowed.
"..." Iridina recoiled and stayed on the path. "It feels like I know more about you... but I still don’t... I can’t access all your mories as of yet," her irises changed into a dark blue hue and back.
"Whatever enchantnt this is should be the main focus."
"Of course, however I can normally access everything by now. If I can find the way in, then we can understand the enchantnt better. Give a mont."
Iridina closed her eyes and flickered her hands around. She took a deep breath, sending her glowing white hair drifting into the air whilst the other two watched.
Her eyes jolted open and a soft pink flash burst forth from her location, pulsing across the space like a sonar. "BRRR!" The space around them quaked, prompting the elf to hold onto Jotou’s shoulders while the blonde widened her stance.
What an odd vibration it was. The ripple shifted all perception, like the ground was akin to an ocean’s waves. The ceiling above enlarged and shrunk, almost as if they were about to be crushed, but they sohow knew it wouldn’t.
The space returned to normal, leaving them standing where they were. "That was spookily fun!"
"Fun?"
"I see." Iridina turned to them. "This enchantnt has taken root in your affinity. You, are an enigma to even yourself... A lot of things are in disarray and I do not an the enchantnt on your mind.
That’s as much as I can get; everything else I can’t confirm, for I cannot glean further. The mories are all fuzzy."
"So, that’s it? Is there any way you can know more?" Jotou knitted her brows.
"Perhaps. However, with a thousand locks and single key for them all, how am I supposed to get through any door?"
"I’ve already got a massive dilemma over here," Jotou waved her hands around the miasma, "I don’t need riddles on top of it."
"Jotou, you need to give permission," Asobi uttered.
"I already did, that’s how we’re here," the blonde faced her.
"She’s solved the riddle it seems." Iridina shook her head and sighed, "You still don’t trust ; you’re too paranoid. You’re trying to keep the doors locked, giving only what I need, instead of giving access to it all.
It seems you’re trying to eat your cake and have it too. If you don’t want to trust , then I can’t help you. You have the ability to hide your mind behind this enchantnt. So if you want the truth, it’s up to you to co out."
Jotou stood staring silently at her.
"Jotou, are you scared?" Asobi leaned in, overtaking the blonde’s view.
She watched the jade-green eyes waver in concern. Her brows unknitted and her shoulders relaxed. "Maybe... I hate the idea of soone being able to read my mind.
There’s a lot of thoughts I can’t control and so things I think of that are just, wrong. I can discern and control that easily, but if it’s able to be heard and read by others... You heard my innermost thoughts before..."
Asobi tilted her head, "The one wanting attention and complints? That’s not so bad. Everybody wants that! Besides, you wanted to be a hero, right? You want to be rembered, so it only makes sense."
Jotou’s lips curled up as she gazed at the floor, "There’re much worse thoughts than that in here..." she hushed. At that mont, she felt a hand grabbing hers and looked up to notice Asobi.
The magician watched the blue eyes—not Jotou eyes; not the ones she knew. "I won’t think any differently of you. I know who you are; you’re you," there it was—the smile that could brighten any room.
"I..." Jotou exhaled, letting her mind calm down. "Alright," she gripped Asobi’s hand tighter. With a deep breath, she let all her paranoia, worry and fears go.
A low hum resonated from Jotou and going outwards from her, the dark purple miasma retracted and retracted, till it vanished...
Flowers of blues, yellows and purples twinkled all throughout the teal grass. The moths were not moths, rather butterflies of pure lightning that fluttered and fizzled in their flight.
Above them, through the fragnts of glass the made up the do was a sea of stars that was glittered with stars of all colours and cosmic dust bubbling, swirling and floating up—or was it down?
The cottage looked a lot like their house in Kria; except there was a large telescope sitting upon the roof and a table set outside with five white chairs.
"Pring! Pring!" A bicycle ant for children went around the place on its own. While it was not raining nor were there clouds in sight, the chill of an incoming storm breezed past their hair, bringing along the scent of petrichor with it.
"Woah..." Asobi’s eyes glittered.
"Enchanting is it not?" Iridina’s irises turned pink. "What a wonderous mind to hide. Perhaps you should be less fearful of how you perceive yourself.
I can see clearly now, those dark mories of tis when you were much bitter. No regrets? Yet you’re haunted more by them in your awareness than anyone else."
Asobi looked to her hand, still gripped by the other. Her gaze trailed up her arm, only to see black sleeves and a yellow coat; the blonde strands ended in blacks and her eyes the brown she was used to.
The blonde looked around and closed her eyes. Her brows knitted, "Do you hear that?" She wasn’t talking about Iridina’s harsh remarks of course.
