Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Slouching down in her chair and throwing her head back, Amelia let out a sigh of relief. It was Saturday night, and she had finally finished her streaming for the day. After a few moments of rest, she slid down further into the chair, until she could barely stretch her arm to pick up her coat that she had dropped on the floor during the stream, having had little time to do something earlier, she had thrown it haphazardly onto the ground. Walking over to the coat hanger, she placed her coat neatly on the hook, while also removing her hat and placing it on an adjacent one.

Heading to the door, the detective was stopped when she her a familiar *ding* come from her computer. Looking on the screen she was met with a discord message from Gura.

“Hey, it’s been awhile since we did an offline collab, want to set one up for next week?”

Sighing, Amelia sat down at the chair to begin typing. She had a lot of case files to look into still, and such little time with all of the streaming she did.

“Maybe see if anyone else is available, I don’t know if I can manage anytime soon.”

Amelia waited for the shark’s reply, the seconds ticking in her head as the three little dots at the bottom of the screen flashed.

“I tried… everyone else is so busy. I’m just getting bored streaming alone and it’s so much more fun in person.”

The detective hovered her fingers over her keyboard, ready to turn the shark down, but instead she looked down. Taking a moment to look at the familiar dent in the desk she streamed from, caused by slamming her fists down on the spot numerous times. She sighed remembering the reason she was called “toxic” by her fans at times.

Amelia needed some sort of break herself or a laid back stream, she had been playing too many rage enduring games recently, and any time she spent with the shark she enjoyed. Maybe it would be a good way to wind down next week since her time streaming had been becoming increasingly stressful with all of the extra detective work she had recently. Besides, she could just tell her fans that she needed Saturday off, and instead give herself that time to finish her case studies work.

“Fine we’ll do it next Friday, but you’ll have to come over to my house, I have too much work to be heading all the way over to you.”

Rather than a message, the shark sent a photo of herself smiling with her thumbs up. The detective rolled her eyes at the image, but chuckled a little at Gura’s enthusiasm.

Amelia probably would have made a joke or two in her messages had she not felt too tired, but all she wanted to do now was to pass out on her bed. She took her time wrapping things up for the night, mostly due to her lack of energy. All she had left to do was to shut down her computer for the night when someone began calling her over discord, it was Gura… again.

Amelia accepted the call, tiredly asking, “did you need something?”

“Oh, sorry Ame, did I wake you up?”

“No, it’s fine, I was about to go to bed.”

“I just wanted to know what you wanted to do for the collab next week.”

The detective took a moment to think then responded, “how about we just play it safe and go with Minecraft? I don’t think I want to try anything new yet.”

Giggling a little, she shark hummed, “ok, Minecraft addict.”

“Hey! I’m not addicted, it’s just the most laid back game for me right now!” The detective paused for a moment, then continued, “actually, let me check something really quick.”

Launching Minecraft she wanted to quickly create a new world to test something, what she wanted to test she wasn’t quite sure. She had known what she was doing a moment ago but it had already slipped her mind. Opening the menu to create a new world, Amelia stared blankly at the screen for a moment, giving her brain an extra few seconds to process it in her exhausted state.

“Ame?”

“Give me a moment.”

Selecting the settings she wanted, the detective created the new world and upon finally loading in she stared at the screen blankly. Slamming her head down on the desk, she let out a groan upon realizing that she forgot to make the world a creative world.

“Uhh Watson, you ok?” The shark had a concerned tone in her voice.

“I’m too tired for this right now Gura.”

“Then go to sleep silly, don’t let me keep you up.”

Putting her hand back on the mouse, Amelia was about to close Minecraft when a strong shock jolted through her hand. Yelling in pain from how strong the shock was, she fell back in her chair. Quickly stumbling to get up, the detective looked back at the screen to see the game had crashed.

“Well fuck you too,” she muttered.

The shark made a groaning sound then asked, “what happened?”

“I just got electrocuted for some reason.”

Amelia waited for a response, but there was only silence.

“Uhh… Gura? You there?”

“Yeah I’m here…” the shark almost trailed off for a moment before continuing, “I also got shocked. I guess you didn’t hear me react to it over whatever loud noise happened on your end.”

“Wait, you too?” Amelia began sucking her finger where the shock had occurred, trying to numb some of the pain.

“Yeah, that was kind of weird.”

Neither spoke for an awkward amount of time and the adrenaline from the surge of pain had finally worn off for the detective, reminding her of just how tired she was.

“Gura I think I’m going to go for now, I’ll see you later.”

“Oh,” the shark sounded disheartened, “I’ll see you later then.”

After ending the call, the detective turned out the lights and flopped down onto her bed, discarding her clothing as she did. Before she could succumb to sleep, she kept thinking about the shark. It had been a while since she had seen her friend in person, and she was honestly looking forward to the day.

“Ame. Hey Ame.”

Amelia groaned, bright light flooded her vision as she quickly closed her eyes again, hovering her hand over her face to reduce the intensity. Once her vision adjusted, she sat up and came face to face with an unexpected visitor.

“Gura?”

The shark smiled at the detective, kneeling down to hug her. Amelia had forgotten how strong Gura was for how small she was as she felt almost crushed by the shark’s embrace. At first, Amelia smiled at her friend, a little confused on why she was here, but that happiness turned into a growing fear as she noticed where she was. She was no longer in her room, but rather what looked like an exact copy of a Minecraft world. No, this wasn’t just any world, this was the same world she had created last night, a small island that was surrounded by ocean with a single tree in the middle.

The detective was in a full on panic as she looked around. Whoever’s joke this was, it wasn’t funny. Her scan of the surroundings was cut short as she had a moment of extreme anxiety and looked down, expecting to be fully naked as she had fallen asleep, but gave a small sigh of relief when she noticed she was wearing her normal outfit.

“Watson, you ok?” Gura gave the detective a confused look.

Amelia looked down at the shark, dumbfounded by how laid back she seemed.

“Gura, do you not see anything wrong with this?” She motioned to the entire world around them.

The shark chuckled, “this is just a dream silly, you don’t have to get all worked up.”

Skeptically, Amelia eyed the shark, “and how do you know that?”

“I mean… how else would we be somewhere like this?”

Gura’s logic made some sense, but the situation didn’t feel right to the detective.

“So… we’re both just having the same dream?”

The shark looked surprised for a moment, before asking, “wait, you aren’t part of my dream?”

“No!”

“Uhh… well. Umm… yes?”

Shaking her head, Amelia sighed, “Gura, I think something is seriously wrong. When we were both shocked last night I had been wanting to test something in a Minecraft world, so I created a new one. Where we are now seems like an almost exact copy of that world.”

The smile finally faded from Gura’s face as she truly began to look around, the weight of the situation finally sinking into her.

“This isn’t good is it?” Gura looked back to the detective.

“I… don’t think it is Gura.”

Both girls sat in silence as they tried to process how this was even happening. It was minutes of silence before Amelia spoke again.

“Gura we need to do something, we should…” Amelia looked for anything they could use, but the only object of interest around was the tree, “...make a basic shelter, if we really are trapped in a Minecraft world, we might be in danger. We’ll have time to discuss our situation when we have somewhere safe to stay.”

The shark nodded, clearly still trying to understand what was happening. “So. What should I do?”

“Here, help me we get this tree, we need to-“ Amelia paused when an idea came to her, “Actually Gura, try and go in the ocean. By the fact that we look normal and aren’t all blocky like everything else here makes me think that your ocean expertise might be of use.”

“I mean… I can try,” the shark answered nervously.

“Just come back if you can’t do anything, otherwise see if you can find anything of use down there. Oh, and remember to put on your floaties!”

“Ha ha, very funny Watson.”

“I’m joking! Just… be safe.”

Gura nodded, then made her way to the shore. Amelia watched as the shark seemed to freeze at the edge, as if she was gathering her courage for the dive. With a loud splash the shark disappeared under the ocean, and Amelia waited to see if she resurfaced. Worry began to etch itself into her mind as Gura wasn't reappearing. The detective began to make her way to the water’s edge when something broke the surface nearby. Gura spotted Amelia and waved at her, sporting a toothy grin. Relieved, the detective waved back and watched the shark disappear into the ocean once again.

‘No more getting sidetracked,’ she thought to herself, making her way back to the tree. The detective didn’t know what to expect, she clearly didn’t have the superhuman abilities she would normally have when playing the game. Readying herself, she wound back her fist and slammed it into the middle log. Immediately, she cried out in pain, holding her fist which was pulsing with pain. Deciding to shake off the pain, she turned back to the log, which now had a deep gash in it. Readying her other fist, she slammed it into the log as well.

The impact hurt just as much as it did on the other hand, but she had managed to make the dent in the log even larger. She just needed one more strong hit to break it so she got back up, preparing herself for the pain. Throwing one final punch, the log broke, leaving the top half of the tree floating midair. Almost on the verge of tears from the pain, Amelia, raised herself up to grab the shrunken block, which now fit comfortably in her hand. Quickly she realized that she didn’t have access to an inventory, causing her to stare blankly at the small object in her palm. ‘This is going to be difficult,’ she thought to herself.

She knew that she would need tools, and fast, so she would just need to figure out how to craft so she could get an axe. But to get an axe she would need… more wood. Amelia was now beginning to regret sending Gura off On her own mission.

Now lying on her back, Amelia felt like she had broken both of her hands, but her goal was complete as three logs sat in front of her. If she had more time, she would have remained in that position on the ground, but seeing where the sun was in the sky, she picked up one of the logs. She tried multiple things, attempting to smash it on the ground, staring at it with the intent to magically transform it, as well as attempting to bite it, before realizing it wouldn’t fit in her mouth.

Finally, she tried crushing it with her hand, and the log gave way. Splitting into four pieces that were of equal size to the original log, Amelia had been somewhat successful, now to make a crafting table. This time, she got it on her first try, compressing the four together until the miniature workbench replaced the four planks. Tossing the small cube down, it grew to full size in front of her.

All of this was in the hope that the crafting table would allow her to use one of the most important parts of the blocky world, and the detective was relieved when the second log she put in the center of the table automatically split into four planks. Letting out what could only be described as a cry of victory, Amelia raised her fists into the air. Her celebration was cut short by a *hic* and immediate pain from clenching her sore fists.

She had gotten a good amount of work done on a basic shelter, having finished the tree off with an axe then excavating a small hole in the ground with a shovel and pickaxe she made. Placing the workbench and a furnace that she made from the stone she gathered while clearing the 3x3 hole, she slumped down on the wall. Saying she was exhausted was an understatement, and she laid down to stare at the sky.

The detective was waiting to put some sort of roof on the hole in the ground until Gura got back, but it was already starting to get darker and there was no sign of the shark. Deciding to get fully prepared, she sacrificed her shovel to fuel the furnace, which burned her last log into charcoal. Lifting herself out of the hole, she looked where the floating leaves of the chopped tree had been to see them all gone, with two saplings lying on the ground, which she knew would be important so she planted each one on opposite sides of the small island.

Picking up the pace, she used the charcoal to make torches with the few sticks she had left. The little survival pit was complete, but Amelia was getting increasingly worried about the shark, who hadn’t shown up… and the sun was setting.

About ready to head out to look for the shark, she heard a weak voice from the ledge above.

“Ame?”

“Gura? What took so long!?”

It was dark enough where she hadn’t been able to see the shark, but once the small girl dropped down into the hole, the detective’s heart dropped. In Gura’s arms were some items that she had gathered, which she proceeded to carelessly drop on the ground. Not even bothering to see what valuables that she might have  brought, Amelia rushed over to her friend to examine the large gash in her side. Her blue shirt had been completely torn through, and her side was completely bloodied, although the wound seemed to have closed by now.

“Oh my god, Gura are you okay?”

Instead of responding, the shark moved in towards the detective, wrapping her arms around her. Small sobs could be heard as Amelia hugged the shark back. Lowering herself to the ground and bringing Gura with her, she held onto her friend.

Choking in between sobs, the shark muttered, “I didn’t think I’d make it, I… I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

Moving her arms down to the middle of the shark’s back, Amelia felt three evenly spaced gashes in the shark’s skin, these ones ran deep.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

The embrace continued for a moment before Amelia glanced up at the incomplete ceiling.

“Gura, you have to let go so I can finish up the roof, alright?”

At first it seemed the shark wasn’t going to let go, but her grip slowly weakened until Amelia was able to stand up and place the final dirt blocks to seal the two underground.

“Gura, please tell me what happened.”

“I was… I found… a ship, so I went in, there were treasures in there. I was… going to bring them back but they were there.”

“They?”

“The underwater monsters, they didn’t seem very dangerous... I was able to outswim them, but…” the shark winced in pain, “one of them had a trident.”

“Did it hit you in the back?”

Gura nodded, “and it kept throwing more, the second one almost got me in the front. I… almost couldn’t make it back. It hurt so badly. I felt so alone. They almost caught me. I was so sacred, Ame.”

The detective wrapped her arms around the shark again, she had never seen her friend so distraught, she felt so sick seeing her like this.

“Lie against the wall Gura, you need some rest.”

Slowly lying back, the shark put herself against the wall. Amelia sat down next to her, feeling a sense of calmness when the shark put her head on her shoulder.

“Thanks Ame.”

“Just try to get some sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

The detective could feel the shark’s head moving in a nod followed by a quiet yawn. It wasn’t long until Gura was asleep, leaving Amelia alone with her thoughts. She was scared, there was no telling what would happen if one of them died, and she was not about to lose Gura or die and leave the shark alone.

Eventually, her own tiredness from the day’s work began to reach her in her thoughts and she gave into the increasingly deafening call of sleep.

Chapter Text

Amelia awoke with a horrible sense of dread hanging over her. The traumatizing image was still etched into her memory, Gura’s lifeless body in her arms, she wasn’t there to help the shark. There was a growing pit in her stomach until she looked aside to see Gura next to her, the shark was fast asleep. It had only been a nightmare. The detective tried telling herself that it was a dream, but the experience had felt so real. She still wasn’t fully over the sight.

Trying to clear her head, she got up from the wall that she was lying against, moving slowly so as to not wake Gura, who was still asleep beside her. Most of her body felt sore, and knew that sleeping against a stone wall was the reason why. They needed real beds sometime soon… and food.

The torchlit room had gotten a lot warmer since the previous night, and she was beginning to sweat under all of the layers of clothing she had on, so Amelia unbuttoned the connector on her coat, laying it down neatly in the corner where she had set the wooden tools she had made. Not quite sure what to do now, the detective began by inspecting the small pile of items that Gura had dropped when she had returned.

There wasn’t much, it must have been whatever the shark could fit in her arms. Amelia was more impressed that she held onto them when she was… attacked. Looking back to check on the shark again, Amelia paid close attention to the large tear in the side of Gura’s shirt. There was nothing covering her exposed wound on the side, which had somewhat healed while the two were asleep. The detective was more worried about the gashes on Gura’s back, which were even more holes in the small shark’s shirt that she still hadn’t seen, just felt with her hands.

They had only been here for a day and Gura was already pretty beaten up. ‘Why did it have to be me?’ Amelia thought to herself, ‘Gura would be safer with anyone else. Calli and Kiara both aren’t phased by death, and at least Ina had the power of the ancient ones.’ In that moment, the detective wanted nothing more than what Gura said the day before to be true, for this all to just be a dream. She wanted to wake up in her bed and be back to another day of work and streaming, things that neither of their lives were in danger with.

Deep in her thoughts, Amelia didn’t even realize that she had begun pacing in circles, until she finally kicked something out of the pile at her feet. Luckily, it seemed Gura wasn’t awoken by the sound of whatever she kicked clanking across the floor. 

Walking over to pick up the item in question, she studied the green gem. It was exactly how she remembered emerald, the same gem that seemed somewhat useless given their current situation. It wasn’t a single emerald though, it seemed that Gura had found a second one in the pile she brought back, along with a couple nuggets of gold and two ingots of iron. It was a slight head start, although just two pieces of iron wouldn’t go very far.

Before Amelia could do anything significant, she would need more wood, so she sat herself up on the crafting table to get as close as possible to the ceiling, waiting patiently to see if she could hear anything that would signify danger on the surface above. It was only large enough for her to be on her knees in the position she was in, which made putting her ear to the ceiling rather easy. The detective waited, but the only sound she heard was the crackling of the torches in the room, so she hoped down, heading to the corner to grab her shovel… which wasn’t there. It had been used as fuel yesterday, and since the detective didn’t want to take any risks in mining by hand again, even if it was just dirt, she grabbed the wooden pickaxe and sat herself up on the workbench again.

Swinging it up with great force, she broke through the surface, then jumped high enough to catch the ledge above and pull herself up. That was one of the advantages to being human Ameila figured, she could move in ways that she couldn’t if she were simply playing the game.

Dusting herself off, she stood all the way up glad to see sunlight again. The detective began to look around when she froze in place. Her gaze locking with a familiar, armless creature. Neither moved at first, which Amelia was thankful for, as she was completely paralyzed in place, terror holding her where she was. It was much larger than she had imagined, and even with the ten meter distance she currently had from it, Amelia could tell it was much taller than her.

The moment it took a step toward her, her fight or flight response had her quickly dive back into the hole, grabbing the dirt block that had landed on the crafting table and quickly swinging it up to block the ceiling back up. The continued momentum from the movement caused Ameilia to fall backward, onto the ground where she remained, taking quick breaths as her twitching hands began to calm with the adrenaline from the moment subsiding.

She must have been loud in her scramble, as she heard a quiet, “Ame?” from behind her. Tilting her head back she saw Gura rubbing her eyes, standing up to walk over to the detective.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing?”

“Catching my breath.”

The shark was still fighting through drowsiness, though the raspiness in her voice was beginning to clear.

“What happened?”

Grunting, Amelia sat herself up to which Gura proceeded to sit down in front of her.

“Went to check the surface, it’s day but we’ve got a slight problem. There’s a creeper.”

Gura seemed to space out, looking just past the detective, and it took Amelia waving her hand in front of the shark’s face to bring her back.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Thinking about…” pausing, Gura brought in her knees, wrapping her arms around them, “can we talk about this Ame?”

“About this?”

“About everything, the fact that we’re even here.”

Amelia frowned, she really didn’t know what to say or where to start.

“Ame, everything just moved so fast yesterday, and I’m glad you formed a plan so quickly so that we had shelter, but I feel like we went too quickly and…”

“...it didn’t turn out very well.” Amelia finished the shark’s sentence.

“Yeah… I…” Gura finally looked the detective in the eyes, “this is real, isn’t it?”

Amelia nodded, sighing she softly said, “are you feeling better?”

“Hm?”

“Your wounds from yesterday, do they hurt still?”

Gura shook her head, “it just feels strange since I can feel the air on them through the holes in my shirt.”

“Maybe we can figure out a way to patch it up… although I can’t guarantee that the patch will work well in water like the rest of your fabric does.”

“That’s, fine. We should focus on surviving for now.”

“Gura, can I take a look at the spot on your back?”

“What? Oh, sure.”

The shark turned around, letting Amelia finally see the marks on her back. They were not as bad as Amelia had thought, which relieved her somewhat knowing that she was fine.

“Not as bad as it could have been, it looks like it’ll heal just fine.”

The shark turned back around to face the detective. “Thanks Ame.”

It was then that Amelia heard a low growl come from the shark. Gura’s expression of happiness immediately changed to one of embarrassment.

“Oops, sorry. Stomach.”

Amelia chuckled a little bit, “don’t worry I’m hungry too.”

“Well, it seems like you’ve been coming up with the plans, what should we do?”

“Hmm…” Amelia began to think it over, but everything that she knew they had to do involved leaving the island. “I don’t think we can stay here anymore. We’ll have to take to the sea and find some sort of mainland.”

“To the sea?”

“Yeah, I’m hoping that both of us and all of the items we have here could fit in a single boat.”

“So should we just go now?”

“No, there’s still that creeper up there, we need to take it out. I think our best bet would be to try to get it to blow itself up by getting near it for a moment or two. Getting close enough to to actually hit it with a tool feels like it would be dangerous.”

“So, no matter what this will be dangerous?”

“Yup. We should start by preparing our room here in case the creeper blows up right above it.”

Together, Amelia and Gura dug a block lower in the corner to ensure that their small collection of items was safe. Then, the crafting table and furnace were stored in the stockpile, and a few dirt blocks were put in their place to give the two a ledge that they could boost themselves up on.

“You ready?” Amelia was first up on the ledge, and they had no clue where the creeper would be so they had planned to act quickly getting out of the hole.

Gura nodded, and Amelia readied the pickaxe to break through the dirt. With a strong swing, the block broke and Amelia was about to jump up to the ledge when her heart skipped a beat as she saw the creeper falling down above her, having been standing on the very same block that was no longer there.

Already sliding down from the ledge Amelia screamed “Run!” as the sound of fizzling grew louder behind her. Without much time to react, Gura began backpedaling rather than turning around, although that choice had gotten her a safe distance away. Amelia on the other hand, was still slightly in the blast area when the green creature exploded, knocking her forward to where she landed on a soft object.

The detective groaned as she lifted herself up, quickly realizing that her fall had been cushioned by the shark, whose head was being suffocated under her chest.

“Oh my god, Gura I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

The shark took a deep breath in, her face was bright red.

“I’m fine.”

Amelia extended her arm, helping the shark stand up. Gura didn’t make eye contact, instead she kept the large grin on her face.

“So… umm… are we good now?”

“I think.” The detective looked at where the creeper had exploded, a large hole was now in the roof of the hole, luckily their precautions had paid off and their stash was completely safe. Now with a clear view out, Amelia saw that one of the saplings had grown into a tree, they finally had the wood they needed to make a boat.

The small stockpile of items was now in the middle of the boat, Amelia had taken position at the front, facing the back so she could row. She found it easier to move the oars while looking back, and this way she would be facing Gura the whole time.

Neither said anything for what felt like hours, the only sounds being that of the oars in the water and occasional stomach growls coming from the shark. 

Eventually Gura stood up, “stop here Ame, I need to get something to eat.”

The detective watched as Gura leapt into the ocean, stretching her arms as she waited for the shark to resurface. When Gura finally popped back up, she had a fish caught between her pointy teeth, a cod by the looks of it. As she landed back on the boat, Amelia watched as the fish stopped trying to break free of the shark’s bite. 

Finally dropping it into the boat, Gura looked to Amelia, “you want some?”

“I’m… not really a fan of raw fish.”

“More for me then.”

Amelia watched as Gura scarfed down the fish… whole.

“Ew.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand how you can eat fish raw.”

“Well, I’m a... shaaark… what else do you expect?”

The detective sighed, Gura had her there. As much as she wanted to eat, she could imagine how horrible raw fish would taste, so she decided to pass for now. As hours passed, she somewhat regret that decision due to increasing hunger.

If one thing was different in this world, it was the time scale. Time seemed much slower here than it would normally be if she was playing the game, which she could only assume meant it was on the same time scale as reality.

The two only stopped one other time, when Gura wanted more food, this time getting two fish. She offered one to Amelia, but the detective was still not willing to eat them raw.

The sun had begun to set and there was still no sign of land in sight. Amelia had already rowed a long distance, but she wasn’t quite sure how far she had gone.

“Hey, Ame. If you’d like I can row for a bit, maybe you should get some sleep.”

“I’m fine Gura, why don’t you take the first sleep, I’ll wake you up later and we can switch.”

“You sure?”

Amelia nodded, which could barely be seen with how little light was left, but Gura began to settle down on the other end of the boat, curling up with her tail resting on the pile of items. The detective was exhumed and her arms were beginning to tire, but she felt like she needed to keep going, so she was left alone to keep rowing through the night as Gura slept.

Eventually, the boat passed some land, but from the very little light available, Amelia could see it was a small barren island, possibly smaller than their island. Fighting through the exhaustion, Amelia decided not to wake Gura and to keep going.

Hours of only the sounds of water splashing had led to mind-numbing boredom to where Amelia began to plan possible things she could do on stream when she got back… well, if she got back. At dawn, Amelia heard a groan from the other side of the boat as Gura awoke.

“Good morning.” Amelia said to the shark.

“Good morning. Wait. Did I sleep the whole night?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be better to let you sleep.”

“Oh, well thanks. I actually had…” the shark moved in closer, lying on the pile of items seeming distracted by something, “Ame you look exhausted, you should get some rest.”

“Okay.”

The detective was about to switch places with Gura when the shark suddenly shot up.

“Land!”

Amelia turned and sure enough, there was a large mass of land on the horizon. She could already make out a large mass of spruce trees on the horizon. Putting all of her remaining energy into rowing until the boat was aside dry land. Gura quickly pushed on ahead, most likely realizing that Amelia was too tired to be doing much.

“There!” The shark said, pointing to a cave entrance. “If that cave is short enough we could set up a temporary hideout until we can make a house.”

Amelia just absentmindedly nodded, and watched as the shark grabbed all of the blocks that she could front the boat and stuffed them in her left pocket. Taking hold of the detective’s hand, Gura dragged Amelia to the cave, which was a dead end like the shark had hoped. Only having to block up the entrance, Gura quickly moved to place the torches that they had around the narrow cave to light it sufficiently.

“Alright, I’ll begin bringing our things from the boat into here, you should… get some sleep.” Gura brought Amelia into the cave, since she had been standing at the entrance, completely zoned out.

Amelia gladly nodded at the shark’s proposition, she was no longer processing what was going on due to fatigue and sat herself down against the wall. One more night of sleeping on stone couldn’t hurt.

Chapter Text

Carefully, Gura set the last of the stockpile in the back of the cave before removing an outlier in the stash. It was Amelia’s coat, neatly folded, as the detective had left it. Glancing down at her torn shirt and back up at the coat, an idea crossed the shark’s mind. Carefully, she put her arms through the sleeves of the cream colored coat, before attempting to button the latch, which she had some trouble with since the sleeves of the coat were longer than her arms. It was a bit awkward where the back rested on her tail and how far down it reached on her, but it fully concealed the tear on her side.

“You wouldn’t mind if I wore this, right?” Gura asked, but there was no response from the sleeping detective. “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

Frowning a bit, Gura looked down at the detective. She knew Amelia had overworked herself, and most likely wouldn’t awake anytime soon. The duty of getting work done now fell upon her. 

Sighing, she made her way over to the entrance to the cave. It had been mostly sealed up, with a small entrance now the only way in. Having to break in and out anytime they needed to leave the hideout would be a waste of time, so the shark grabbed the axe from the back of the cave and headed outside.

The only thing she needed was enough wood for a door, but Gura knew that it would be beneficial to have a surplus of wood in their stockpile. Log after log was broken as Gura swung the wooden axe, sliding the shrunken items in the pocket of her blue shirt. By the end, she couldn’t fit any more and had to carry the last few pieces by hand.

With the door in place, Gura spent a minute or two repeatedly opening and closing the door, mostly out of boredom. Sliding the door shut one final time, the shark decided that she should explore the area a little bit, although not without something to protect herself. 

Standing in front of the crafting table, she placed the two ingots of iron and a stick into the notches on the workbench.

It was awkward to swing the sword at first, as it was almost too large for her, but she got a slight feel for how to use it. She knew that she would have to get experience fighting with a weapon like this, as the only weapon she had ever used was her trident… which she really wished she had right now.

Choosing a direction that was opposite from the nearby ocean, the shark began to trek into the wilderness, carrying the sword with her.

-

Eventually, something caught the shark’s attention, a slight break in the forest opening up to a community of cabins. It was an entire village of stone and spruce homes, and a living population in it as well. Heading into the center of the town, there was a lively mood in the air. The shark had to stop herself when a small figure ran by her. It stopped and turned to face Gura, looking at her with extreme fascination. It was a child, it’s long nose being the most recognizable feature among villagers. It was probably entranced, seeing something that did not fit the blocky look of the rest of the world, and Gura could only continue moving through the village.

She was getting occasional skeptical glances from the nearby townsfolk, but then seemed to not care about her being there. They all kept going along with their work, occasionally conversing with each other in the mess of “hmm”s that the shark had no chance of understanding.

Gura had allowed herself to get too distracted in looking around, and eventually tripped on something, causing a sharp pain on her skin. The shark rolled over, and grasped the front of her leg, where she had collided with the obstacle, quickly pulling her hand back to see lines of red liquid on it. It was only a scrape, but she understood why when looking past her knees to see a small bush, with a few red berries growing on it.

The shark chuckled a bit, remembering the time Aqua had been pricked to death by one of those bushes on their JP server tour. That smile quickly faded though, as fears that she might not get to have moments like that anymore clouded her mind.

“Wait. Berries?” The shark mumbled under her breath.

Carefully, she set down her sword and pulled the clump off the bush, while it was nothing but a flat item, she decided to eat it. It tasted… good. 

She didn’t know what to expect when eating a pixelated clump like that, but it actually tasted somewhat sweet. Suddenly, the shark was salivating over the taste, and quickly began picking from nearby bushes. She tried to save a few, but found herself eating all of them to the point she felt almost sick.

Finally feeling full, Gura flopped onto the ground, ready to fall asleep on the spot. There was something that was nagging at her though, and she tried to remember what.

“Oh,” she muttered, putting her palm to her forehead. She needed to get some sort of food for Amelia.

Looking around she could spot a few more bushes, but some berries wouldn’t be enough for someone who hadn’t eaten for as long as the detective had. 

An idea crossed the shark’s mind though. Remembering the two emeralds she had acquired during her ocean exploration, she could maybe trade with some of the villagers in the town for food.

Getting herself up off of the ground, she was ready to make the trip home to grab the green gems when a heavy thud was heard nearby. Gura froze when it began getting louder, and it sounded like something coming her way. Sounds turned into slight vibrations of the ground before whatever it was stopped right behind her. She had been too afraid to turn around when she had first heard the sound, but slowly rotated her head, to be met with a large figure towering over her. It’s metal body, which was covered in vines, loomed over her. Slowly, she looked upward, locking eyes with the golem.

It wasn’t moving. It almost seemed to be analyzing her, although there were no changes in its expression, no indication as to what it was even thinking. Gura had no idea how long she was frozen like that, eyes locked with the giant golem, but she was saved by a child running by. Seeing this, the golem turned and began to head in the direction the child went, seemingly done with its judgement.

Putting her hand over her chest, the shark took a deep breath in. She could fee her own heart beating increasingly fast, waiting to move on until it had slowed.

Finally ready to leave, she walked to the edge of the village before realizing she had no idea where she was going. Groaning, she began to circle the outskirts of the village looking for something that would seem familiar. This was the exact thing she had been made fun of for in her streams, being called ‘directionally challenged.’

Gura stopped at a point where she could see a river in the distance. Having made an almost complete circle, she knew that it had to be the river she passed on the way to the village, and began walking down the riverbank, sword in hand.

It was getting pretty late when Gura arrived back at the village, having left the sword at the cave since it was more of a burden to have to carry the entire distance. She fished the two shiny green gems out of pocket, ready to figure out how to do business with the villagers.

Walking up to one of the first ones she saw, she asked it, “do you want to trade?”

It just gave her a confused look, and she groaned at the realization that they wouldn’t be able to directly communicate.

Instead, she showed it the emeralds. There was a quick reaction from the long-nosed trader as it quickly popped some arrows into its fused arms. The shark shook her head, not looking for arrows. She knew she would have to find a different type of villager, which gave her an idea. Heading over to a nearby crop planter, she saw some villagers working. Selling up to get their attention, she showed them the emeralds. One shook its head and kept working, while the other quickly grabbed something out, a few pieces of bread. Deciding her mission was a success, she handed one of the emeralds over to the villager, who quickly tossed the loaves to her, which she caught in her arms. There were six pieces there, which she knew had to be enough, and decided to leave it at that for the day and save the other emerald.

Passing by some of the homes, she could help but look inside the windows to see the occasional chest, but more importantly ample beds. The shark was considering trying to take one, as the temptation to have a comfortable surface to sleep on was almost impossible to turn down, but she didn’t want to possibly anger some of the villagers, or worse… the golem. She felt like the thing was staring at her, and knew it was extremely dangerous to make an enemy of, so she sadly gave up the idea of having a bed for now.

Amelia awoke to a horrible pain in her abdomen, her hunger was impossible to ignore. Even with the pain, she noticed that Gura was missing, as well as the fact that there was now a door at the entrance. Taking a peek outside, the detective saw that the sun was setting, which made her feel like the pit in her stomach had somehow gotten even deeper. She was worried that Gura wasn’t back yet, and was ready to begin looking for her. Locating their stockpile, she was somewhat impressed by the large amount of logs they suddenly had, although she couldn’t ignore that some things were missing, including her coat.

The detective began to worryingly pace back and forth, until the door creaked open a few minutes later. A tired Gura walked in and smiled when she noticed that Amelia was awake.

“I was starting to get worried, I didn’t want a repeat of last time this happ… is that my coat?” Amelia crossed her arms.

“Sorry, I just needed an extra layer because it’s cold out there.”

“Well, could you at least try to not be back so late, I…” Amelia paused, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Sorry. I’m being too grouchy right now. The hunger’s getting to me.”

“Well I have a solution to that!” The shark exclaimed boldly, revealing the bread in her arms.

Amelia immediately paced over, grabbing a piece. She was about to take a bite when she asked, “are you sure this is good to eat, with it being you know… flat?”

“Yup, I tried some berries earlier, it seems the only difference is how filling it is.”

Trusting the shark, Amelia began scarfing down multiple pieces, almost forgetting to breathe at one point. There was still a single piece left when the detective was done, which Gura ate for herself since she was somewhat hungry from her walk home.

Amelia already seemed like her normal cheery self, especially when she joked, “wow, six pieces of bread. I’m surprised you didn’t lose them all on the way here.”

“Hey! That was one time. One time! I lost a loaf of bread one time and now I’m constantly reminded.”

Ameli laughed at the reaction from the shark, and Gura joined in as well.

“You know, I can’t imagine what it would be like for Calli if she was stuck here with Kiara, she probably would have lost her mind by the time they would have gotten out of something like this.”

“Or they would already have their wedding planned,” Gura joked.

“Yeah, that’s a good possibility.”

The two just talked with each other for a while, mostly to take their minds of the current situation.

Eventually the detective asked, “so, where’s you get the bread?”

“Oh, there’s a village nearby. I figured out how to trade with them.”

“A village?”

“Yeah, it’s not too far. I can show you tomorrow.”

“Maybe we should consider constructing a house near there.”

“Ooh good idea, that way we are nearby, especially to all of the berry bushes.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re addicted to those.”

“I’m not! I just like food, and you know that!”

The two laughed for a bit before Gura began to yawn and sat against a nearby wall. Seeing this, Amelia joined her.

“I guess we have a lot we need to get done soon huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You wouldn’t have happened to see a source of water while exploring today did you? I haven’t had any since we found that pond on that island we passed.”

Sleepily, Gura nodded her head.

“Feel free to keep the coat for now.”

Leaning her head onto Amelia’s shoulder, Gura simply said, “thanks.”

“Get some rest, I’ll try to get a little more for myself so we’ll both be ready for tomorrow, okay?”

There was no response from Gura though, as she had already fallen asleep.

Chapter Text

The heavy shower of raindrops drummed on the roof of the wooden building. The interior was completely empty, which left Gura with nothing to do as she waited. With no windows in the wooden box, there was no indicator of time passing for the shark, which left her doing a lot of pacing around the room. When she had started, it was just a cloudy day, but still enough sunlight. Over time though, raindrops had begun to fall as it went from lightly sprinkling to pouring.

With each occasional pass, Gura would peek out the door, although it would be darker out each time she checked. It was most likely close to sunset, but with the clouds and rain, it was already dark enough to mistake it for being late in the night. Eventually, Gura got bored of pacing and sprawled herself out on the ground, staring up at the ceiling as she listened to the sound of the rain.

It wasn’t long after that the door slammed open, which caused the shark to jump up. Trudging through the door while mumbling to herself was Amelia, who immediately took off her coat and reached into an inside pocket.

“How’s your knee?” The detective asked the shark while still digging inside her coat pockets.

Gura moved her leg a bit, it felt completely normal. “It’s fine now.”

The two had spent the last two days constructing their new home near the village as well as moving their valuables. The hardest part of the process had been making the roof. It was quite high, to the point where they would have three blocks of vertical space inside. Neither wanted to put themselves in danger by climbing up on the roof and possibly falling off, so they had done parts of the roof at a time, with Gura sitting on Amelia’s shoulders so she could reach. It was difficult at first, and Gura had to move her tail around to help keep balance, but the two of them quickly figured out an efficient way to do it. 

It had been going well until near the end when a wrong movement caused Amelia to lose her balance and the two fell down. The shark had landed on one of her knees, which luckily didn’t cause any major injury. Still though, she couldn’t walk on it for the rest of that night, and Amelia had finished the roof by herself by repeatedly moving the crafting table to use as a surface to step on.

It had completely exhausted her, and they ended up making that the first night they spent in their new home.

Since a day had passed since then, Gura’s knee had fully recovered, although Amelia had suggested that she stay inside for the day just in case.

“Did you find any caves?”

“No,” the detective groaned, the whole point of her venturing out that day had been to find a possible cave for the two to explore for resources, but her search had turned up empty.

“Well did you get any food?”

“Yup.”

Finally getting all of what she had been collecting from her pockets, the detective dumped a load of carrots on the ground.

“Carrots?”

“What, were you expecting a hamburger?”

“No… I just-“

“This is what we have for now, you can go swim in the river to hunt fish tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Hey, where did you get these?”

“I took them from the village.”

“You took them!?”

“Relax, the villagers were all indoors because of the rain. I pulled them out of the fields, and used some of them to replant, so they won’t notice they’re gone.”

“Well… I guess that works.”

The detective sighed, “I know this might not seem like the best thing to do, but we need food if we are going to make it out of this.”

Gura walked over and grabbed a carrot from the pile, there were enough for to keep her full for now. 

Hearing a groan from the detective, she looked over to see Amelia wringing her skirt. A large amount of water poured out of the fabric as the detective sighed.

“Did your coat not protect you from the rain?”

“Not as much as I would have liked it to, besides it doesn’t even close all the way in the front, so my clothes just soaked it all in from there.” The detective kept squeezing water out in different places before she suddenly groaned, “this isn’t doing anything.”

“Then what are you-“ Gura didn’t need to finish her question before she saw the detective begin to unbutton her skirt.

Quickly, the detective’s soaked clothing was discarded in the corner of the room, now only in her undergarments. Looking over at the now frozen shark she asked, “what?”

“I- I- umm-“

A ghoulish smile crept across Amelia’s face, “what, are you enjoying a better view of my floaties?”

“No! I just- just wasn’t expecting you to do that!” replied the flustered shark.

Amelia chuckled, “it’s just for tonight, besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen me in a swimsuit before.”

Gura began to stare down at the floor, which elicited another chuckle from the detective.

“Well, I’m exhausted. I’m going to try to get some sleep.” Amelia said before lying down in one of the corners.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Already did.”

Looking back at the pile, Gura realized that they had a lot more carrots than they needed, causing the idea of making their own farm to cross her mind. It was too late for the day though, and Amelia was already trying to sleep in the corner so Gura decided to eat a few carrots before going to sleep herself. Though, she couldn’t stop herself from making occasional glances towards the detective.

When Amelia awoke, she took a moment to stretch out before taking a look around the room. Even though she was only half awake, she noticed Gura’s absence. Walking to where she had dropped her clothes, the detective began to worry when she saw that they weren’t there.

Looking around the rest of the room, she spotted them laid out over the crafting table and furnace. Amelia figured that Gura had done that so they would dry better and went over to feel the fabric. They were almost completely dry, so the detective began to slip her clothing back on. Having just barely gotten them on in time, she heard the door creak open, and looked over her shoulder to see Gura walk in, with a stone pickaxe over her shoulder.

“Where’d you get the pickaxe?”

“Made it.”

“Oh? And what have you been doing with it?”

Instead of responding, the shark patted her pocket, which was clearly full of items.

“Were you mining?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Well, once it was bright enough outside I began to travel in the opposite direction that you were heading in yesterday and found a cave pretty quickly. I was going to come back, but noticed some iron right at the entrance and decided to just get that now.”

“Ooo, how much?”

“Five pieces.”

“Well, let’s put that to use.”

Heading over to the stockpile, Amelia grabbed a plank of wood and a log, throwing both into the furnace and watched as it ignited. When it was done, the detective carefully removed the piece of charcoal and took the iron from the shark, sliding it into the top before using the charcoal as fuel.

“So, do you have any plans for this iron?”

“Yup,” the shark smiled.

“Oh? What for?”

“We have some leftover carrots right? We should make a farm with those, grow our own food.”

“So you’re planning to make a bucket?”

“Yeah, what about the other two pieces?”

“Well, if we are going to further explore that cave that you found I think the safest bet would be to make some shields.”

The two sat in excitement of the possibilities that the metal bars would unlock, until a different idea crossed Amelia’s mind.

“Hey Gura, how do you feel about hunting animals here?”

The question clearly caught the shark off guard, “I mean, I like meat so I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

“Well what I’m saying is that, what if we made shears instead of shields. I think a better night’s sleep might be more important than shields for now.”

Gura didn’t even pause to consider, immediately agreeing with Amelia.

“So why did that have to relate to hunting?”

“Well, if we were to hunt sheep there might not be enough of them nearby for us to make two beds.”

“Yeah… you’re right.” The shark paused before asking, “Ame. You… don’t want to hunt animals do you?”

Frowning, the detective responded, “not really. Something just feels different about the idea now that we’re actually in this world.”

“That’s ok. We’ll have the farm for food!”