Asobi and Iridina hunted with the ears out. Softly, they began to hear the rhythm which gradually beca louder and louder. Jotou’s foot was shaking to the beat long before the two heard it.
"What’s this song? It’s unique..." Iridina’s irises went red. "Ah, music of your world?" she detected with a quick flash of pinkish light.
"I, never thought I’d hear music like this again," her teeth shined as the pop music she hadn’t heard for so long returned to her senses.
Jotou swaggered along the path with her eyes closed, following the beat. Her shoulders swayed and in twirls she went along, pausing to strike a pose whenever the rhythm suited it—sha was a re afterthought given the circumstances.
Asobi giggled before hopping along right behind. "Right then, to the mories we go," Iridina followed with a slight bob of her head.
How were the lyrics so accurate? How could she possibly rember any of this? Even if she tried she could barely hum the tune normally, but in the mind~
The butterflies of lightning danced around her as she moved, sparking along her form to her movents till Asobi took her by the hand to be guided along.
The blonde took no issue; with her eyes still shut she turned the solo act into a duet. Lip-syncing the lyrics, the stars in the sky glead brighter, almost like a spotlight and the grass settled, turning into a holographic dance floor to her footsteps.
Every scrunch of the nose and every wrinkle on her face Asobi observed, laughing at the blonde lost in a trance. The elf saw a much more genuine smile than usual, before-
Asobi was hit with a wave of mories causing a loud gasp. "What was that!?" Her brows wrinkled and around her was just darkness...
Still, her hand was gripped by a boy in a dark grey jacket, "Sobi~" he smiled.
Asobi blinked a few tis.
"Why? My music tastes not good enough?"
"No, it was phantasmagorical! I just, I feel like I just saw... never mind it might just be ."
"Well, if you saw sothing," Jotou looked up and lights began to form like twinkling stars. Each one playing a mory as they expanded.
More and more appeared—beneath them—around them. "I have a pretty good guess of what you might’ve seen."
"Welco to your mories. It seems you’ve given full access to your mind," Iridina popped into existence before them.
"Have you found out what you needed to find?" a songbird-like voice asked. Asobi glanced; the sa hand she held, but within the blink of an eye Jotou was a woman again.
"Yes. The mont of death-" "CRASH!!!"
A male Jotou shuddered, holding Asobi’s hand tighter. They were no longer in void, but watching fragnts of glass in frozen ti, a car seat in front of them about to crush them...
"This is..."
"The crash that spelled the end of your previous life, yes."
"Jotou, where are we?"
"This is my friend Ramond’s car."
"Ooo, a sedan!"
"Right- Wait, how do you know that?"
"Daiyu told and ko about cars in your world!"
"Figures," Jotou glanced around the frozen scene. "That truck," Jotou leered to the large lorry that was crumpling into the front of the small car. "Ramond wasn’t paying attention, sure, but why was the truck even on this side of the road?"
"That day, is the day we got the Thundering Blade in this world," Iridina let the scene play out in slow motion... However, this was sothing Jotou couldn’t recall.
As far as he rembered, there was a flash of white light and he was she. He didn’t even rember the truck or the feeling of his legs being crushed...
"I’ve turned off the ability for you to feel currently, for obvious reasons."
Ramond’s eyes wide in shock. Crispy’s head leaning to the right and expression unknown. Daiyu being flung forward and Kaleb unable to be seen from Jotou’s view.
"Jotou..."
"I’m fine," Jotou’s songbird-like voice replied.
The mory kept playing, before dark purple mist began to flood it. Iridina froze the mory, "This is when the spell took effect. At the mont of death, when that enchantnt took you.
When you obtained an affinity, the enchantnt rooted itself into it." The mory continued. A flash of white light, like being pulled through stars, but Jotou was as good as blind.
Next thing the mory showed, was a bright light shining through. The sll of thundering blitzes, lying upon sothing comfy and, "Augh!" the need for air.
The reflection of a woman with yellow hair surrounded by white flowers. The brown eyes reflecting back as she sputtered and coughed before throwing her hands against the glass, "Help! Get out!" the songbird-like voice scread...
"Wait," the mory paused as Jotou spoke. "I don’t rember seeing a purple mist; I just woke up in that coffin after I heard the crash. How can I not rember that?"
"I don’t think magic was involved in that. I believe the panic of the mont made you forget. However, I can enchant the mind to recover even forgotten mories. This is what truly happened as your subconscious rembers it."
"Okay, I understand that... But what do you an, ’rooted itself in my affinity’? You’re saying that, that spell brought here, right? I couldn’t’ve had an affinity before that and Anastasia didn’t have an affinity, so how’s that work?"