“Yeah…”

After the back door had been installed, Gura finally brought the second bucket of water, the flat item releasing water into the other corner of the small hole as it settled in the pool, which was now an infinite source.

“I see you’ve learned what a two by two is.” Amelia snickered.

“Oh come on! How was I supposed to know back then when everyone in the chat was yelling at me!”

“Easy, you just gotta tell them to shut up sometimes, like I do.”

“Whatever. Did you make the tools?”

“Yup,” Amelia held up a stone hoe and axe.

With the water spots in place, Gura began tilling a field behind the house, while Amelia chopped wood from nearby trees. The field was much larger than they currently had carrots for, but an eventual large harvest was the goal they had in mind. Wiping sweat off her forehead, the shark watched as the soil began to become hydrated from the nearby spots of water.

During this time, the two worked together to craft then construct the perimeter fence around the field. While their house was on the edge of the clearing of the village, it didn’t stop visitors from heading over. At first, it was only a child who seemed to have come to see what was being made. When she noticed the small figure, Gura stopped and waved at it. Seeing that it had been spotted, the child fled back to the village leaving the shark somewhat confused.

That wasn’t the only visitor that had that day, as once the fence was finished and the two were planting the final carrots, loud thuds became ever closer. Eventually, the iron giant was on the other side of the fence, looking down at the two.

Amelia tried to ignore it at first, but a couple minutes passed and it hadn’t moved.

“I’m going to go see what it wants.” Amelia got up leaving the last carrot she had with Gura.

The detective almost had to look straight up to make eye contact with the golem.

“Hello,” Amelia waved at the iron giant.

It cocked it’s head, although it’s expression remained completely neutral.

“I’m guessing that you’re the protector of this village right? I hope you don’t mind us moving in nearby.”

Nothing.

The detective sighed, “you don’t even understand me, do you?”

After a few moments it shifted its focus down, and in its broad, blocky arm, a flower appeared. It slowly reached over the fence, and presented the flower, still with no hint of emotion in its gaze. Carefully, Amelia took the flower, and the golem lowered its arm.

“Thanks,” the detective said to it, but it gave no sign of even understanding her as it began to walk back into the village.

“What happened?” Gura spoke up from behind.

“I… think it came to welcome us here. I’m not exactly sure though.”

Looking down at the flower, Amelia felt a little different. The underlying stress that she had been feeling, worry that they would have to be fighting for their lives, all of it was forgotten for a moment. In that moment, she felt that they might truly be safe in this village with protection from something like that golem. Looking over to Gura, who seemed to be smiling as well, she had a little more hope for their situation.

With the last carrot in place the two decided to head out together with the remaining daylight to use their new pair of shears.

It was somewhat late when the two arrived back, although a lot earlier than Amelia had returned the previous day. They had found a group of three sheep in their exploration and had gotten seven pieces of white wool.

As Amelia headed to the crafting table to make the beds, she heard Gura yawn behind her, “I’m so ready for a good sleep.”

“Me too, I feel like I haven’t gotten enough sleep the past few days, and sleeping on the floor has been making me feel like an old woman.”

“Yeah, my tail has been aching throughout the day from how I slept on it.”

Amelia chuckled, “I almost wish that the others were here with us.”

Placing the second itemized bed aside, the detective felt arms wrapping around her from behind.

“Gura?”

“Ame… thank you.”

“For what?”

“I’ve been so scared ever since what happened the first day here. If you weren’t here with me I…” there was a moment of silence from the shark, “I don’t think I would have made it. I’m… I’m glad you’re the one here with me, I wouldn’t have chosen anyone else.”

“Are you kidding? Anyone else would be better! Kiara and Calli are basically immortal and Ina has her magic. I’m just… normal.”

“Are you kidding, you’re the one that knows what you’re doing here. Although… maybe I would choose Kiara, I could go for some chicken right now.”

Amelia chuckled a little bit, turning around to return the embrace. “Let’s get some sleep, tomorrow we should head into the cave.”

Gura nodded, but took a moment to finally release her hold. Walking over to the empty side of the room, Amelia set her bed down barely away from the corners. Tossing the other bed to Gura, the shark caught it and asked, “where should I put it?”

“Wherever you want.”

Looking around the shark said, “I’d rather not be very far away right now.”

Amelia watched as Gura placed her bed a block away.

Smiling a little, the detective softly said, “if you want to put it closer, that’s fine.”

Gura gave a toothy smile then kicked the bed a few times until it broke, and moved right next to Amelia’s.

“Now, just because you’re this close, don’t go getting any ideas.”

Even though she was tired, the shark managed to let out a small laugh, “the only person that should be worried about having another bed next to them is Calli.”

Smiling, Amelia got into her bed. Despite what it normally looked like, it actually had some depth to it. The sheets could be lifted, not particularly following the normal blocky rules of the world, just conforming around the square shape of the bed. Even better, the pillow had some depth to it and was extremely comfortable to lay on compared to the wood floor. 

That night was the quickest she had fallen asleep so far, but as she drifted off she swore she could feel something press up against her.

Chapter Text

Powerful swings of the stone axe Gura was wielding made quick work of nearby logs, as the shark tossed the collected pieces to Amelia, who was working on setting up the double walls to create a safe space at the entrance to the cave. The tunnel clearly went down for a long distance, and the two didn’t want to waste time with the limited amount of resources they could carry. Instead, the safe house at the cave entrance was to hold their spoils of the mining trip without worrying about having to leave anything behind.

“It’s done!” Amelia called out the shark, who dropped down on the spot and groaned.

Walking under groups of floating leaves, which were occasionally disappearing without the logs of the trees connected to them.

Standing over Gura, the detective used her foot to tap her friend, “let’s go, you can rest in the safe room, we have a lot of planning we need to get done.”

Gura sluggishly moved towards the cavern entrance, dragging the axe behind her while Amelia grabbed some of the sticks or occasional apples that she found from decayed leaves.

Once inside, the shark pestered, “can I sleep now?”

“We’ve got work to do, you’ll get that chance later.”

Deciding to give the shark a little bit more time, Amelia stacked up their current supplies. The distance between their home and the cave was not too far, but they were still limited in what they were able to bring. Knowing this, they had only brought stone tools, the iron sword Gura had made, a crafting table, and some charcoal to make into torches.

With the excess wood, Amelia began to break them down in the crafting table for their light sources. The large, burning torches were set aside as she continued to work. While their large size would make them hard to carry, she hoped it would be worth it in the end.

“Alright, we’re ready.” The detective looked back at Gura.

“Can we wait like, 5 more minutes?”

“You’ve been laying there long enough.”

“Fiiineee” The shark unenthusiastically groaned.

After tossing the stone pickaxe to Gura, Amelia grabbed the iron sword. She was to guard while the shark did the mining as they had planned, well… more like Amelia had forcefully taken the role of.

“By the way, can you even use a sword, especially one that’s all… pixel-ly?”

“Of course, I got some basic lessons in swordsmanship back in medieval Europe.” Amelia boasted.

“You know I can never tell if anything you say about your time travel is a joke or not.”

“I may or may not have been telling the truth, but I can assure some experience in sword use.” The detective winked at Gura.

“How much?”

“Enough.” The detective said nervously, “although I won’t be able to match up to your however many thousand years of trident experience.”

A smug grin grew on Gura’s face as the two headed out the door, and Amelia grabbed an armful of torches on the way out.

Not very much distance was covered by the two before black specks were spotted in part of the wall.

“Get to work, I’ll scout up ahead.” Amelia motioned her head to the wall then continued on, placing a torch as she passed.

The sound of a pickaxe hitting solid stone softened as Amelia kept going down. Continuing to light the way, she made note of another coal vein and an iron vein, that she almost completely missed. Eventually, the detective ran out of torches with the limited amount she could carry and began to head back up, passing Gura as she did.

“I got it all, I didn’t count because that’s boring but there’s a lot.”

“I’ll grab them on my way up, I’m going to restock on torches. There’s a clump or coal and iron down there if you can find them.”

“Got it.” The shark said, beginning to continue on.

“Oh, Gura.”

“Hm?”

“Be careful.”

“Careful’s my middle name.”

Sighing, Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose, “we both know that is the opposite of true.”

With the two going in their way, Amelia changed her grip on the sword slightly as she scooped up as much of the coal as she could. There was a lot more than she was expecting, but she was able to get a decent amount. With her hands full, Amelia had to kick the door open before she could dump the coal in its own pile on the ground.

With more torches in her other arm and two apples stacked on top, she rejoined Gura, who was getting the last of the iron vein. Once the shark broke the final block, she slumped down on the wall to catch her breath. Seeing this, the detective set down her stack of torches and grabbed an apple.

“Gura, catch!”

Tossing the flat item, she watched as the shark caught it.

“Thanks.”

Gura proceeded to pocket the apple, as she continued to rest on the wall.

Amelia once again began to explore further on her own, with the shark most likely bringing the ores back. Eventually, she reached a larger room, and froze at the entrance hearing a familiar groan.

Dropping the torches she was carrying under her arm, Amelia put both hands around the grip of the sword, even though its jagged nature made the position somewhat awkward. She took a few steps back so that the monster would be drawn into the light, changing her stance as she did.

As the zombie walked into the light, Amelia made her move and drove the sword forward, directly into the monster’s torso. She had been worried that the sword wouldn’t be able to piece enemies, so she let out a sigh of relief when her attack connected. That relief vanished quickly though as the creature on the other end grabbed Amelia’s arm. Quickly pulling away from the monster, Amelia was now without her weapon, which was still lodged in the zombie.

With it still chasing her, she began to backpedal. She hadn’t put much thought into how durable the monster would be, and that had led to the detective being caught off guard. After another moment of thinking of possible options, she readied herself to charge back in. Waiting for the right moment, she ran towards the creature, grabbing the sword and raising her foot, pushing down hard against the zombie’s torso.

Amelia had expected to use the force to pull the sword out, but had ended up pushing the monster back. It had gotten the sword free, but she realized that even with its blocky appearance it was still made of rotting flesh that would not protect it against brute force.

Changing up her strategy, Amelia began to use the sword to slash rather than stab, each swing seeming to hurt the creature more. Putting all of her effort into one final swing, she toppled the monster, which vanished into a puff of smoke. Where the zombie had fallen were some pieces of rotting flesh, which Amelia had no intention of even touching, so she kicked it aside.

The detective had taken her own break, resting in the larger cavern until Gura came back. The two talked a little before they continued on together down the cave. Stumbling upon another clump of iron, the shark began collecting the ores. 

Going a little bit further down, Amelia paused when she saw something unusual, a perfectly cut tunnel connecting to what seemed to be the end of the cave. Looking down the tunnel she could see occasional wooden supports with something lighting them as well as sections of rails placed along the way.

“Gura?” The detective called out.

“What?” The shark yelled back.

“You might want to come see this.”

Walking up, Gura noticed what Amelia had been talking about.

“Woah.”

“Yeah, this looks promising, we should do something with those rails.”

“What is it with you and rails?”

“What? They’re a good thing to have!”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing!”

“Then help me by gathering them, we should build a minecart line that leads back up. That way, we could throw everything we get in it and push it back up the hill instead of carrying everything by hand.”

“Yes please! I cannot carry anything anymore like this.”

Standing on guard ahead, Amelia watched as the shark began to pick up the shrunken rails and toss them aside. When some areas began to branch off, Amelia went ahead and lit them so Gura could continue. Eventually, Amelia heard a nearby rattle and each grabbed all of the rails they could.

Back at the entrance to the mineshaft, they worked together to place the rails, making sure that there was a long enough flat surface between increases in elevation to make a minecart easy to push. Their railway made it almost all of the way to the safe room, where they both sat down when they got to. Yawning, Amelia made her way over to the crafting table, making a furnace so they could begin smelting some of their iron.

“Ame, I forgot to grab the iron from before the mineshaft.”

“That’s fine, we have the iron that’s here. We can go back for it later, for now…” the detective let out another yawn, “I think I need some sleep.”

Gura reciprocated the yawn as she nodded in agreement. Amelia threw some of the iron into the top hole in the front of the furnace, fueling it with coal in the bottom.

Sitting down on the wall, Amelia closed her eyes as Gura sat down next to her.

“We’ll fins diamond tomorrow, I can feel it,” the shark said, sleepily.

“Oh, is that so? Well, let’s hope that you’re right.”

With that, the two fell asleep, exhausted from the day’s work.

Amelia was awoken when she felt a tapping on her shoulder. Having been woken up by Gura, she began to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes and sat up.

Grabbing an apple from their small pile of the fruits, she began to eat it as she grabbed the ingots of iron out of the furnace.

After some crafting, she handed Gura a new pickaxe, one made out of iron. Grabbing some more torches, the two headed down into the mine.

They paused further into the mineshaft, until they ran across a minecart with a chest in it. Gura changed ahead and quickly swung open the lid of the wooden container, turning to show Amelia what she found. A few torches, some sort of seeds, two pieces of iron and a discolored apple were found inside.

“Ooh, what’s this?” Gura was entranced by the yellow apple.

“If I remember correctly, that’s a golden apple.” Amelia said while placing the iron Gura had ignored in the interior pocket of her coat, “I think it has healing properties, so don’t just eat it as a snack.”

“I wasn’t planning on eating it in the first place with coloring like that.”

Amelia chuckled as they continued to the end of the section of the mineshaft they were in. It opened up into another cave, which they began to slowly explore.

They stopped after reaching a crossroads, there were two possible paths to choose. They stopped though, as Gura had found some gold ores in the wall, which gave Amelia time to look around. The walls and ceiling of the intersection were lined with gravel, which Amelia stared at confusedly, knowing that gravel was normally affected by gravity. Stepping forward, she began to look into one of the two paths. The cave at that point took a sharp turn downward, although she could see some light far down it.

Amelia hadn’t been looking as she backpedaled back towards Gura when she heard the shark shout, “Ame look out!”

Quickly turning with her sword drawn she saw as a bright green shape began to fizzle right in front of her, which she quickly turned and leapt forward. It wasn’t fast enough though as the creeper still exploded, sending her fur than than she had anticipated and almost falling down the hole in the area ahead.

As she collected herself, she turned to see the way back to Gura completely blocked with gravel that had fallen from the ceiling. Her only two options now were the two splits in the cave.

“Ame?! Ame, are you okay?” The shark called out from the other side.

“I’m fine,” Amelia could hear the voice coming from the top of the obstruction, but couldn’t locate where the connection to the other side was.

“Start breaking the gravel, we can meet up and get back to safely.”

Amelia was about to begin when she was hearing frightening sounds coming from the other tunnel.

“Gura, you’ll need to do that, monsters are closing in on me, I’ll have to head further in or I’ll be outnumbered. Come find me when you get through.”

“Wait! Are you sure about this?”

The sounds were getting closer. “Gura I don’t have time to think, I have to go.”

With that, Amelia began descending the steep slope of the other tunnel. At the bottom, she began to quickly place torches as she went further in. Rounding a corner she came face to face with a boney monster, which turned at the sudden intruder. Amelia raised her sword as the skeleton drew its bow.

Winding up for a powerful slash, the skeleton fired off an arrow from its bow. The sharply tipped arrow found its target and lodged itself in the detective’s shoulder. Amelia was still able to land the blow though, which hit right here the creature’s neck would be… if it had one. The hit knocked the monster’s head off as it fell to the ground, nothing more than a pile of bones now.

Ameli winced as the pain finally sank in. She was about to pull the arrow out, but didn’t want to begin gushing blood from the wound, so she decided to leave it in until Gura found her.

Nearby, she could finally see where the light was coming from, there was a pool of lava under the ledge she was standing on. There was a flat surface of stone below that would make it safe to jump down to, but Ameli decided she shouldn’t go too far into the cave.

Slowly creeping back towards the entrance to the tunnel, Amelia was stopped by another foe. It let out a creepy laugh as it stared at her with its big nose. Raising her sword, the detective moved in as the witch grabbed a bottle of liquid.

Amelia managed to get two slashes in before the witch smashed a bottle against the detective. Powering through the pain of a few glass shards that cut into her, she struck the witch twice more as she fell, leaving nothing behind.

Ready to move on, the detective took a step forward before the muscles in her leg gave out. Amelia fell onto her arms, forced to look down at the ground. There, the detective saw a small pool of green liquid.

‘Oh no,’ she thought to herself.

Getting up, she could feel herself getting weaker as the poison was making its way through her body. The feeling like she was fighting for her life was at the forefront of Amelia’s mind as she noticed a bright green shape creeping towards her from the front.

With no other options, the detective retreated back into the cave, stumbling often as she did. Finally she arrived back over the ledge, a place of stone under her, illuminated by the pool of lava. She had nowhere else to go, and was terrified as the creeper appeared from around the corner. She was ready to push forward, try to get the creeper to detonate further from the ledge, but her legs gave out, the poison making them completely useless. The looming monster began to hiss and Amelia scooted backward with what strength she had left.

The explosion lauded Amelia back over the ledge, being slammed down onto her back, only a meter away from being plunged into lava. Her entire body felt numb, she couldn’t move anything, the poison in her body having done its job, she was competent out of energy. 

She was terrified. Everything hurt, and she could only move her eyes, but she just wanted to close them, to fall asleep right there. Her mind was racing with dark thoughts, horrible feelings. She felt like she was about to die and couldn’t stand that this is how she would be leaving Gura, alone in this foreign world.

‘Is this what it always felt like for Kiara?’ She thought to herself.

And Calli… there was nothing Amelia wished for more than seeing Calli right now, having a friend there as she died, but she knew that there was no way the reaper could show up there to take her soul to the afterlife. The thought terrified her, she was really going to die there, alone and afraid.

In her mental fog she had completely lost touch with reality, and a loud scream suddenly caught her attention.

“Ame!”

The detective had never heard such terror in the shark's voice. She shifted her gaze to see Gura standing over the ledge above, who jumped down and quickly kneeled to get a closer look at the detective.

“Ame, are you okay?”

Amelia didn’t even have the strength to respond, she just moved her eyeballs to look at Gura. The shark was on the verge of tears as she realized the state the detective was in.

“No. Please. Ame, please say something.”

She couldn’t.

“I can’t do this without you.”

Things were getting hazy.

The shark’s words were beginning to slur, although she could tell there was now a strange energy in her tone. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her jaw, and something was shoved in her mouth. The pressure on her jaw continued as Gura forced her to take a bite of the object, then continued to help her chew.

Her vision was beginning to fade as she used the last of her strength to swallow whatever she had been fed. All she felt like doing was sleeping, so she closed her eyes.

Chapter Text

Gura’s heart skipped a beat once Amelia’s eyelids closed and didn’t reopen. It felt like her stomach was in a tight knot as she simply stared down at the girl in front of her. She knew the apple had to work, everything was going to be fine because… she didn’t know what she’d do if it didn’t.

Still kneeling next to Amelia, the shark was frozen in place, looking for any signs of life. What felt like hours passed until she saw the slight rise and fall of the detective’s chest. 

A sigh of relief passed Gura’s lips as she laid back onto the ground. The orange light from the nearby lava that washed over her brought a comforting warmth that made her want to fall asleep. Her arms were extremely sore from all of the digging she had done on the gravel. It had taken some extra time, but she had made a shovel to get through the mass as quickly as possible.

Looking aside, Gura blankly stared at Amelia.

“We’re really in trouble aren’t we?”

The shark didn’t exactly know what she was expecting when she asked the question, since there was no response from the unconscious detective.

“I just…” sitting up, Gura pulled her knees in, wrapping her arms around them, “...miss everyone else.”

A pang of guilt was felt by the shark as she looked at the arrow lodged in Amelia’s shoulder.

Dropping her head, Gura softly spoke, “I kinda wish you were awake right now so I could thank you. You’re always there for me. Not just in this… nightmarish scenario, but even in day to day life. You’re always looking out for all of us, sometimes even before looking out for yourself.”

Sighing, the shark closed her eyes, “the thing is… that’s… what I love about you. Even now, you immediately jumped to the responsibility of using the sword. But… look how that turned out. You were trying to protect me and now you’re the one that’s hurt.”

Tears began to fall down the shark’s cheek.

“What if we don’t make it out? I mean, look at the condition we’re both already in. I don’t want to see you die but… even if we make it out… that’ll just happen someday.”

Gura couldn’t get words out through her sobs. The sounds of lava pops and the shark’s sniffles were the only sounds for a few minutes.

“You’re the only human out of all of us. The rest of us are supposed to live so much longer, well… maybe Ina might have the lifespan of a human.” The shark finally looked back over at Amelia, “it isn’t fair. Everyone has really helped to make this whole idol thing to be greatly enjoyable, but every time I’ve done things with you it’s felt different.”

As though waiting for a response, Gura paused, but she hung her head when the silence became too much.

“Joining hololive was great, but the best thing to come out of it was meeting everyone in our group. You guys made me feel at home here, but it’s always you in particular that is always there for me. Honestly, it feels like some of this was fate.”

“I mean… Kiara and Calli both joined, and even though they did know each other before, Kiara really began pushing that ‘soulmates’ thing… which we know where that went. What I’m saying is… I’m... beginning to think that I found my soulmate as well.”

Sighting Gura looked downward, “It’s… not like you’d feel the same though.”

Standing up, the shark pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Why am I even saying this? You can't hear me. Though…now I’m glad you weren’t awake to have heard any of that.”

Taking a deep breath, Gura began to hear an approaching sound. Multiple quick taps were coming closer and the shark quickly moved to grab Amelia’s dropped sword.

Standing defensively in front of the detective, she held the sword readily for whatever would appear. A reverberating hiss was ever nearing, although it was much unlike that of a creeper. A dark form began crawling down the side wall, it’s eight legs dancing in unison as it descended the stone surface. 

It hissed at the shark, as it’s blocky, red eyes seemed to burn right through her. Spotting a moment of hesitation, the spider leapt at Gura with great force, which she was not ready for, and it knocked her to the ground. Having let go of the sword from the impact, she was completely defenseless.

Suddenly, she cried out in pain as the monster bit into her. She was frozen in shock for a moment after, not having been ready for such a blocky creature to inflict a wound so painful. Did it… bite her?

With no other options, she decided to return the feeling, moving her head to bite into the spider’s nearest leg. It recoiled in pain, which Gura used as an opening to get up and retake the sword. Ready again, the monster made another attempt at a leap, but Gura was ready this time. As it dove forward, Gura thrust the sword forward, impaling the spider from its underside. The creature recoiled, then fell onto its back, not being able to fully touch the ground with the sword coming out its back. Leaving behind a few threads of string, the monster became nothing but a cloud of smoke.

Immediately, the shark could tell that most of the cloth on her right sleeve had been torn off. Gura used her left sleeve to cover the fresh wound, wincing as she made contact with it. 

After a moment, she removed the sleeve to see it soaked with blood, and she grimaced at the feeling of covering her arm once again.

At this point, her shirt was nothing more than a torn rag, just begging to catch on something and tear further. The tear on the side had only gotten bigger with time as the threads were beginning to separate further and further down.

Removing her arm from the wound, she unbuttoned her hood, throwing it to the ground. Taking one last look at her shirt, she emptied its pockets then pulled it over her head. Grabbing it around the rip in the abdomen, she used her hand strength to further tear the fabric, until she had created a ring made out of the bottom of her shirt. Carefully, Gura separated it where the front would be, then used the long strand to wrap around the wound on her arm

The shark didn’t waste any more time, instead beginning to mine some space in a nearby wall with her pickaxe, then using the mined blocks to extend the hole outwards. Quickly, she picked up the detective’s torches and sword and tossed them in the makeshift box.

After placing one or two of the burning sticks, Gura carefully wrapped her arms around Amelia’s torso and began to drag her into the room, using the last of the cobblestone to seal them in.

Sitting back against a nearby wall, the shark began to realize how hard getting back up would be. She didn't know when the detective would wake up, or what she’d be able to do when she was awake, which meant heading back up the cave tunnels would be almost impossible. There was only one option Gura could think of, mining her own way out.

They were deep underground, and such a process would be extremely exhausting, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.

One final swing broke the dirt block, exposing the surface above it. Gura let out a sigh of relief, as she replaced the block so that there would be no entrance into the staircase. Her arms felt like jelly, as she just dropped her pickaxe right there and began descending the stone steps. It had taken hours to make the tunnel up, and keep returning down to get torches. Safety was the shark’s primary goal, and she made extra care to make sure it was completely lit.

When she got back down, she dropped onto the ground. It was more uncomfortable than normal now that she was only in her underclothing, but any amount of rest was unresistable in her current state.

“I wish we had brought our beds,” the shark muttered to herself.

Lasting gazing around the room, Gura found herself staring at the pile of blocks in the corner. Most of it was stone she had mined from the staircase, but there was some iron, gold, and coal in the pile as well.

Wanting to get some more work done while Amelia was asleep, she placed down her space crafting table. Sluggishly moving to make a furnace, she began sliding some of the iron in and watched as the block flared to life. 

Gura ended up slouching down next to the furnace, enjoying the warmth that was radiating off it as she waited for it to finish.

She had almost dozed of once she noticed the crackling had stopped and the nearby air began to cool. She just slumped all of the ingots into a pile in front of the furnace, too tired to count the exact amount.

Gura didn’t know what to do with them at first, and considered just putting them aside, but upon looking down to see how much of her skin was exposed, she decided to take a chance with an idea she had.

Dropping eight ingots onto the crafting table, the shark arranged them in the familiar chest place shape and waited as they fused into a large metal plating. The piece of armor looked exactly like it normally would, keeping its blocky shape.

Disappointment was the only thing Gura felt as she reached to grab the chestplate, which was way too large for her, so she could toss it aside. The moment she touched the piece of armor though, it began to change, shrinking slightly and becoming much more smooth.

Gura quickly retracted her hand and watched as it began to return to its original appearance. The whole experience took her tired brain far too long to process, but once she realized what happened, she reached back towards it. Watching it change again, she grabbed the chestplate and pulled it closer. It was still somewhat large compared to her torso, but it had no blocky edges. 

Curious to try on the piece, Gura raised it over her head, slipping her head and arms through the holes in the armor with how large it was. Once it was fully on though, it began to shrink more, and Gura began to panic and was about to try to slip it back over her head when it suddenly stopped.

The piece of armor was now completely confirmed to her body shape, being quite tight on her. Gura was frozen in awe as she admired the metal coating that was now protecting her torso.

“That’s amazing!” She couldn’t help but exclaim.

Curious to see what would happen, the shark grabbed the armor at the bottom and began to slide it up, feeling it begin to grow again as she moved to take it off. Stopping before she got her arms through the shoulder guards, she let it fall back down on her and watched as the armor shrank back to the perfect size.

She was completely mesmerized by the whole thing, and was still in disbelief that what she had seen was real. She knocked her fist on the piece of armor, creating a metal clanging.

Many ideas were beginning to fill the shark’s head, but she began to yawn and decided to save any further testing for when Amelia awoke. She was ready to sit back down on the wall and fall asleep when a new urge hit her. Looking back down at the pile of ingots, which was now over half gone, she grabbed two pieces, and placed them in the crafting table.

Forming a new pair of shears, the shark began to ascend the staircase, the new tool in one hand, and the sword in the other. Arriving at the top, she repeatedly stabbed the sword into the blocks to break them. Gura stopped up onto the surface once she saw that it was light out, and began looking for any sheep.

By the time she had enough wool, she stopped by two nearby trees and once again used the sword to slash into them, getting two logs and putting them in the collection being held in her other hand. The sun was beginning to set and she made her way back to the stairway, sealing up the entrance on her way down.

Once she arrived back in the room, she wasted no time making two new beds for them to sleep in. She placed down the first one, and pulled down the sheets to expose the soft layer underneath.

“Geez it’s already been like, half a day Ame,” but there was no response from the unconscious detective.

Moving in close, the shark grabbed her discarded shirt, tearing off the part of her sleeve that was barely hanging onto the rest of her shirt. Grabbing a hold of the detective, Gura spun her around and dragged her to the bed, struggling to lift her up enough in her tired state. Then, she carefully pulled the arrow that was lodged in Amelia’s shoulder out. Not very much of it had pieced the detective’s coat, but there was still a small hole in it and her undershirt. Some blood began to seep out, so Gura places the part of her shirt over to stop the blood from soaking into the sheets or Ameila’s clothing.

Gura began to rub her eyes as she dropped to her knees, her tiredness becoming overwhelming. Slowly, the shark pulled the sheets up on Amelia.

“Goodnight.”

Trudging over to the other side of the room, the shark dropped the other bed down, and slid her chestplate off, dropping the now blocky piece of armor on the ground beside the bed. Lazily flopping down, she wiggled under the sheets and sunk into her pillow.

Chapter Text

Pushing the door open, Gura felt Amelia’s arm shrink away from her shoulder. Having been bent over and grabbing onto Gura for the walk home, the detective finally took her first steps on her own. It wasn’t very far though, as she trudged right to her bed and collapsed on top of it.

Even with whatever magical properties the golden apple had, Amelia was still extremely weak. It hadn’t been made any better by the awkward silence on the way back.

The only words that the two had exchanged with each other were when Amelia woke up, which was only Gura asking if she was ok, which she had simply shook her head to, and the shark checking in with her as they ascended the stairway that had been carved, which had almost been impossible in the detective’s current state.

Everything was a haze to her, and she barely remembered anything from the return trip, only Gura saying that they could stop to rest if needed.

Rolling onto her back, she slowly gazed around the room. Not that she could mentally register anything that was going on due to fatigue, but all of the colors of the room melted into an orange blur that was almost entrancing.

According to Gura, she had been asleep for almost an entire day, but the trip home had left her feeling like she had gotten no sleep at all.

This wasn’t the first time the detective had dealt with near death experiences, she had faced many of those in her time travel endeavors. This was different though, she should have been dead, and her body was still acting like she should have.

Her attention was drawn to a sudden sound of a door slamming open. Gura walked into the home from outside, and Amelia assumed the shark was melting something in the furnace by the sounds of crackling that began nearby.

Gura would occasionally glance back and Amelia would give her a weak smile to try and reassure the shark. It was beginning to bother her how little Gura had spoken, as well as the constant frown that Amelia could barely make out. She hated seeing the shark being her normal cheery self, but she knew Gura was just worried. That knowledge somewhat hurt though, as she could only imagine what Gura had felt seeing her like this.

Stuck in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice that the shark had left again. Amelia decided to close her eyes in the meantime, ready to get back to sleep.

It wasn’t much longer until Gura returned, to which Amelia only reacted because she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Moving her arms to sit up, she looked over to see Gura at eye level with her. The fogginess of her bison had somewhat cleared and she could more clearly see the shark now, and something looked different about her. She didn’t have much time to look before she was handed something.

“Drink,” the shark said, with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

Amelia obeyed the command, holding the object in front of her. It was a glass bottle, filled with water. Raising it to her lips, she began to drink from it and, surprisingly, water began to flow from the flat flask.

She hadn’t even realized how dehydrated she was and ended up drinking so quickly she began to run out of air. Near the end, the bottle was quickly pulled away from her and she turned to Gura who held it a good distance away.

“You gotta slow down, it’s not going anywhere.”

The shark gave Amelia a moment to take a deep breath in, then passed it back for her to down the rest.

“More, please.” Amelia said, having the urge to drink more.

Gura grabbed the bottle back and sighed, heading out the door once again.

In the meantime, Amelia was becoming more aware of her surroundings, her eyesight was completely clear and she felt like she could finally focus her mind.

When Gura returned, Amelia took a close look at the shark, noticing the armored plate she was wearing.

“Have you been wearing that the whole time? What happened to your shirt?”

There was no response though, Gura simply let out a sigh of relief as she handed Amelia the refilled bottle, finally smiling for the first time.

The detective drank it slower this time, which Gura seemed to smile at.

“Feeling better?” Gura asked.

“Yeah.”

“Finally. I was getting worried that I wouldn’t have anyone to tease anymore.”

“Oh please! You’ll have a large chest before I’m gone, so in other words, never.”

“H-H-Hey!” Gura became flustered as Amelia displayed her evil grin, “that was uncalled for!”

“Don’t worry, that goes for Ina too. Ooh, if we ever need to replace some of the blocks in the wall, maybe you could fill in the space for a bit, it’s not like you’d stick out very far.”

“Why you little!” Gura grumbled, jumping onto Amelia and pinning her down on the bed.

In a quick motion, the shark grabbed Amelia’s arm and bit down, lightly, but still enough to cause some pain.

“Hey!” The detective said, pulling her arm away.

Both were now glaring at each other, sitting completely still, until Amelia cracked and couldn’t contain her laughter. Quickly after Gura began laughing as well, as the shark rolled over to lay on the other bed.

Once they both calmed down, Amelia sat up and looked over at Gura, “thanks, by the way.”

“Hm?”

“You know, for saving me, or something like that.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

“You were worried, weren’t you?”

There was no response for a moment, as the shark sat up and learned over onto Amelia’s shoulder.

“Oh course, dummie! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Maybe you secretly hate me?”

“Secr- What?!”

“I’m joking!” Amelia chuckled.

“Good, cause I was about to bite you again.”

“I’m more worried about you deciding to make me a meal if we run out of food than anything else.”

“Oh, is that so? You know, I’m pretty hungry right now, and meat’s sounding really good.”

Gura began to slowly inch closer, her mouth wide open to expose her razor sharp teeth. Suddenly though, there was a quite audible grumble that came from the shark’s stomach and she quickly retracted as her cheeks turned red from embarrassment.

“Your stomach seems ready for me.”

“Sh-Shut up! I have standards for what I’ll eat, and you’d probably be nothing but salt.”

“Oh, you’re calling me salty?”

“I mean, I would personally testify, but I think your desk would know that the best.”

“I have not hit my desk that much!”

Smirking, Gura moved in closer, “are ya sure about that one Watson?”

“Y-Yes!”

With that, Gura stood up and jumped down front the beds, walking towards the back door.

“Where are you going?” Amelia called out to the shark.

“Getting food.”

Gura was gone for about a minute when she walked back in, already stuffing her mouth with some carrots from their farm.

“Oh they grew?” Amelia asked.

“Yup.”

Sitting down beside the detective, Gura handed her a few carrots which she began to eagerly eat. It wasn’t the best tasting, but any food was appreciated in their current situation.

“So, Gura. What exactly happened while I was out?”

Amelia had fallen asleep in bed, still not completely recovered and had spent all of her energy messing around with Gura.

She had at least waited until Gura had told her everything to fall asleep. Which now left the shark alone. There was still a lot of daylight left, so Gura headed back out, making a trip to their safe room at the beginning of the mine to begin transporting valuables back home. She fit whatever she could in her arms as she no longer had any pockets to use. 

The shark took five trips before she decided it was enough for the day, and began to smelt the iron she had brought back. She was mostly eager to see how the rest of the armor would fit her, so she began to pile the ingots of iron aside, keeping track of how many she had as she did. 

Twenty nine is what she counted, which was almost all of the iron that was at the top of the mine, although she was already planning on returning to the stairway to the underground bunker to get the rest of the iron.

Slowly, she began creating the pieces of armor and slid them all on, spinning around to admire how they fit her. The leggings were what she had worried about the most, as they were likely to squish her tail, but she was able to get them all of the way up, which she began to feel the back of the armor, noticing a hole in the chestplate and leggings that her tail perfectly fit though.

“Convenient,” the shark muttered to herself.

She felt safe, with her only points of weakness being her arms, neck, and face. One thing she was not ready for was how cumbersome the armor was and how much it restricted her movement. The trade off though, was worth it to Gura, so she began to pace around the room to get used to the new weight.

Eventually Amelia sat up, rubbing her eyes and she groaned, “what’s with all of the noise? I’m trying to sleep here- oh. You seriously assembled a whole set?”

“Of course! What, should I just wear a helmet and call it a day?”

“Well, no. It’s more unexpected is all.”

Amelia got up and began to circle around the shark, inspecting the suit of metal closely as she did.

“I gotta say, you look pretty good in armor.”

“I do? I mean, of course I do!” Gura placed her hands on her hips.

Amelia seemed to pause for a moment, lost in whatever she was thinking about.

“Gura, how inclined would you be to go exploring?”

“You mean right now?”

“No, I mean once we’re ready. I… don’t want to mine any more for a while, and thought maybe exploring a bit could be a better choice?”

Gura blankly stared at Amelia for a moment, then a concerned expression grew on her face, “Ame, are you… afraid to go back?”

Rather than speaking, Amelia’s smile faded to a frown, as she looked Gura in the eyes, a hurt expression was conveyed through her own.

“I’m scared too,” Gura sat down against the wall, “you’d think being trapped in a game like Minecraft would be fun, but this feels like a death trap at times.”

“Maybe we should stay in the village for a bit and prepare ourselves for going back out. We could probably make some renovations to the village while we’re at it.”

“Yeah..” Gura began to trail off before an idea struck her, and her sorrow quickly turned into excitement, “what if: we built a wall around the village. I bet the golem has been fighting off mobs for us, but what if we didn’t have to worry about them getting in?”

“You’re seriously up for a project like that?”

“Yes!”

Ameli chuckled, seeing Gura so excited for something. It would give them something to do to take their minds off of the past few days.

“Alright, but you might have to do more of the work. My poor body is still beaten up and I might just collapse from exhaustion after a few minutes of work.” Amelia winked playfully at the shark.

“Hey! You’re just trying to get out of doing work!”

“I don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”

“If I have to do all of the work, maybe I’ll have you for lunch to keep me full.”

“What happened to being too salty to eat?” The detective teased.

“Still edible though…” Gura mumbled under her breath.

“Too bad Kiara’s not here, I bet chicken would taste pretty good right now.”

“You’re just trying to get me to salivate over imaginary food!”

“Well is it working?”

Dropping her head Gura sighed, “yes.”

Amelia began laughing at the shark, who quickly turned and tackled her to the ground, grabbing Amelia’s hand and beginning to lick it.

“Gura! Gross!” 

The detective tried to pull her hand back, but Gura was able to stop her from pulling it away this time, enjoying every second of the detective’s grossed out expression.

“Sorry, just wanted a taste test for later.” She said, winking to the blonde.

“You are so going to pay for that!” Amelia groaned, heading into the garden to wash her hand in the water.

Chapter Text

Amelia removed the armor on her and quickly tossed it aside, not being able to take another second in the metal suit. With the final trip to the safe house done, she wouldn’t need the protective wear anymore, and she was sure glad, since the longer she had the metal armor on, the more uncomfortable it got.

Gura was nearby, having stayed back to get wood since she had already spent enough time with the metal suit on.

Amelia groaned at the thought of possibly having to wear the armor more, but their hope was to eliminate that need while in the village with their plans for a wall.

As the door slammed open, Amelia turned to see a slouched Gura trudge into the house, dropping the logs in her arm in the mountain of wood they had, along with her axe. Already sitting on the bed, the detective moved aside as she saw the shark begin to approach. Gura lazily jumped face first onto the bed, her tail sticking awkwardly out through the back of Amelia’s coat, which the detective had given her since the shark needed an extra layer of clothing much more than Amelia did.

“Was chopping wood too much for ya?” Amelia teased.

However the shark responded, the detective couldn’t hear since Gura had her face buried in the sheets, her voice too muffled to make out any words.

“Gura you have to lift your head or something so I can hear you.”

Slowly, Gura rolled onto her side and groaned, “yes, can we start building it now?”

“You’re ready to build right now?”

“No, but it would be fun to make you do all the work while I sit and watch.”

“Oh come on! The faster we get this done the better off we are.”

The shark made eye contact with the detective then rolled back onto her stomach, this time lifting her head to say, “rest now, work later.”

Amelia was about to drag Gura out of bed when a low rumble came from the shark. Without warning, Gura sat herself up, swung her legs out of the bed, and began walking to the back door.

On the way, Amelia yelled from behind, “what happened to sleeping?”

Almost as if in a trance, the shark kept walking. Quickly after shutting the door behind her, Gura came walking back in, completely empty handed.

“Are none of the crops grown?” Amelia asked, giving a confused look towards the shark.

“They’re there,” Gura responded in a completely emotionless tone.

“Then what’s the problem?”

Seemingly zoning back in from whatever hunger trance she was in, Gura groaned, “I don’t think I can take eating any more carrots, I feel sick just looking at them. I’m a shark, I need meat or something.”

“Then how about you go find some fish?”

Sitting back down on the bed, Gura grumbled, “I already did, there’s only squids in there, and the last time I checked, those aren’t really edible here.”

“No fish?”

“Not the last time I checked.”

“Hmm.” Amelia began to think before coming up with a possible idea, “we still have most of the day, what if we tried fishing at sea? We could take a boat out and try using a fishing rod. Although… that would be a pretty time consuming detour from our plans.”

“Please. I’ll do anything. I cannot take any more carrots or bread or apples or WHATEVER isn’t meat.”

“Anything you say?”

“Please don’t do this right now.”

“Fine,” Amelia sat up to check their valuables pile, sifting around for the string she saw in there.

It was well past noon when the two got out on the water. Amelia rowed out into the open ocean having a small conversation with Gura that occasionally paused whenever the shark’s stomach made a sound, which caused Gura’s face to become even redder each time.

Stopping a good distance away from the shore, Amelia stopped to drink from one of the water bottles they brought, winking at Gura when she saw the shark staring at her, which caused Gura to look away to hide a blush.

As Amelia cast out the rod, Gura stood up nearby and dropped the cream colored coat.

“I’m not waiting for you to catch something. I see some fish already, so I’m going to go hunt.”

“Just don’t drown or something.”

The shark gave her a glare before diving under the waves, leaving Amelia to lay back in the boat and close her eyes, waiting to hear splashes from any approaching fish.