"Your mind is very confused right now."
"My mind is too..." Asobi replied.
Iridina’s sigh they both heard, "Let rephrase what I’ve found. A spell was cast to bring you from your world, into our world. That spell successfully did so as you died.
That spell or enchantnt first latched onto your mind, bringing your subconscious and mories here.
As you entered this world—the process of which I cannot clarify because there seems to be no recollection of that in your mind—you gained an affinity of your own accord.
Affinities are closely related to your mories and mind; they are the gates that allow you to collect and transform the natural mana of the world into the spells you cast.
The spell or enchantnt, then latched onto your affinity as well. Not unintentionally I should add; it seems this process was sowhat thought out."
"So you’re saying, soone casted a spell that brought into this world."
"Highly likely. This enchantnt uses your affinity to protect itself even; which is why you felt sparks whenever I tried to read your mind before."
"So the ability to sense incoming malcontent when my guard’s down."
"That is very much a natural ability of your affinity, not the enchantnt."
"So, is the spell on Jotou’s mind, like a parasite...?" Asobi followed along.
"Hm. Surprisingly, I’d describe it as symbiotic."
"What does that an?"
"It ans the spell benefits and benefits off of ," Jotou answered.
"And seemingly has no negative effects either."
"Seemingly?"
"I can only gauge it based on your mories and subconscious," they could feel Iridina shrug. "It doesn’t pose any harm, but it is still unsettling. A spell with the need for survival?
I couldn’t even dispel if I wanted too; it seems, too potent for a caster of my level. Even so, I can sense you don’t want it dispelled."
"Jotou, you want to keep the creepy enchantnt?"
"It’s not doing any damage as far as I’m aware. I understand it a little better—doesn’t an I understand it fully. It sounds like soone casted the spell with very specific commands, which ans..."
"There’s no telling what could happen if it were to be dispelled," Iridina supported.
"If it’s the spell that brought here, then I could be dead without it."
Asobi took a sharp inhale, "No! Let’s not ss with it then!!!"
"Actually, I can tell you that this spell is not sustaining your life. You’re simply, living. The consequences might be sothing else which I can’t predict; it might be nothing at all even."
"Phew..."
"Well that’s good to note, but I still don’t wanna ss with it. I want to understand it better first."
"You’re safe and that’s enough," Asobi could still feel her hold on Jotou’s hand, though neither could see the other. The frozen mory of Jotou within the coffin faded.
mories flew by like a river and within an instant another mory played. One in which Asobi placed her left hand on Jotou’s shoulder and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.
The mory continued with Asobi stood in sand. Butterflies flew from Asobi’s wand, light surrounded her and white sparkles floated all around her like tiny stars.
"Huh? Jotou, what are we seeing...?" Asobi squeaked.
"Oh... This is- You wouldn’t rember this, would you."
"This looks like, Hartamat? Was this one of the ti loops?"
"Yeah. It was just an innocent kiss, sorry I didn’t tell you."
"It’s okay! It feels like you were really happy and looks like I was too," she giggled.
"Guess I was," a smile could be heard in Jotou’s voice.
The image of Fuko’s broken headband popped up in her mory. "Is that!?"
"I was gonna reset this loop, because well, this is one of the tis ko and Aru..." Jotou forced herself not to think of the images of any of their dead bodies she rembered...
As the mories of exactly that popped into existence, hundreds of the word ’DON’T!’ covered the entire mory like pop-up ads covering a website.
"That’s a lot of don’t-s..."
"Well don’t worry about it."
"I, get what you ant. ko and Hotaru, I know..." in sincerity the elf spoke. "You don’t have to hide things for my sake."
"...I still don’t want you to see that."
"Then, what about a happy mory!"
"Happy..." The mory of the small celebration in Hartamat played from Jotou’s view as she twirled and smiled around; the sound of revelry she could hear.
Asobi giggled.
The mory switched to Kria, in Master Tensuo’s neighbourhood after the Velatos Case. The mory of Jotou smiling as she watched Asobi play with the children.
Asobi laughed, recalling the mory herself, "You were looking at ?"
"I was just looking at your smile- Wait, why are we still here? We finished what we ca to do, right?" Jotou queried.
"That we did," the previously missing Iridina spoke. "You seed to be reminiscing so mories, so I allowed you to do so. If you wish, you can have a stroll through your mories for a little longer?"
"Hm... Actually," Jotou appeared back in the void, as well as Asobi still holding her hand. The blonde faced the elf, "I’d like to rember so stuff in my old world. Care to join ?"
Asobi bead brighter as her eyes glittered, "That would be AMAZING! Yes, please!"
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