There was a lengthy silence, just the sound of the water as Amelia laid on the wood of the boat. Eventually, approaching splashing caused Amelia to quickly sit up as she was something approaching the bobber in the water.

Waiting for the moment the splashes pulled down the bobber, she quickly reeled it in. Lifting it out of the water, all of Amelia’s excitement about her first catch died as she looked in disbelief at the end of the bobber.

Attached were two leather boots, nicely stuck together as to not separate.

“Really?” Amelia muttered under her breath.

Dropping the disappointing catch in the boat, she throw the line back in the water and laid back down, expecting it to be a long day.

Gura had so greatly missed getting to swim around like she was. Even though she had gotten to do it when they first arrived, this time felt a lot safer with Amelia on the surface nearby.

It had been a while since she had been in an ocean like this, especially with all of the time she spent streaming, to the point she almost forgot why she jumped into the water in the first place.

The pain of her hunger snapped the shark out of her aimless swimming, to where she spotted a nearby fish. It was hiding amidst some coral, which Gura slowly threaded through, slowly approaching the blocky morsel from behind cover.

While it wasn’t the type of ocean prey that would run if they saw her, she still liked to practice her hunting. Once she got close enough, Gura swam full speed at the small fish, catching it with her teeth.

It tasted like… well, it didn’t really taste like any special type of fish, somewhat similar to the cod she had eaten previously. She had barely seen what it even looked like before she struck, although she had been able to make out the features of what seemed to be a clownfish.

It didn’t really matter, it was her food now, and once she was satisfied with a few more fish in the area, Gura began to swim back towards the boat.

She quickly realized how far she had drifted off course by how far away the boat was and as she began to swim in the direction of the distant detective, something caught her eye.

What seemed to be some sort of sunken ruin, mostly broken, and what little stone brick remained of it seemed to leave giant holes.

Her curiosity got the best of her and she began cautiously swimming closer, until a familiar, rotting monster appeared from around a corner.

Reeling in her latest catch, Amelia raised her eyebrow at the glistening book on the end of her rod. She recognized the special band of an enchanted book, but whatever powers it held was a complete mystery so she unenthusiastically tossed it down onto the floor of the boat.

Five cod, a salmon, that book, and the pair of boots were her haul so far. About to send the line back out, Amelia was stopped by a sudden, violent splashing sound coming from nearby.

Hoisting herself up into the boat, Gura flopped down onto the wood, yelling “start rowing back!”

Giving a confused look, Amelia asked, “what happened?”

“We have to go-“ Gura was cut off as something quickly flew out of the water nearby, barely missing the two and the boat.

Seeing the near miss, Amelia quickly grabbed the oars and began rowing away, the coast being rather close with some drifting the boy had done with the two of them moving inside.

“What is after us and why are they so angry?” Amelia said as she rowed.

“Umm, drowned, I think they’re called. I may have intruded into their ruin.”

“Did you not learn your lesson from last time?” Amelia lurched as the boat hit the coast.

“How was I supposed to know that they’d go after me?” Gura said, stepping out of the boat.

“Help me get this stuff,” Amelia said, as she tossed the fish to Gura, who slipped them into the inside pocket of the coat she had slipped back on.

Grabbing the sword and fishing rod that were in the boat, Amelia stepped out. They were about to head into the forest towards the village when a metallic clang hit the ground nearby. Narrowly missing them, a trident was stuck in the ground between Amelia and the boat.

Grabbing Gura’s hand the detective began to head into the forest when she felt a sudden resistance from the shark.

“Wait!”

Surprised at the sudden exclamation, Amelialooked back at Gura, “do you want to get hurt?”

“No! But think about it! We brought one of those drowned that has a trident back to shore, if we get it to shoot at us, I could use one of those tridents it throws.”

Weighing the risks in her head. Amelia reluctantly nodded as the two ran back out onto the coastline to see the monster waiting in shallow water. The two prepared themselves to dodge the throw, and once the trident was launched, Gura quickly moved out of the way then jumped back to put her hands around the handle of the trident that was now lodged in a tree.

“Nice one dummie, you’ve given me exactly what I-“ the shark suddenly paused at the realization that the trident was coming out, seeming to be completely frozen in place with little indication that it would come out.

“It’s stuck!” Gura called the detective.

“What do you mean-“ Amelia paused to sidestep a trident that was thrown her way, “by ‘it’s stuck?’”

“I mean, it’s stuck!”

“Are you sure you aren’t just weak?”

“Do ya want to help or somethin’?”

“Fine,” Amelia said, narrowly avoiding another trident sent her way, then putting her hands on the nearby trident as she and the shark tried their hardest to pull it out.

Gura granted as the two quickly backstopped to dodge another throw, landing just below the first trident.

“Try another one,” Amelia called, while moving closer to get the drowned’s attention.

Once again, Gura found the trident refusing to budge, as she called out “it’s like they don’t want to be removed!”

“It’s like they-“ Amelia mumbled to herself, before coming to a realization, “that’s it! It must be like arrows from a skeleton. We could never pick those up after it shot at us, so this must be a similar thing!”

“So what do we do?”

“We kill it and hope we’re lucky!”

Preparing to move in, Amelia got an idea and began sidestepping to Gura, dodging another throw as she did.

Once she was close enough, the detective said, “catch” and tossed the fishing rod to the shark.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Hook it and pull it onto land, I’ll strike from there.” 

Gura nodded as she stuck behind Amelia, tossing the hook over their heads, but missing the target. Both dodged another throw as Gura reeled the line back in, preparing for another attempt. 

This time the bobber landed on the monster as she said, “got it!”

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Do it!”

On command, Gura pulled the line with as much force as she could, dragging the drowned out of the water right in front of Amelia, who wasted no time in slashing the monster, moving to block another throw with the sword in the process.

With the final strike, the creature fell, leaving nothing but rotten flesh. After a moment of disbelief, the two looked at each other with disappointed expressions.

“Uhh… we’ll get it next time.” Amelia said, noticing the thrown tridents were now gone.

Gura though, seemed pretty disheartened.

“How about we try again tomorrow? I feel like our luck has been building up for something big, and that might just be it.”

Sighing, Gura said, “sure,” knowing fully well that she wasn’t going to get a trident anytime soon.

The two arrived back in the village near nightfall, having stopped to refill their water bottles along the way, and redistribute who was carrying what with their fishing haul.

Spending a bit of the night organizing their loot piles, the two talked for a while about random things that crossed their minds, to which Gura cheered up during, causing Amelia to let out a sigh of relief.

The next morning, Amelia got out of bed and headed outside, picking up a few bones she noticed on the ground along the way. With the monsters of the night having burnt in the morning light, the detective decided to take a walk around the village.

It was just a short walk though, which ended with a heading slightly into the forest. Amelia was just admiring the scenery when she heard a small groan from nearby, turning to see what caused the sound.

What she saw though, caused her heart to skip a beat. Wasting no time to begin fleeing from the horror, she barged into the house, slamming the door behind her. 

Gura was up by now and had been looming over the pile of fish when she suddenly turned to Amelia, “what’s wrong?”

“No time, give me blocks!”

Picking up the fear in the detective’s voice, the shark quickly tossed a few pieces of cobblestone over to Amelia, who waste no time using them to barricade the door.

“Ame, you’re scaring me. Did something bad happen?”

“Well… umm… I don’t really believe what I saw myself, but you know how I said I felt our luck building up yesterday?”

“Yeah…”

“Well I think I found where that luck went, and it is definitely not a good thing.”

Chapter Text

Gura followed Amelia as the detective moved quickly to the back garden, leaning over the fence to see around the side of the house. After a moment, she stepped back, a drained look on her face.

“What happened?” The shark asked, starting to be disturbed by Amelia’s expression.

It wasn’t long before quick, rhythmic tapping was heard approaching from around the corner and Amelia began to back away from the fence.

With her heart racing in anticipation of what would reveal itself, Gura stepped back as well. A clank beside the shark drew her attention for a moment, as Amelia was raising her sword, which Gura hadn’t even seen her grab at the speed she moved out the back door.

A high pitched groan caused her to snap her head back as a small shape finally made its way from around the corner.

Immediately, Gura felt a sense of dread hanging over her as Amelia stepped forwards in a protective position. The sword would be no use though, and the only thing protecting the two from the creature in front of them was the fence around their garden, too tall for it to climb.

It was almost comical, a creature so small would cause so much fear over the two, but it was the unfair interference of chance that had escalated the threat.

On the other side of the fence, watching and groaning was a small zombie, much smaller than Gura was. The creature would normally be a sizable threat with its stature and quick speed, but this was like an entirely different threat level all together.

The monster’s entire body was covered by armor, a shining blue material that caused further dread. In its hand, the zombie carried a sword made out of the same material, small just like itself, with a pulsating gleam barely visible on its surface.

“Wh- what do we do?” Gura asked, her hands beginning to shake as dreadful thoughts of the monster somehow jumping over the fence and slashing the two to pieces flooded her mind.

“We… should be fine with the fence here, but let’s not take any risks.” With one hand, Amelia began pushing Gura back towards the back door.

Once they were both inside, Amelia finally dropped her sword stance.

“So, what now, do we just wait for it to leave?” Gura asked, her voice a little shaky.

“I don’t know,” Amelia sighed, sitting down against the wall, “I mean, a normal zombie is a threat, but that?”

“But it will go away, right? Maybe we can lure it far enough away and then lose it if we run home.”

“That could work, but…” Amelia trailed off, the look of fear that had been on her face was now replaced by sadness.

“But what?”

“When I leaned over the fence, it saw me and came running over. It’s fast, if we were to screw up at all, I have no doubt that whatever sword it has would make quick work of us.”

“But..”

“Gura, you don’t get it,” Amelia suddenly cut the shark off, “we can’t take risks like that. Did you even see that sword? It's enchanted. I wouldn’t be surprised if it could drive that little sharp edge straight through one of us.”

Gura remained silent, she didn’t even notice that she had begun holding her tail, to which she had been absentmindedly stroking.

With no response from the shark, Amelia suddenly asked, “If we were to die here, would you be satisfied with everything you’ve done so far?”

“What? Why... why are you asking me this?” Gura was becoming worried.

“Think about it! How are we going to get out of here? Whatever freak event that got us stuck here has practically doomed us. Every step of the way, once it seems that things are beginning to go well, or we get time to relax, something new comes around to try to kill us.” There was a long pause of silence before the detective whispered something, which Gura barely heard, “which one of them should have.”

It pained the shark to see Amelia like this, so she got down onto her knees near the detective. Amelia though, was looking away, towards the ground.

“Ame, are you okay?”

The detective gave no sign that she had heard the shark, instead pulling in her knees and burying her head in them.

“Ame?”

Nothing.

“A-“ Gura paused, almost smiling at the single sound she made, as she began again, “Amelia.”

Being caught somewhat off guard at hearing Gura say her name like that, the detective slowly turned her head to look at the shark, her now visible face had tears running down it as she sniffled, “no.”

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Gura found herself asking as she sat back and crossed her legs.

Amelia’s eyes slowly shifted around, always directly avoiding looking at the shark. Eventually, she paused while looking straight down and lightly nodded her head.

“Well, umm…” Gura didn’t know what to say at first. She had never tried to comfort anyone like this, it was always others helping her. But, she wanted to help with how hurtful it was to see the detective so distraught. It brought back thoughts of what Amelia had always done for the others, practically being the most supportive member of their group, always trying to help everyone else. “I-I’ll listen,” she said, waiting for a response.

Slowly Amelia turned her head and opened her mouth. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Gura watched as the detective closed her eyes and took a deep breath in.

“I just… don’t see a point in going on any more.”

“What?” Gura felt the despair in Amelia’s voice as a stab through the heart.

“That thing out there is going to wait for us to come out and then try to attack us-“

“So that’s why we have to come up with a plan to take it out!” Gura interjected, though a knot formed in her stomach when she saw the detective’s frown worsen. “Sorry, I’ll just listen,” she whispered.

“You… don’t get it. If this thing doesn’t get us something else will. Do you think there’s really any chance of us making it out of here alive?”

Gura was beginning to feel the anxiety of the situation, but kept her ensuring expression towards the detective.

“I’ve been… having nightmares. Every night I wake up, reliving the moment where I should have died.” Amelia had been looking directly at Gura, but once she noticed the shark’s expression sink, she looked away. “I tried to go along, stay cheerful, be my usual self. It worked for a bit, I convinced myself that things were fine, that I could be happy.”

Gura began to notice some shakiness in Amelia’s voice.

“We had a few days of peace of course, gathering wood along with trips to gather the materials, but I began to doubt things again once those drowned began chasing us.”

“But, you were fighting so energetically…” Gura said softly.

“It’s because I didn’t want you to get hurt again, just like you did on our first day.” The detective finally looked back at Gura, “your scars from that haven’t caused you any more pain, have they?”

The shark was about to answer when she felt like she couldn’t. “Ame, don’t worry about me right now, you’re the one that should be worried about.”

Slowly nodding her head, Amelia began to speak, “the zombie alone isn’t the problem, it’s just the breaking point for me. If things like it keep getting sent our way in such little time, what’s the point? We’ll keep getting weaker and weaker until something miniscule picks one of us off.”

Moving in closer, Gura raised her arm and put it on Amelia’s shoulder. The detective looked over and her sorrowful expression softened. “Ame, are you… giving up?”

“I guess that’s what I’m saying, yes.”

“But, how are we going to get out of here?”

Amelia closed her eyes and moved away from the shark’s touch.

“Ask yourself that question Gura, how are we supposed to get out of here?”

The shark felt a lump in her throat, as she found herself not knowing the answer. “Well… umm… maybe we… beat the game?” Gura paused before questioning, “can you even beat Minecraft?”

The detective seemed to distance herself further, “yes… but what we have to do to do it is probably going to be impossible for us.”

“What do we have to-“

“Go to the end,” Amelia cut the shark off, mid sentence. “From what I know, it’s a floating island filled with endermen. The only way out is to defeat the ender dragon that resides there.”

“D-Dragon?”

Amelia shook her head, “see what I mean? There’s no point.”

“No.”

Amelia looked confusedly at Gura, “what?”

“I said no!” Gura said, her voice becoming harsh.

“What do you mean no?”

“There is a point to all of this! We’ll be able to get back to our normal lives, go back to being idols with Ina, Kiara, and Calli. You’re a time traveler and I’m a shark from Atlantis, how can we let something like this stop us?”

“Gura, I can't time travel here.” 

“Who cares? We can still do this!”

Amelia stayed silent, burying her head in her legs again.

“Well umm..” Gura didn’t know what more to say, until she got an idea of what to do. “I’ll ask you something similar to what you asked me a bit ago; is there anything that you would regret not doing if we didn’t make it out?”

Amelia looked back over again and the two’s gaze locked. For a moment Gura saw something change in Amelia’s expression, a fleeting glimmer of happiness in her gaze as she stared at the shark. A moment passed, and the detective quickly broke eye contact and coughed, “yes.”

“Then go on for that reason! If we make it out of here, I’ll help you with whatever it is you want.”

A small chuckle came from the detective as a small smile appeared on her face, “okay.”

Getting up, Amelia looked down at the shark, who stood up quickly after. Gura was suddenly caught off guard when Amelia moved in close and wrapped her arms around the shark, whispering “thank you.”

A red faced Gura froze at the unexpected hug, but quickly melted into the embrace.

Fully armored, Amelia grabbed her sword as she looked over at Gura, putting on the final piece of her own set of armor. They were going with Gura’s plan to lure it far away, as neither wanted to attempt directly attacking the monster.

Breaking the blocks barricading the door, the two sprinted out the door, quickly spinning to look for the zombie.

Their small foe quickly presented itself, it had been waiting outside the house the whole time. Once it began charging at them, the two began running off into the forest, the zombie pursuing close behind.

Amelia didn’t know how far they ran, but they kept running, hoping that there would be no chance that the zombie would be able to follow them all the way back. They slowed every once in a while to make sure it was still behind them. Eventually they reached a river and jumped across it at a thin spot.

The zombie didn’t attempt the jump, instead diving into the water, which the two used to jump back over and poke the monster away with their swords, further into the body of water.

Nodding to each other, the two broke into full sprints towards their home, more so because the sun was beginning to set then trying to lose the zombie.

The blind dash through the trees was eventually halted when a strange sight presented itself in front of Amelia. At first they thought that a group of villagers had wandered too far, but the long nosed mobs began loading crossbows that were pointed at her and Gura, so she quickly ducked behind a spruce tree, motioning Gura to do the same.

They both drew their swords, and Amelia took a deep breath in, “run past them, slash any in the way.”

Gura nodded and they both lept from the hiding positions. Amelia dove her sword into one that had moved to stand in front of her, then began running past the others, not bothering to see if the one had survived her attack.

The detective temporarily slowed when she saw Gura coming up late.

“What happened?”

“Sorry, I had to kill one, there were a few blocking my path.”

“Don’t worry, the same thing happened to me.”

In a noticeably better mood, the detective continued to lead Gura home, and the two finally arrived right at nightfall.

Stepping into the clearing, the two began to catch their breath, exhausted from their journey.

“I hope we never see that thing again,” Gura groaned between breaths.

“Agreed,” Amelia said, even more out of breath than the shark was.

Gura was the first to recover and began to step forward when a sudden ominous chill began to run down her spine. She shivered at the chill, and was about to say something to Amelia when a sudden horn blared in the distance.

“What was that?” Gura asked.

“I don’t kn- oh no.”

“Wait, what was it?”

“Oh no. No. No. No. Gura, do you remember when we entered a village one time and some sort of raid began?”

“Yeah, but- oh. Oh no.”

Amelia began to panic, “we got out of there as quickly as possible when playing the game, I have no idea what even is in a raid.”

“What should we do?” Gura knew what the answer was going to be, but hoped that Amelia would have a different solution.

“We have to leave. I… don’t want to risk facing whatever is about to attack the village. I’m sorry Gura, but we have to leave, and fast.”

“Should we get anything from the house?”

“No we don’t have t- actually, yes, grab some wood, I’ll grab the beds.”

Scooping some logs from their pile, Gura held them in one arm, her sword in the other. Similarly, Amelia destroyed their beds and grabbed the shrunken versions.

Coming out the door, they both froze seeing an approaching group of crossbow wielding pillagers, there were a lot more than the small group they had found out in the forest. The group was barely visible under the nearby torchlight, and moved into the village under the cover of darkness.

“Let's get out of here,” Amelia motioned Gura to follow, as the sound of bells rang in the distance.

They began running out into the forest under the cover of the night, as Gura suddenly ran beside Amelia, turning to say, “you were talking about how things were hopeless earlier, but now you’re completely ready to leave home?”

“This is what we need to do to survive. I don’t care what happens anymore. If I want to do that thing you asked me about, we both need to survive, right?”

“You want it that badly?”

There was a slight hesitation from the detective, before she said, “yes.”

“Then I’ll be there to help you when we make it out.”

Monsters began to pop up in the way of the two as they dinged out of the way, feeling an occasional arrow bounce off their iron armor.

Eventually Gura spoke up again, “do you know where we’re going?”

“No idea,” Amelia said.

Soon after Gura heard a thud next to her to see the detective collapsed on the ground.

“Ame!” Gura quickly exclaimed, heading back to help the detective up.

Groaning, Amelia took the shark’s hand as she was pulled up.

“Sorry, I guess I’m not as fit as you are.”

“Umm… hold onto me, ok?”

The detective hummed a response and wrapped her arm around the shark’s shoulder, having to slouch down a bit to reach it.

With their slowed pace, they were very cautious avoiding monsters, which they mainly relied on sound to find with the limited light. Eventually, even Gura’s legs felt like giving out when a familiar high pitched groan came from nearby.

Amelia was hoping that it wasn’t what she was thinking it was, but the familiar glow of the small zombie’s sword was visible even through the darkness.

“Run!” Amelia commanded, letting go of the shark.

They both kept running until they quickly came to a dead end, barely stopping before plummeting down a ravine.

Amelia turned ready to head around the side of the chasm when a monster that had been completely silent suddenly began hissing while flashing white.

“Oh shi-“ was all the detective got out, along with a scream from Gura, before the two were launched into the ravine.

Ameli landed on a higher ledge, her body aching from the landing. When she poked around, she couldn’t see Gura on the same ledge as her. Her mind raced with thoughts, most of them were fears that Gura had called all the way down, which she could only guess wasn’t a survivable fall after getting launched by the creeper.

Trying to make out whatever she could see with the darkness, she had a moment of true fear when she saw Gura’s body lying at the bottom of the ravine, right at the edge of what seemed to be water. Dreading finding out if the shark had landed in the water or not, she mustered the courage to jump into the nearby waterfall that led to the bottom, kneeling down beside Gura when she arrived.

“Gura are you okay?” Tears we’re close to trailing down her face.

There was a small groan from the shark, as Amelia let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“Can you walk?” The detective asked.

“No.” Gura whimpered, barely audible.

Amelia reached her arms under the shark, and began to carry her, the wooden logs still somehow in Gura's arms.

Suddenly, there was a splash behind her as the high pitched groan of the small zombie approached.

Spotting a tunnel that led deeper in, Amelia walked as fast as she could with all the extra weight of Gura. She could barely see, but she found a way deeper in, following a suddenly appearing light spice until she fell off a ledge and fell a few blocks into a lit corridor below, twisting midair so that Gura would be the one landing on her.

The detective didn’t have much time to look around before quick footsteps were heard nearby, as she found a corner of the stone brick hallways and set Gura down around it, grabbing a few pieces of wood as she did.

Quickly moving to the other side of the hole, she prepared for the little demon to appear, she was ready to lure it away from Gura at all costs.

The diamond armored zombie dropped down, immediately chasing after Amelia who began running through the unfamiliar stone brick corridors. She was cut off by an iron door at one hallway, and barely missed the monster slashing at her as she headed down another lit hallway.

Having gained some distance ahead of it, she arrived in a corridor with what seemed like jail cells. All of them had closed iron doors, except for one, which had no door at all.

Acting upon a spur of the moment idea, the detective waited for the zombie to round the corner before running into the jail cell. It worked perfectly as the monster followed her in and she sidestepped it heading back towards the jail cell entrance, but not before the creature stabbed its sword forward, piercing right through the leg of the armor.

Too determined to survive to feel the pain at the moment, Amelia used a surge of strength to quickly pull her leg forward, removing the sword lodged in it in the process, then quickly throwing down all of her blocks at the entrance of the jail cell. The monster was trapped in there for now.

Amelia finally collapsed, as she felt a sudden burning sensation around her wound. It was worsening as it was staring to feel like she was being cooked alive.

The next thing the detective remembered was suddenly being engulfed in flames, she was being burnt alive from the sword wound. It was an agonizing few moments that felt like they were being dragged out for minutes on end.

Whether it was her excessive rolling or the fire just going out by itself, the pain finally stopped, as Amelia fell unconscious from the day’s damage to her body.

Chapter Text

Being awoken to the sight of bland stone brick walls surrounding her, Gura groaned at the pain her body felt at the slightest move. The shark had to somewhat shield her eyes from the amount of light that was coming from nearby. It would normally be bearable, but she still felt exhausted as if she hadn’t slept very long. Maybe she didn’t. Gura didn’t know how long she was out, but figured the bright light woke her up.

That’s when she began to hear the erratic clanking coming from somewhere nearby. Realizing that the sound was what awoke her, she attempted to get up, quickly finding out that her limbs felt completely stiff. Sleeping in an uncomfortable position in addition to still wearing her armor had not been kind to her body.

Everything had fallen apart, they had lost their home, their stockpiles, their food, all of their progress. Gone.

Her exhaustion led to the shark tightly gripping her helmet, removing it before aggressively throwing it against the wall. She had never felt anger like this, but quickly took it out on her beaten armor, giving the other pieces similar treatment as they were thrown against the wall.

Gura slumped back down against the wall, trying to calm herself through her shaking hands. She didn’t even know where she was, in the stone brick corridor that she had awoken in.

She felt like something was missing, but as she tried to think of what that was, she found her thoughts being broken by the repeated clanking from nearby.

Letting out a frustrated growl, the shark clenched her fists as she headed around the corner to investigate the clanking, her anger at the moment tempting her to tear apart whatever she would find causing the noise.

Turning a corner to the hallway where the sound was coming from, the shark did not immediately find what the source of the sound was, instead she found what she had been missing; Amelia.

Stepping around a mound of seemingly random logs and towards the unconscious detective, the shark gave her a strong kick as she huffed, “get up.”

Amelia began to stir, but another clank brought the shark’s gaze aside, past a wall of iron bars to see their recent stalker trapped behind the bars. The zombie was tapping its sword against the metal, making the horrendous noise.

The bars were fully intact, the monster hadn’t been doing any damage to them. It seemed like it was doing it on purpose, trying to get attention.

“I bet you think you’re really funny, don’t you?” The shark grumbled.

In retaliation, Gura pounded on the bars, the action doing more damage to her fist that it made in sound. The shark yelped in pain as she brought her fist against her body to cushion it.

Behind the bars, the monster seemed to enjoy seeing the shark hurt herself, which Gura quickly noticed and snarled at the creature, “you better watch yourself, you’re small enough to make a good lunch.”

A groan and shifting metal let the shark know that Amelia had gotten up, to which the detective tiredly said, “you seem angry.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“You usually aren’t like that, something up?”

“Well, this little shit is sitting in there all smug after making all this noise. I couldn’t get any sleep with that horrible ruckus and-“

“It’s messing with us.” Amelia said, looking over at the monster. Something changed in her expression and tone, suddenly harsher than it was before.

Gura watched as Amelia took a few steps towards the bars, noticing a limp in her left leg. The detective stood in front as she reached for her helmet. She slowly began to remove it when she suddenly snapped it forward, making a loud clang against one of the top bars, as well as a little crack.

The detective glared at the monster when it didn’t even flinch at the sound. 

As Amelia looked over at Gura, the shark huffed “looks like you aren’t in the best mood either.”

“No shit Sherlock, just looking at that little asshole makes me want to strangle it.”

“Let’s go somewhere else, I can’t stand looking at it anymore without being able to get rid of it.” Gura groaned.

Along the way, Amelia began to remove her armor, dropping it in the middle of the hall as they walked. It was then that Gura noticed slight burn marks on part of the detective’s clothing.

“Ame, what happened to your clothing?”

Amelia grumbled, “Let’s just say that I found out what makes that little demon’s sword glow.”

They continued walking until Amelia spoke up again, “we left my coat back at the house, didn’t we?”

It hadn’t registered for the shark that she was only wearing her underclothing. Gura mumbled something under her breath as she looked down at her exposed abdomen, causing Amelia to stop and ask, “what?”

“You were right.”

“Right about what?” Amelia gave the shark a confused look.

“Right about this place being a death trap. That we won’t make it out.”

“Are you serious? You were the one encouraging me yesterday about needing to keep going.” Amelia’s tone was suddenly much harsher.

“Well you were right, and now I look like an idiot!” Gura snapped.

Annoyedly, Amelia spoke, “Gura that doesn’t-“

“It does!” Gura cut the detective off, “you were right. Right that after everything seems to be going well, things go wrong. Some sort of raid? Really? Why did it need to happen then? What even causes a raid?”

Amelia raised her eyebrow as she began to think, “From what I remember, you need to be dumb enough to kill one of those weird villagers with crossbows, like the ones from yesterday. It has some sort of flag on-“ Amelia paused, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Gura did you kill one that was carrying a flag?”

“I don’t know! I just attacked the ones that were in front of me. I didn’t get a good enough look at which ones they were, I was just trying to run.” Gura began to raise her voice.

Amelia let out a heavy sigh, followed by a groan.

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t know that I needed to avoid that one specifically!” 

Amelia growled, “you don’t have to be so aggressive!”

“I’m sorry! I’m exhausted, I’m hungry, and everything that I felt gave me safety is now gone!” Gura snapped.

“Everything? What about me?” The detective retorted.

“You? You were ready to just give up yesterday! Are you even willing to go on?”

“Yes.”

Gura’s look of rage turned into one of confusion, “how? We are going to have to start from scratch! What is getting you to go on?”

Amelia’s gaze softened as she looked at Gura, multiple emotions appearing on her face as she stared in silence.

Gura was about to ask again when the detective spoke, “the one thing I still need to do.”

“That? How can-“ Gura stopped and softened her tone. “What… what is it that you need to do once we get out?”

The detective finally broke eye contact, “I can’t say, now is not a good time.”

“Not a good time? Really? Ame I asking you because I need some hope as well.” Gura snapped, back to expressing her anger.

“I’ll tell you later, you’re not… yourself right now.”

“Not myself? Ame I am myself, I’m just finally being realistic, like you were yesterday!”

“But you’re also tired and hungry, just like you said, you just need to recover and you’ll be back.”

“Ame there’s no going back! The odds of this are completely against us!” Gura took a deep breath in, “can you not tell me what it is that you need to do because I need to help you with it? What is it? Knowing you, you’re probably going to ask me to do something perverted for you.”

“Gura that isn’t-“

“Then what is it? What is so important to you?”

“I can’t say-“

“Something you have to do? Do you have to save someone with your time travel? No? What, do you need to tell someone that you love them?”

Amelia’s expression changed slightly upon the last suggestion, and Gura was barely able to pick up on it. The shark had said it as a joke, maybe deep down she hoped the answer would be yes, but she wasn’t ready for that possibility to come true.

“Ame… is there someone you love?” Gura said, her angry tone was now completely serious.

“Gura that not it, I’m not-“ Amelia seemed to freeze, like something was caught in her throat. The shark waited until Amelia spoke again, “y-yes.”

“And you want my help for it? Ame, whoever it is would probably feel the same way, anyone would want you.” Gura’s throat tightened as she asked, “It’s Ina… isn’t it?”

“N-No, it’s not Ina I-“ Amelia frowned, “I promise, I’ll tell you later, it’s just now isn’t a good time, ok?”

Rather than wanting to keep pressing the question, Gura felt relieved, as she looked at the detective who was refusing to make eye contact with her, “okay.”

Finally looking back up, Amelia gave the shark a thankful expression.

Neither said anything as a minute or two a complete silence passed, both standing in place. The quiet was broken by the nearby clanking starting up again.

It was then that Gura sighed, “I’m… going to go explore around this place for a bit and see where exactly we are. I need to think for a bit… on my own. I’ll… come back in a little bit.”

Amelia nodded as she watched the shark head out into an unexplored portion of the hallways. She slouched down and tried to calm herself from the conversion, not expecting for Gura to be so questioning like that. She didn’t know if she would ever be ready to tell the shark the truth.

Chapter Text

As their leftover pile of wood slowly depleted over the next two weeks, Gura was left to watch as Amelia was stuck in the perpetual cycle of disappearing into the tunnel she had dug then coming back to fall asleep without saying a word to the shark. As the detective worked, resources began to pile up and Gura began to put some of them to use.

The two felt somewhat distant, neither being able to bring themselves to talk to the other, so Gura decided to explore further into the stronghold. At first, she only explored the areas that were already lit. In particular, the shark always found herself heading back to the library that was nearby.

The walls of books that surrounded the bottom floor felt nauseating, but the second floor balcony felt much more inviting to Gura. She often found herself overlooking the bookshelves below as she let her mind wander off.

They were able to survive off of some food they found in a few chests that lined the corridors for a short time, but it quickly ran out. With Amelia almost always gone, Gura had made a pathway back up to the surface. In the first couple days, the shark began to kill nearby sheep for their meat and wool. She had come back the first day with enough wool for a bed and had set it down, finding Amelia passed out in it sometime later

Over the next few days, Gura began to venture out, killing more animals as she did. The shark had never planned to be getting meat from the blocky animals, but she was willing to put down any discomfort from it for the sake of her and Amelia’s survival.

Her second goal as she ventured out was to clear a straight path, placing bridges over rivers she found. It took a week exploring slightly each day, but she eventually found their village.

The place was completely barren. Doors were knocked down and the inhabitants were completely missing. Their home was still still standing, although from breaks in the fences and broken doors, Gura held her breath as she stepped inside.

Almost everything was gone from the place, all of their piles were gone. Rather than sulk over the damage, the shark began collecting all that she could while still being able to carry her sword. Some wood, carrots, and an enchanted book she found were all she grabbed as Gura made her way back to their underground stronghold.

When she arrived, Amelia was already asleep so Gura headed into the room that had been carved out as their storage area. The shark was in complete awe when she walked in to see the area had chests at the ground level rather than the piles they had been making. Her scan of the room stopped at a newly made axe sitting against the wall, which could have only meant that the detective had wandered outside earlier to get the wood. Neither of the two were that good at organizing so the fact that Amelia had done it was a compete surprise to Gura.

The shark spent the rest of the night figuring out how Amelia had sorted things and put the day’s findings in their respective containers.

The rest of the week Gura headed to the beach that she and Amelia had previously fished from. Even those it was deathly boring to her, she used a fishing pole to as she looked out at the sea, reminiscing in memories from Atlantis.

A few times each day, she would see a nearby drowned in the water and dive in to chase it. With her armor and newly crafted shield, she no longer feared the things, and mostly did it for the adrenaline rush. Twice during the week, Gura ran into trident wielding drowned, but was saddened when they didn’t give their trident upon death.

After the second week of the two’s routine, Gura had started the day like normal, passing the area where the zombie was locked, which was now covered in an extra layer of cobblestone to stop any sound and so the creature couldn’t be seen. Taking her usual route to the ocean, she arrived about mid day to sit in the sand and cast her pole in the water. There weren’t many bites on the pole bobber and the shark found herself lying on her stomach as she eyed the water looking for anything interesting.

Eyeing a familiar monster in the water, the shark jumped at the chance for some excitement, readying her sword and shield as she dove into the water.

While her armor, sword, and shield greatly reduced her mobility in the water, the shark had quickly figured out the best way to deal with it over her first couple days, so the beginning of the fight was just like normal. It changed quickly though as the monster quickly revealed that it was carrying a trident.

The fight though, was over quickly as Gura blocked incoming throws while slashing away at the drowned. As it died, Gura swam up to the surface to get more air. Suddenly something popped up onto the surface and Gura’s brain took much longer than it should to realize what it was.

The shark’s eyes went wide as she grabbed the floating weapon in front of her, leaving her sword to float on the surface as she made her way back to land. As she stepped out of the water she screamed, “YEEEEES” to the world as she danced around with the trident in her hands.

Gura didn’t even bother bringing back the few things she had gotten for the day so far as she sprinted back to the stronghold, faster than she knew that she could. The shark quickly made her way into the main room, a rush of energy overcoming her as she saw that Amelia was still in the room.

Finally, Gura broke the almost complete silence that had been going between the two by shouting, “Ameeee!”

“Something wro-“ The detective paused as a sudden look of surprise overcame her, “you got one?”

Aggressively nodding, Gura began spinning the weapon around like she did with her own at home.

“Where did you even get that thing?”

“From the ocean.”

“Wait, you’ve been going that far to fish?”

“Well, yeah. It’s more exciting than a stupid river.”

Amelia chuckled a little, then looked like she was about to say something, but held back her words. There was a momentary silence as they both realized how long they had gone without saying a word to eachother.

“I guess… I’ve just been so focused on pushing forward that we really haven’t talked much.”

“Yeah…” Gura sighed. “You’ve done a lot of work, and that’s great Ame, but I think you should take a break.”

The detective looked down at the pickaxe in her hand, no doubtedly about to head into her tunnel, but she slowly turned back to Gura.

“Okay.”

After a prolonged pause, Amelia set down her pickaxe and removed her armor, which Gura began to do as well. When it was all off, the shark looked down at the trident in her hands, smiling at the achievement. Suddenly, a hand patted her head as the shark looked up to see Amelia standing close.

“Have you been holding up well?”

Gura nodded. “What about you?”

“Honestly, I’ve been feeling out of it. But it’s better now that I’m talking to you again.”

No words in reply were needed as the shark moved in to hug Amelia, who quickly returned the embrace. Gura felt safe and comforted, enough to where she momentarily forgot about the excitement of finding the trident. Everything was going to turn out fine, as long as she had Amelia, and Gura knew it.

The happiness of the moment combined with her racing heart from finding the trident let a few barely audible words slip from her mouth as she whispered, “I love you.”

Gura kept holding on for a few moments before she realized what she had said, and quickly pulled herself away. Rather than confusion, Amelia continued to look at the shark with a soft smile. 

When there was no response from the detective, Gura said, “did… did you… umm… hear what I said?”

“I did.”

The shark’s heart raced even faster, it felt like it was going to pop out of her chest. “Why… aren’t you saying anything about it?”

“I was trying to contain my happiness.”

“Happiness?”

“Of course, silly.”

“But what about…” Gura began to ask as Amelia moved in closer.

“About what?”

“About the person you’re in love with?”

The detective stopped and face palmed as she groaned, “I’m so lucky that you are this clueless.”

Amelia could almost see the cogs turning in Gura’s brain as the shark tried to process what her words meant before suddenly yelling, “WHAT?”

Amelia began laughing at the flustered shark as Gura failed to form a sentence.

“You mean to tell me you’ve been referring for me this whole time?”

“Well, yeah. Did you seriously not suspect anything after I came up with ‘Gura doesn’t know I exist?’”

“I- I thought it was for a just a show for your viewers.”

“Why couldn’t it be both?”

“Wait, so you’ve liked me this entire time as well? We haven’t even seen eachother in person that much.”

“Until now.”

“I-“ Gura began to speak as Amelia quickly put a finger over her mouth.

“Well now that the secret’s out, I guess I can do this.” The detective moved her head in and planted a kiss on the shark’s cheek, her smile beaming as she backed away.

Gura was still frozen in place, her heart couldn’t beat any faster, her breaths were quick and shallow.

“Umm… Gura, are you okay?”

Overwhelmed with everything that had happened in such a short time, the shark’s brain blanked as she fainted from the overflow of feelings.

Chapter Text

Gura began to awake to the feeling of being wrapped. The softness of the bed and weight of the sheets were immediately recognizable to her, but there was a different weight surrounding her as well. It was a comforting feeling, one that she didn’t want to go away, so the shark tried to bury herself deeper into the object that was wrapped around her.

“Are you awake?” Amelia whispered softly as Gura felt some of the weight shift off her, as the detective moved her arm that had been wrapped around the shark.

It took a moment for Gura’s brain to fully grasp the situation, and once she did she let out a gasp of surprise as she quickly jumped up. It was a hard movement to do since the detective’s legs had been wrapped around her tail, but she quickly turned to face Amelia.

“W-w-what are you doing?”

The detective laughed at the flustered shark, sitting up before humming, “sleeping next to you.”

“You were holding me like a pillow...”

“Well, maybe you’re my shark pillow.” Amelia teased, waiting for Gura to respond, but when she remained frozen, Amelia’s smile faded to a more serious expression. “Was I… too close?”

Snapping out of trance, Gura shook her head and stuttered, “n-no that’s not it.”

“Then, did I do something wrong?”

Gura looked down for a moment before sitting down next to Amelia on the edge of the bed, leaning onto her shoulder. “No. I-I just… wasn’t expecting that.”

Softly, Amelia whispered to the shark, “then I’ll give you your space.”

“No.”

Amelia gave a confused look to the shark.

“I umm… k-kinda wanted that to go on for longer…” Gura sighed, “I’m just not used to having someone like this, and this is the first day that we’re… girlfriends?”

“I guess…” Amelia shrugged, before a sudden smirk appeared on her face. “Maybe we could go on a double date with Calli and Kiara.”

Gura smiled for a moment before a realization hit her and she gasped, “what will the others think about us?”

The detective’s hand began to comb through the shark’s hair as she chuckled, “you’re too worried about this.”

“Well yeah! This is a big thing for me.”

“Then don’t think about the details of our relationship for now. We have much more important things to work on.”

“Like what?”

Dumbfounded at the shark’s question, Amelia motioned to the room around them as she teased, “is the one of your two braincells still asleep?”

“Oh… yeah.” Gura sighed. “What do we still need to do?”

Jumping off of the bed so quickly that Gura fell over without the person she had been leaning on, Amelia made her way into the storage room and came out dumping the itemized forms of dark, purplish blocks.

“We need to overcome the next challenge.”

Looking down at the blocks, Gura gave a face of disbelief as she whimpered, “you’re suggesting we go there, are you?”

Amelia nodded, “it’s Nether time.”

Anxiety plagued the shark as she followed Amelia back into the storeroom, watching as the detective removed ingots of iron from some of their furnaces before taking an armful to the nearby crafting table. Quickly, the detective placed the pieces creating blocks of iron, then in the familiar shape of an anvil.

“An anvil?” Gura gave the detective a puzzled look.

“Well, I figured it might be a good idea to put this to use.” The detective opened one of the nearby chests and pulled out a glowing book.

“I’m… not following what you’re getting at.”

Facepalming, Amelia groaned, “you can use an enchanted book to transfer enchantments with an anvil.”

“So?”

“I’m saying, maybe we should see if it works with your trident.”

“Really?”

“Of course, you have however many thousands of years of trident practice, enchanting your weapon would do a lot more than enchanting a sword for me.”

Excitedly, Gura ran out to grab the trident she had left on the ground, bringing it in and carefully setting it on the anvil.

“So what enchantments are on that thing?”

The detective laughed nervously, “the thing is, I have no clue.”

“So you don’t even know if it will work?”

“Well, yeah. The whole point of this is to see if it will.”

The shark sighed as shook her head, “how do you know that this will work?”

“I guess… we’ll find out.”

Amelia brought the book over the anvil and placed it on top of the trident. The two sat and waited for something to happen, but began to occasionally glance at each other when nothing happened.

“Ame?”

“Yeah?”

“Is something supposed to happen?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Then why isn’t anything happening?”

The detective rubbed the back of her head, “maybe the book isn’t compatible with the trident.”

Gura groaned as she stepped forward, attempting to pick up the book. As she pulled it off, she struggled for a moment to separate the two items, almost as if they were being attracted to each other.

“They didn’t want to let go…”

Amelia raised her eyebrow and instructed, “do that again, put them together and take it apart.”

Gura followed the instructions and felt the attraction of the two objects as she recreated the removal.

“Interesting.” Amelia noted.

“What is it?”

“It’s almost like they are magnetically attracted to each other.”

“Why are you using a big word like that?”

“Gura, that isn’t a big wo- WAIT A MOMENT!” The detective suddenly yelled, “did you forget what magnetically means?”

“Of course not!”

“Then tell me what it means.”

“Well, uhh…” Gura mumbled, “it’s when... umm…”

Amelia buried her face in her hands, “oh my god, I’m in love with a complete idiot.”

“Hey, I’m not a complete idiot!” Gura then mumbled under breath, “only a partial one.”

Bursting out laughing, the detective beamed, “this is exactly why I like you Gura.”

Amelia’s laughter was contagious and it got to Gura as well. Soon both were sitting on the ground, grinning at each other.

The detective’s facial expression changed into a soft smile as she whispered, “you know, I didn’t want to say it before now, but the one thing that kept me going all this time was seeing your smile every day. The day I wanted to give up was when I noticed that you weren’t smiling much any more. Then I noticed your tail never wagged anymore like it did when you were happy.”

Gura had forgotten about her tail, and being reminded of its existence made her realize it was waving side to side on the ground, which she had to mentally stop from moving any more.

“Honestly, when you gave me that pep talk that day, I wanted to be able to tell you that you were the reason I chose to keep going, I wanted to tell you about how I feel, but I didn’t feel like then was the right time.” Amelia smiled at the shark, “I’ve been to so many places in time and got into horrible kinds of danger that have brought me close to the point of mental breakdowns on multiple occasions, but returning to the present to see you was always my incentive.”

“Ame…”

“I never knew how you’d feel. I was always worried that some of the things you did on stream with me were just for show, to cater to the audience, but…” Amelia shook her head, “we’ve only seen each other in person once before now, so I never knew what to say. It's funny, I joined this idol group to look further into the supposedly mythical beings that were a part of it, but…” The detective let out a small chuckle, “I had no idea I’d be falling in love with one of them.”

“You’re so strange Ame.” Gura’s smile faded as she dropped her head, “But… meeting you had been one of the best things that has happened to me. After the fall of Atlantis, I felt so afraid and lost. I was completely alone and didn’t know what to do. When I eventually heard about Hololive from my interactions with humans, I applied because it gave me something to do. I hoped I’d find someone to have fun with, maybe even someone I could say was my friend, but I found so much more. Ina, Calli, and Kiara are practically family at this point. But you?” Gura scooted over next to Amelia and rested her head on the detective’s shoulder. “You’re special to me.”

Time seemed to be irrelevant to the two as they sat together. Amelia wrapped her arm around Gura’s back as they rested with one another. Neither moved as Gura melted into the detective’s embrace.

Eventually Amelia whispered, “I think we should get back to work.”

“Just a few more minutes,” the shark whispered back.

After some testing, Amelia had found out what was missing, experience levels required to apply the enchantment. The anvil has been moved into an all too familiar corridor and cobblestone blocks were mined to reveal an old foe. The baby zombie was still in its jail cell, stuck behind bars that were once again exposed to the light of the hallway.

It was a very risky plan, but Amelia had figured it was their only chance.

“Since we ourselves aren’t capable of gaining experience, we need to somehow channel it into the anvil. Our best option for doing that would be to kill some sort of monster and hope experience from its death would imbue the anvil.” Amelia had said.

“I’m not following…”

Shaking her head, the detective groaned, “just so as I say. It’s about time we revisit an old friend.”

Once they had finished that conversation, Gura set up the anvil in front of the jail cell, and Amelia had disappeared into the tunnels, eventually reappearing with a lava bucket in hand.

“Remember, we have to get the last hit on this thing, but the lava should weaken it.” Amelia called as the two began to put on their armor, grab their shields, and ready their diamond swords, which they had made from a few extra diamonds the detective had found in the mines.

Amelia made a staircase to access the ceiling of the jail cell, as Gura waited by the lever they had prepared to open the door. Hot lava began to pour in as the monster attempted to hide from the liquid, but it spread into the corner it was backed into, right in front of the door. The monster began to burn as both girls had large grins of satisfaction at seeing the burning zombie. 

After a few moments in the lava passed, Amelia yelled “now” and Gura pulled the lever, opening the door for the zombie to run out.

The two backed up towards the emergency water pool they had made as they readied their weapons for the monster’s arrival. As the zombie burned, it’s quick speed let it quickly reach them, beginning to take swings at Gura. Utilizing her shield to block, Gura tried to take swings at the monster with Amelia, but found herself having to keep the shield up at the zombie's relentless swings.

One of the monster’s stabs pierced the shield and went straight through Gura’s leggings like they were butter. Having been instructed by Amelia on what would happen next, Gura jumped into the pool of water behind her to prevent herself from bursting into flames.

Up ahead, Amelia was beginning to be pushed back by the monster as she attempted to take swings at it. The monster landed a blow on her as well and she leapt back into the pool, both girls now slightly lower due to the pool’s one block depth into the ground.

“We have to hold this thing, we can’t let it put itself out!” Amelia yelled, even though Gura was right next to her.

The burning monster moved in close, and the two used their new lowered height to take easier swings at the monster. No matter what they did though, they couldn’t fully keep the monster back, and it slowly advanced, one step at a time, until it was just about to be able to fall into the pool with them.

It was then that Gura took one last look at the anvil beside them before putting all her strength into one last stab, completely piercing the protection of the helmet as the zombie collapsed, disappearing into thin air along with the armor it was wearing. A strange rang from beside them as a few glowing orbs flew to the anvil, and the book melted onto the trident, which now had a shimmering glow to it.

“It worked!” Gura screamed in excitement as she leapt out of the pool to admire the shining weapon. With her tail wagging as fast as it possibly could, the shark spun back to see Amelia standing in the water, closely admiring her sword.

Gura laughed, “something wrong with your sword there Ame?”

The detective looked up with a strange grin on her face, “this isn’t my sword.”

“Then… what are you doing with my sword?”

“It’s not your sword either.”

The implication finally clicked into place in the shark’s head as she noticed the shimmer on the blue blade. “You got the zombie’s sword?”

Amelia nodded as she stared down at the blade in awe, almost in a trance like state as she carefully examined the shimmer on its surface. When she finally looked up, Amelia nodded to Gura and stepped out of the pool.

“What do you think the book did?” Gura excitedly returned her attention to her trident as she readied the weapon to be thrown.

Tossing it down the hallway, Gura gasped at a line of thread extending out of her hand. “What the…” Gura began to say, but was cut off when the trident hit the wall at the end of the hall and the thread began rapidly retracting, bringing the trident right back to her.

“It comes back!” The shark gasped in excitement as she turned to Amelia, who could only mouth, “woah.”

Beginning to toss the trident around more to play around with the new feature of the weapon, Gura stopped as she dramatically pointed the three tipped tool down the hallway. “Get ready Nether, here we come.”

Chapter Text

The smell of ash burned Amelia’s nostrils as she took in the hellish landscape around her. It reminded her of some of the apocalyptic futures she had visited, although this landscape was noticeably lacking the constant smell of gunpowder that plagued a few of them. Red fog limited how far she could see as she looked around the mostly monochromatic wasteland, only having splashes of other colors far off where an glowing ocean of lava began or a few clumps of glowstone illuminated the ceiling. Nothing from the time she had been trapped in the game so far could have prepared her for the experience that was seeing the Nether for the first time, but it’s vast, open terrain gave her doubts about which direction they would even head in.

Clanking metal slowly made its way beside her as Gura joined the detective, just as speechless at the hellscape as Amelia was. Even though it was a sight to behold, the Nether gave off a hopeless feeling rather than one of awe. The detective could almost feel emotions in the air; pain, sorrow, loss, it was as if the dimension itself had a dying soul.

“So, this is the Nether…” Amelia muttered, taking in another breath of the fiery air.

“This is… the exact opposite of what Atlantis was like.”

The detective nodded slightly as she turned back to face Gura. “We shouldn’t get distracted, we have work to do.”

The shark sighed as she grabbed some of the cobblestone they had thrown through the portal. Amelia followed suit and watched as Gura began to get to work setting up the walls around the portal, her tail slowly wagging side to side as she did. Amelia smiled at seeing the shark’s little movements, making a quick glance at the golden boots that she was given. The two had both donned the weaker metal for boots to offer some protection from the inhabitants of the Nether, but finding the natives was not their current goal.

With a little bit of mining, the two made a cobblestone box around their portal, and retreated back into their stronghold to exchange their pickaxes for weapons. Gura, of course, excitedly grabbed her trident, while Amelia grabbed one of the normal diamond swords, figuring that the sword she got from the baby zombie wouldn’t have much of an advantage over creatures from the Nether.

In their other hands each grabbed a shield, and a golden apple, which they had gotten enough gold from Amelia’s mining to be able to produce them regularly with the help of harvested apples on the surface.

With all of their preparations done, they began their trip into the Nether, well aware of their intended destination: a Nether Fortress.

“So you what exactly do we need the blaze rods for? Do we need to make potions to get to the dragon?”

The detective shook her head. “No, you need it for something else, but I honestly don’t remember. I’m hoping that once we get some I’ll be able to figure it out.”

Gura gave Amelia a strange look. “Is your Minecraft knowledge finally running out? I thought it was infinite.”

Amelia gave her a quick glare. “First of all, I’m not addicted to Minecraft, I can tell what you were suggesting. And two, I… haven’t actually beaten the game before… just heard how.”

The detective heard the second pair of footsteps stop. “Hold on! You mean to tell me that you don’t actually know how to get out of here?”

“Well, I have a general idea! You get the blaze rods, you do a… thing. You… uhh… find an end portal... and then go to the end.”

“Well then what are the blaze rods for?”

“To… open? Yes. To open the portal.”

“And where do we find the portal?”

The detective laughed nervously, “I uhh… think we might be living near one.”

“Wait, really?”

“I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I think that our base is where you can find an end portal. At least. I think it is.”

Gura facepalmed then continued walking, forcing the detective to continue as well to lead the shark.

Eventually, the passing groups of zombified piglins and red netherrack ended and a section of brown blocks extended forward, being complimented by a heavier fog that was blue, rather than the previous red. Amelia took the first step onto the soul sand and felt herself sink into it a little bit. Taking another step forward, the block seemed to hold onto her slightly making the weight of her movements feel much heavier.

“This is going to take a while to cross.” Amelia grumbled as she shark followed her into the new landscape, yelping at her initial steps into the strange material.

A little bit into the journey through the soul sand valley, the two began to hear wails that seemed to echo throughout the biome. At first, the screams felt like they were haunting the two. It wasn’t until a large, floating creature could be seen in the distance. Amelia pointed towards the ghast for Gura to see, then grabbed the shark’s hand and pulled her towards the nearest cover, which happened to be a large structure of bones peeking out of the ground.

The detective was about to announce a plan when something hit her from behind and she turned to be greeted by multiple skeletons aiming at her.

Amelia tapped on Gura’s shoulder to get her attention, yelling “we’ve got friends.”

She had wanted to begin slashing at the boney monsters, but the shark’s trident quickly whizzed past her head and struck into the nearest one, then swiftly flew back to its owner. Amelia could only watch as Gura decimated the monsters with her trident skills.

The shark had a dumb grin on her face as she turned back, “what? Didn’t ya want a piece of that?”

“Nah, I was letting you have your fun.”

Gura giggled then winked at the detective, causing Amelia to roll her eyes. Smiling, Gura began walking closer when fear washed over the shark’s face as she suddenly screamed, “Ame, watch out!”

Amelia turned with her sword ready to see a fireball flying towards her, not having noticed the ghast firing at her. She tried to get out of the way, but with how slow the soul sand made her, the fireball landed nearby and launched her a good distance to where she landed face first into the soft block. Amelia pulled herself up from the ground to her another wail of the floating monster as it took another shot at her.

This time, the fireball was intercepted by Gura’s trident, as it hit it from the side, knocking it clear of hitting the detective. Amelia took the opportunity to grab her things she had dropped from the explosion and readied herself. Gura finally made her way over and stood beside the blonde, trident ready to throw. The white monster fired again, but this time Gura was able to line up her shot, hitting the fireball in such a way that it was sent back towards its creator, knocking the monster out of the sky upon hitting its mark.

Amelia’s jaw dropped as she turned to the shark, who was standing proudly nearby.

“Wha…” Amelia whined still in awe at Gura’s trident proficiency.

The shark giggled. “How about you leave the fighting to me, and I’ll leave the plans to you.”

The detective shook her head as she mumbled, “show off.”

“You’re damn right I’m showing off!” Gura exclaimed, beginning to spin the trident for show.

Amelia glared before a large grin formed on her face. “Well if you don’t shut up about it, I think I’ll have to show off my own detective skills later on and investigate the anatomy of a shark.”

The shark’s focus was broken as she dropped her trident. Her face went completely red and she quickly looked away to hide her embarrassment, picking up the trident before stuttering, “w-we should get going.”

Amelia laughed her normal gremlin laugh as the began to lead the way forward, towards the end of the soul sand valley.

Stepping out of the sluggish material and onto netherrack once again, Amelia looked around to admire the blue forest they now found themselves in. It was much more pleasant than anything else in the Nether so far. She wanted to explore it more, but get a sudden tap on her shoulder and looked over to see Gura pointing towards a dark red brick structure going through a nearby hill; they had found a nether fortress

“Well, we know where it is, should we prepare more?” Gura asked.

Amelia considered it for a moment. “No, I think we should head in, see where the blaze spawners are.”

The shark agreed as the two dropped down onto the walkway, weapons drawn. On the way, they noticed a few chests, but left them since they wouldn’t be able to carry anything anyways. Instead, they began to face a few wither skeletons that they encountered, marking quick work of them while using their shields as cover from the monsters’ sword slashes.

Eventually the tunnel in the cliffside opened back up to walkways above an ocean of lava. The two kept a low profile as they bent over slightly along the way, attempting to not be seen. Entering another set of tunnels, they came face to face with a stairway up into a small balcony carved into the underground, with the elusive spawning cage at the center.

No matter how badly Amelia wanted to begin getting the blaze rods, she knew that they should prepare a little bit more for staying an extended amount of time in the fortress. Nodding to Gura, she began to lead the way back, now knowing the way to the spawner, their goal for the day was complete.

Problems arose though; once they reached the smaller outside section, a few blazes had appeared off to the sides of the walkways. Amelia tried to begin sneaking past them, but the two were quickly met with a storm of burning blaze fireballs. A few wither skeletons were approaching from nearby as well, so the two began to make a run for it. Slowing only to hold her shield out in front to block incoming fireballs, Amelia didn’t look back as she sprinted to the walkway into the side of the cliff.

Suddenly, a wither skeleton rounded the corner in front of her, and she had to quickly stop and begin slashing at the large mob. Between strikes, she had to dodge slashes from the large monster, although she was barely able to evade them as she knocked the creature to the ground.

Amelia heard a yelp from behind as she turned, yelling, “come on Gura we have to-“

The detective froze when she saw Gura stuck in place, a wither skeleton’s blade piercing right through the shark’s chestplate and out the back, right through her body. Amelia’s grip on her pixelated sword tightened as she made a rage filled change at the monster, slashing it to pieces as she didn’t even bother to pick up anything it left behind.

Gura staggered as the sword that had been stuck through her lower midsection suddenly disappeared, allowing blood to begin pouring out. Quickly dropping to her hands and legs, the shark let out small whimpers as the overwhelming pain stuck her to the ground.

“Gura, look at me.” The shark heard, turning her head to the sound of Amelia’s voice, “you gotta eat your apple.”

The shark winced then collapsed onto the ground, tears of pain beginning to fall leaving Amelia to drag her around a nearby corner, along with her belongings. It was the detective’s turn to be the saving grace as she held a golden apple up to the shark’s mouth, who used her leftover strength to begin eating the healing fruit. Knowing it would take a bit to see any improvements, Amelia put down her sword and shield, instead carrying Gura in her arms, with the shark’s trident laid on top.

The hardest part of the escape was getting Gura up the hillside they had dropped down from, but she was able to carefully step her way into the forest and began moving as quickly as she could towards the soul sand valley. Once she reached the biome of blue flames, she didn’t stop moving at all, even once there were skeletons that noticed her, instead she used her body as a shield, wincing as a few of the arrows shot pieced the back of her armor rather than bouncing off of it.

She picked up her pace once she reached the wasteland, and even though Gura had stopped gushing blood, the shark was still unconscious from the shock of the wound.

The final few steps were a great relief as Amelia stepped into the cobblestone room around the portal, setting the shark down to block off the entrance. Hurriedly, the detective carried Gura back through the portal and to their beds, laying the shark down to rest while getting her armor off. Once Gura’s armor was removed, Amelia got a good look at the wound and cringed at how it looked. While it seemed to have closed from the golden apple, the mark was somewhat black and went straight through Gura’s navel, which was somewhat disfigured from the sword piercing it.

Having taken off her armor Amelia had sat beside the bed until Gura began to stir. After a few groans, the shark began to sit up before the detective quickly pushed her back down.

“You need sleep.” Amelia said, not trying to hide the worry in her voice.

The shark needed to consider it for a moment, before weakly asking, “could you lay down with me?”

Amelia smiled as she tiredly nodded, ready to get some of her own sleep now that she was sure Gura was okay. Amelia wrapped her arm around the shark as she snuggled close, smiling as she heard a content sigh from Gura.

At some point in her sleep, Amelia began to stir as she heard sudden sounds from nearby. At first, she tried to hug Gura tighter, but quickly realized that the shark wasn’t in bed with her anymore and quickly shot up to find the missing Atlantean.

The sounds she had been hearing were now discernible as violent coughing coming from next to her as she turned to see Gura fallen down to her hands and knees, in a coughing fit. Amelia immediately got out of bed and moved over to the shark and felt her throat tighten as she noticed that Gura was coughing up some sort of black substance.

“Gura are you okay?” Amelia asked, panickedly.

The shark continued to cough up the black matter and Amelia quickly moved to find another golden apple, presenting it to the shark, who weakly grabbed it. Attempting to take bites between coughs. Gura waited for the pain and coughing to stop before sitting up and turning to Amelia.

“I… I’m scared Ame.”

The detective could only wrap her arms around Gura and hold her close, “It's ok, I’m here. You’re safe.”

Gura melted into the embrace before saying, “I feel so weak, like… I’m being hollowed out.”

Amelia kept holding on until the realization hit her and she muttered, “wither.”

“Hm?” The shark asked, weakly.

“You might be withered.”

Gura’s tone changed to a desperate one, “I… I thought that effects like that are supposed to wear off quickly like they do in game.”

Amelia winced as she told Gura, “it might have somehow deeply buried itself into you or gone into your bloodstream from how deep that blade went.”

The shark was silent for a moment before she began to sob, “Am I going to die?”

The detective let go of the shark to make sure she could see Gura’s face. “I will not let that happen, you hear me?” The shark nodded as Amelia whispered, “I know I’m trying to comfort you right now, but I have to get up really quick, ok?”

Disappearing into the back, Amelia grabbed every apple they had and made as many golden apples as she could, which was about sixteen. When she re-emerged, she dropped the items right next to Gura, who looked down at them confusedly.

“Eat these whenever you start to worsen ok? Hopefully these can keep you healthy while I find a way to save you. Just… stay alive while I’m gone, ok?”

The shark weakly nodded as she situated herself on a nearby wall, bringing the stack closer. “How long are you going to be gone?”

Amelia frowned, “I… don’t know. But it seems those apples can prolong you for a few hours each, so hopefully you have a few days worth of them there. Just… try to hold on for me.”

With that, Amelia quickly slid on her armor, grabbed her fire aspect sword, a shield, and a bucket and headed out the stairwell with a single mission in mind.

Chapter Text

Quick, loud footsteps clanked against the grass as Amelia ran as fast as she could with her suit of armor. She had only a single thing in mind; milk. It’s curative properties in the block game were known to the detective, but with Gura’s ailment, she wasn’t sure how effective it would be. Nonetheless, Amelia held the bucket tightly as she searched for a cow. The blocky bovine had evaded her so far. In fact, she hadn’t seen a single cow in the entire time they’d been there. She couldn’t even remember how long they had been trapped, everything had begun to blend into a blur of suffering.

Despite the dire situation, the detective kept her hope up as she kept pushing forward, Eventually, she passed the border of the spruce biome that they had always known, heading further into a thicker forest full of dark oak trees. Through her rush, Amelia reached a point where she couldn’t keep sprinting and had to keep up a walking pace as she desperately swung her head around looking for any sign of a cow. Her search was becoming more and more tense as she had to sit down to catch her breath. She was getting frustrated at how hard it was to find a single cow. 

As she rested against a tree, the detective began gazing to the sky. It was beginning to turn orange as the sun was setting down below the horizon, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet, not with Gura’s life on the line. Once she rested for long enough, Amelia got back to exploring further, beginning to notice how unnaturally fast the sky was darkening. The reason for the quick darkening was revealed to the detective once rain droplets began to fall between breaks in the forest canopy.

With the pouring rain and late time, it was practically night, but Amelia instead slowed to a walking pace and began to rely more on her hearing than eyesight. All she wanted to hear was a moo, but there were only distant groans and rattles from monsters that were beginning to be drawn out.

At one point, the detective heard a sound nearby and stopped to pay close attention to her surroundings. In her focus on nearby sound she ended up screaming when caught off guard by a flash of light followed by an echoing boom; lightning. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ the detective groaned to herself, her voice still shaky from being scared. Now having to pay attention to her surroundings and the sky, Amelia was beginning to become overwhelmed. Nearby sounds of monsters of the night taunted her as she continued forward.

Eventually, she caught a glance of something in the distance. Whatever it was, it was huge and barely visible through the maze of trees around her, so she moved towards it. In a huge opening was a giant mansion made out of dark oak. Frozen in awe, Amelia tried to comprehend the size of the structure in front of her. She had begun to take a few slow steps towards it when another flash of lightning spooked her into quickly heading towards the building, now hoping to seek shelter inside the massive building.

After some sneaking around the large structure, Amelia found the entrance to the building, which was wide open, almost inviting. White and red carpeting extended down the hallways of dark oak as the detective glanced to the sides before looking up a staircase in front of her. Out of curiosity, she headed up the stairs to the floor above, which was just more carpet lining the halls. Following the wool path, she found a corridor of rooms breaking off of the hallway. As she headed into one, the detective found a lengthy room full of blue and cyan wool, the blocks were placed in two separate piles which the detective looked at confusedly, not understanding its purpose.

Looking into the next room, Amelia froze as she saw a few grey-skinned villagers, all sitting around what looked like a table. They quickly looked aside and saw the detective, jumping up and raising axes up in the air as they began to run at her. Not wanting to deal with the multiple enemies, she began to run back in the opposite direction, rounding the corner and slamming full speed into something. 

Rather than collect herself, Amelia quickly jumped back up, readying her sword for what was in front of her. In her way was another one of the grey-skinned villagers, although this one had some sort of robe, rather than the clothing of the others. Not thinking twice, she charged straight at the foe. As she approached, the evoker it suddenly parted its hands and began waving them in the air as swirls of energy emanated from them. Raising her sword to slash the new foe, a small creature swooped down on her and stabbed right into her shoulder, impeding her attack.

Shaking off the pain, the detective tried to swipe at whatever attacked her, but found that it was no longer there. Floating up through the floor, a small ghost-like creature, who was wielding a just as small sword, let out almost laughs and shouts as they danced around Amelia. From behind her axe wielding pursuers had finally arrived, to her sides were the flying creatures, and in front was the robed illager, now waving its hands in the air once again. She’d seen situations like this before in her travels and knew that it was a fight she couldn't win, so Amelia took the only chance she had at sprinting past the spell-casting foe in front of her.

Trying to step around the enemy, she was met with a sudden, sharp pain in her leg as she was momentarily held in place. A quick glance down resulted in the detective finding what looked like a pair of fangs emerging from the ground, clamping her to the spot. She tried to tug herself out, but the teeth held on a moment longer before beginning to sink back into the ground, enough time for an axe to piece right through the armor on her back and cause her to wail in pain. Amelia didn’t even get a second to recover before she was pierced in the side by one of the vexes. Stumbling a little bit before spinning around to try to catch herself, she was met with another axe striking straight into her side.

Her body was becoming numb to the pain as she stumbled back, falling against the fence railing of the staircase. Weakly, she tried to lift her shield to block the next attack, but didn’t face it in the right direction as another set of fangs sprung up from beneath her, this time flipping her over the fence and dropping her onto the bottom of the staircase below. At that moment, she lost all feeling in her legs as she winced in pain.

The entrance was so close, and she was desperate to escape from the horrible pain she was experiencing. Definitely leaving a thick trail of blood, Amelia began to drag herself towards the door, determined to survive, but each pull brought her closer to needing to pass out. Her shield had been dropped behind her now as she tightly clung onto her bucket and sword, refusing to lose either, and using her closed fists in each hand to continue dragging herself forward. Reaching the doorway, Amelia was overwhelmed by dread as she heard the excited cries of the ghost like creatures behind her.

Some of their hits were being stopped by the armor, but a few began to pierce straight through, slicing more into the detective’s beaten body. Finally she crawled out the doorway, using the last of whatever sanity she had to pull herself forward towards the edge of a grass block in front of her. In a desperate attempt to lose her attackers, Amelia let herself roll sideways down a collection of one block steps. It was quite a distance and she could feel her body getting bruised and beaten as she did, at least the parts of her body she still had any feeling in. Upon reaching the bottom of the slope, the detective laid face up in an open part of the forest as rain drizzled down on her.

Hearing footsteps nearby, Amelia weakly turned her head to see the source and something inside her broke. It was a cow. Right there. Waiting to be milked. But she couldn’t move legs. Rolling onto her stomach, Amelia pushed her torso up with her arms, but her strength quickly gave out as she returned to lying on her back. Lightly, she touched the wound on her side and winced as she brought her finger up to her face, a good amount of blood was on it as rain continued to fall on her.

She started laughing. At first a small chuckle, then all out laughter as she stared up at the sky. If she was dying, she was too busy laughing to tell.

“That’s it huh? You give me what I need once you break me?” The detective cackled to herself.

Her laughter began to weaken, turning to silence as she waited for some sort of theatric response from the world.

“What? You’re not going to finish the job?”

After a few moments, raindrops were no longer the only thing running down her face.

Shouting to the sky, Amelia choked as she sobbed, “just finish it already! Let Gura and I go at the same time!”

The cow stepped close as it mooed, just too far out of the detective’s reach. “Are you out of ways to torture me? Huh? Can’t just finish off Amelia Watson?” The detective then chuckled to herself slightly, “of course not, this game’s too-”

Finally, Amelia was silenced by the thunderstorm with a flash of electricity aimed directly at her.

“You’re fucking dead if I find you here Watson.” Calliope yelled into the detective’s house, stepping over the door that she just smashed off its hinges.

Of course she was the one that was sent to check on the detective, since she could get places easily through the underworld. But that was the last thing she wanted to do, since she had better things to be doing.

The reaper’s phone dinged as she pulled it out to check the message. It was from Ina in the discord group chat.

‘Did you find Amelia?’

Responding, Calliope typed, ‘just had to bust down her door, haven’t found anything yet.’

Beginning to search each room of the house, the reaper became increasingly frustrated at not being able to find the detective.

‘I swear, she better tell us beforehand when she disappears like this.’ She thought to herself as she continued searching.

The truth was that no one had heard from Amelia or Gura for a few days. The first day was just seen as a mistake on their part, not telling the rest of the group or announcing on twitter that they were taking a break. The streams that were supposed to be that day never began, and Enma had tried to reach out to the two, but got no reply.

On the second day, the manager had taken things into her own hands and logged into the twitter accounts of the two, pretending to be them as ‘they’ announced an emergency issue they had to deal with. Luckily, their fans bought the cover and were wishing them luck with whatever issue it might be, which gave the rest of Holomyth a few days to try to figure out where the two went.

Since communications with the two were yielding no results, Enma asked if one of the three remaining members could try to visit Amelia or Gura. Kiara was supposedly busy and Ina had no real way of quickly arriving at either house, so Calliope had been unluckily stuck with the task. To her, Amelia vanishing was somewhat plausible, but Gura’s disappearance as well didn’t make any sense.

“Watson, are you here?” The reaper called, finally arriving in Amelia’s bedroom. 

Besides some screwed up covers, it all looked fine. That was, until she saw the detective’s computer was still on and was stuck on Minecraft. It didn’t look normal though. Amelia’s character wasn’t there and the camera was stuck in a strange position along with parts of the screen being completely screwed up. 

“What the hell?” Calliope whispered as she examined the broken visuals.

Another ding came from her phone, this time it was Kiara. ‘Found anything yet?’

‘She’s not here, but she somehow fucked up her computer before she left.’

‘Anything on it?’ Ina responded.

‘Minecraft’ Calliope sighed as she typed, of course it would be Minecraft.

‘If you have time, go check on Gura?’ Enma joined in the conversation.

‘Will do.’ The reaper typed as she put her phone away.

Slightly curious about what she was even looking at, Calliope tried to minimize the window of Minecraft. Instead the mouse shocked her as she quickly pulled her hand off of it.

“What the hell! What kind of computer do you have, Watson?” The reaper groaned as she stepped back, not willing to put up with what she clearly saw as a safety hazard.

Calliope was about to head back out of the house when she began to feel lightheaded. Having to support herself against a wall, the reaper put a hand to her forehead as she groaned at the sudden headache she had. “What kind of shock was that?” she groaned to herself.

Stumbling a few steps forward, Calliope suddenly blanked as she collapsed onto the ground, immediately losing consciousness.

Strangely square stars were the first thing the reaper saw as she sat up, waiting for her mind to focus on where she was. She could barely see and tried to conjure up a gateway to the underworld but began to panic when she realized that she couldn’t. It was then that she looked around and had to stare at the ground right under her for an unnecessarily long time to realize where she was.

“This isn’t funny Amelia!” The reaper yelled knowing that she was most definitely surrounded by Minecraft blocks.

She was on a lonesome island, with only a single tree on it, and soft light at one end of the island. Making her way over to the source, Calliope found some sort of hole underground, from the looks of it, the shelter was slightly exploded. It was lit with torches though, and the whole place looked like something they would quickly throw together on the EN server as a shelter. It was then that the reaper realized that she might not be the first one to suddenly find herself in this situation.

A strange feeling that had been tugging at her since she woke up suddenly made the reaper feel terror, something she almost never felt. She could feel two souls far off in the distance, both on the verge of death.

Chapter Text

Only being able to sense two souls was an unnatural sensation for the reaper, as she was used to being aware of an entire sea of souls surrounding her at all times. Maybe that was why she could feel their presence from as far away as she could. They were extremely distant, but with there only being two, she began to realize that they had to be her two missing genmates. At first, Calliope didn’t know how to reach them, since she quickly realized that most of her connections to the underworld and reality were severed. She couldn’t access the underworld and her scythe would not appear in her hand, no matter how hard she tried to reach out for it.

However Amelia and Gura had traveled the entire ocean before her, she didn’t have the time to do the same, so she desperately tried to use one last part of her powers; something that didn’t rely on any outside connections. The reaper took a death breath in as she slowly lowered her foot towards the surface of the ocean, focusing the powers of death that were within her, she felt her foot stop right above the surface. Letting out a sigh of relief, she began to walk over the surface of the water, something she had been taught what seemed like an eternity ago. After all, what would a reaper be if a body of water could halt them?

Following the distant traces of the two souls, Calliope began venturing out over the surface of the sea. It was a first for her, walking on an ocean. Normally the waves of the sea were a deterrent that made it almost impossible to cross, hence why the skill was usually used to cross lakes, but the ocean of the blocky world had no tides or waves to challenge her, meaning she could safely walk it.

She kept a somewhat quick pace, similar to a power walk, since it required a lot of focus to keep herself on the water’s surface and going any faster would risk falling in and having to retry at the nearest land mass she could find. Additionally, she could better keep her stamina up that way. She may be a reaper, but she had adopted a human-like body, including many of its downsides. While she had more stamina and strength than most humans, she was still somewhat vulnerable to injury and death, much like they were. That being said, she never had to worry about that possibility since her human body dying would just bring her back to the underworld to recover.

Upon thinking about that thought, Calliope began to understand the possible implications of what she was experiencing were. For a moment, the reaper felt an emotion she hadn’t felt in a long time; fear. If dying in her human form wouldn’t have any affect on her since she would return to the underworld, what happens if she died while she had her connection with the underworld severed? The reaper quickly pushed away thought, thinking ‘this is a children’s block game, what’s the worst that could happen to me?’

The sun had recently risen as Calliope reached the shore of what seemed to be mainland. It was nice to see surroundings that weren’t purely ocean. Letting out a relieved sigh at finally being able to drop her focus on walking on the surface, she began to travel inland, towards the closer of the two souls she could sense. Along the way, she saw buildings in the distance and made a detour to examine them. Raising an eyebrow at the sight of a trashed village she walked along the grass path, eventually finding a much out of place wooden cube. Upon getting closer, the reaper realized that it was a house, and definitely not a naturally occurring one. With no door at the entrance, she walked in to see the place a mess with items everywhere. Something was out of place in the mess though, and Calliope reached down and picked up a cream colored article of clothing; Amelia’s coat.

The reaper was beginning to have questions about what was going on, especially since the distance that had been covered by Amelia and Gura and the existence of what seemed to be a previous house of theirs telling her that they had been in this world for far longer than a few days. Everything about the situation seemed so impossible to Calliope, but in the case that this wasn’t some sort of weird dream, she headed back outside to keep walking, now bringing Amelia’s coat with her.

Further and further out into the spruce forest, Calliope quickly realized that the closest soul she was detecting was quite far underground from where she was. The reaper began examining the surrounding area for any way of getting down, and at first she only found a large ravine, but another sweep of the area led to her discovering a tunnel leading downward. As she peered down the staircase, she prepared herself for whatever she might find at the bottom.

Step after step led the reaper down the staircase, finally reaching the bottom to find a stone brick hallway, which she began to head down, turning a corner before the soul she had been looking for.

As she took a few steps forward, Calliope heard a weak voice speak from the bed. “Ame… is that you?”

Gura slowly turned towards the reaper, looking extremely weak and having bags under her eyes. Another moment of examining the shark made Calliope grow concerned at seeing Gura missing most of her clothing, multiple scars and marks visible on her.

The reaper moved in closer before Gura’s eyes widened as she whimpered, “is… is it that time already?”

Calliope knew what those words meant, and she could feel that the shark’s soul was reaching a point that it would be ready to reap. It was something she’d prepared herself for though. She knew she’d have to reap her friend’s souls one day, as was her duty as a reaper. There was nothing she could do anyways as her shinigami code forbade her from interfering with a dying soul. She could hear the fear and pain in Gura’s voice as she knelt down to be closer to the shark, dropping the detective’s coat on the ground as she did. Calliope wanted to comfort the Atlantean, but her underworldly duties mean that she could only watch.

Unless…

The reaper realized something about her situation. She had no connection to the real world, to the underworld, to her utilities as a reaper. So, that would suggest that there was nothing binding her to her shinigami code. She was free.

“No.” She said softly.

Gura shifted slightly as she coughed to the side, dark liquid coming out as she did. “T-then why…” the shark had to pause to take a breath in, “are… you here?”

“That isn’t important right now.” Calliope had a strange rush of excitement as she sat near the shark. For once she had the chance to actively prevent a death and she wasn’t going to waste that opportunity. “Gura, I need you to tell me what’s wrong with you.”

The shark winced before attempting to give her a confused look, which she didn’t have enough strength to keep up. “But…” she weakly muttered.

“Shhh. Don’t ask questions, tell me what’s wrong.”

The shark blankly glanced at the reaper. “Wither… need… milk… out of… apples.”

It was much worse than Calliope had expected. She quickly glanced around as she turned back and whispered, “is Watson getting that milk for you?”

Weakly, Gura nodded before closing her eyes. Calliope knew she couldn’t hold on much longer. Sensing the direction of the other soul, the reaper stood up, then bent down to pick up the shark, carrying Gura in her arms.

“Let’s go find Amelia.”

While the shark didn’t open her eyes, she slightly smiled, which was all the reassurance Calliope needed. Carrying Gura up the staircase, she reached the surface and began walking towards where Amelia’s soul was.

“You are going to have some explaining to do one you’re better, alright?”

When there was no response, the reaper quickened her pace. She didn’t have much time left to act. Eventually, she reached the border of the biome, passing into the dark oak forest getting closer and closer to where Amelia was. As she got nearer, the true state of the detective soul became clearer and clearer and Calliope began to prepare herself for what she knew was coming. Each step the soul in her arms grew closer to passing and the fate of the other soul became more and more painful to sense.

After carefully heading down a hill, the reaper arrived at where Amelia lay, refusing to look at the sight as she set Gura down behind a nearby tree. As she moved to stand over the detective, she knew there was nothing she could do and instead reached down and grabbed the bucket near her. Calliope stood silent for a moment before feeling relief at the sound of a cow, quickly running over to the blocky animal. She didn’t quite know what to do at first and just stared at the pixelated item in her hand. After thinking for a moment, she bent down and carefully touched the bucket to the cow’s udders, shocked that it actually worked when part of the item turned white.

Calliope didn’t waste any more time heading back to Gura, as she awkwardly held the bucket up to the Atlantean’s lips, not quite sure if she was doing it right. After a moment of waiting, the shark began to drink… somehow, and the reaper let out a sigh of relief. She could only sit back and wait now, giving her time to head over to where Amelia lay.

She didn’t expect the day to come so soon, but here it was. Calliope reached down and felt for a pulse. Nothing. The reaper didn’t want to believe it at first, but here it was, right in front of her. Multiple punctures in the armor Amelia was wearing revealed places where she had been bleeding, along with a strange scorch mark on the chestplate

Seeing mortals die had become something she was desensitized to. While seeing the detective lay lifelessly did elicit some sorrow from the reaper, she still didn’t know if any of this was real. Calliope sat down as she looked around examining the perfect cubes that surrounded her. No matter how hard she wanted to believe that it was fake, her lost connection with the underworld made it obvious to her that this was real. It did also explain why Amelia’s computer was screwed up and why the detective and Gura had been missing.

Bringing herself out of her thoughts, she looked down at the detective and frowned. “I guess this is for real.”

“Calli, where’s Ame?” A weak voice asked from behind.

The reaper turned to see Gura slowly limping towards her, which she clearly should not have been doing. Rather than answer, Calliope waited for Gura to glance past her, seeing Amelia lying on the ground.

The shark froze for a moment, her legs and arms quickly becoming much more shaky than they were as she stood, tears beginning to well up. “No…” she sobbed, limping over and falling down right as she arrived at the detective’s body.

With her current lack of strength, Gura dragged herself next to where Amelia lay and removed the helmet off of the detective’s head. The shark’s tears began to drop on Amelia’s chestplate and Calliope watched, not sure what to do. Suddenly, Gura forced a small smile as she bent down, placing a kiss on the detective’s forehead. The reaper grave a confused look to the shark, not understanding why she would something so intimate, but Gura didn’t even notice her as she slid her hand across Amelia’s cheek.

Calliope sat in silence as she allowed the shark to grieve. When Gura’s sobs began to slow, the reaper finally placed her hand on Amelia’s chest, assessing her soul one last time. What she felt though, couldn't be right. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, trying to focus as she felt the soul again. The abnormality still remained though. The reaper didn’t understand, and checked the detective’s pulse. Still nothing.

“Calli, what are you doing? She’s dead.” Gura sobbed, finally looking away from Amelia to look at the reaper.

Calliope froze as she was trying to think of a reason for the abnormality.

“Calli, is something wrong?” Gura’s voice now had some concern in it.

The reaper looked over as she tried to think of what to say. After a moment she stuttered. “She’s dead… but…” pausing to look back down at Amelia’s body, Calliope muttered, “...but her soul isn’t ready to be reaped.”

Chapter Text

It was completely unnatural for a soul to be seemingly stuck as Amelia’s was. The reaper had no explanation for what she was sensing, but the questions she had were pushed aside when she saw Gura’s arms begin to shake from holding up her torso.

“Gura, are you o-” Calliope began to ask before the shark collapsed onto the ground.

Quickly, the reaper flipped the shark over to see her eyes were still open as they glanced over towards Calliope. She knew that the shark had tried to be active too soon after the wither had been cured from her body and was still extremely weak.

“Gura, you’re too weak to be doing any more movement right now.” The reaper sighed as she reached down to pick up the shark’s limp body. “You’ll have time to grieve later, you need to rest for now.”

Calliope began to walk back in the direction they came from, looking down to notice Gura giving her an almost pleaful look. Seeing this, the reaper gave her a frown, “once I get you back to your bunker I’ll return for Amelia. I need to figure out what is happening with her soul.”

The shark kept her stare and Calliope exhaustively sighed, “Gura, I’ll figure this out. I promise. But I can’t do that if I’m worrying about your wellbeing.”

Zoning out for a moment, Gura blinked a few times before closing her eyes. Finally, Calliope let herself relax as she began heading back to find stronghold with the shark in her arms.

Each pace in her sprint brought a new breath of burning air into Gura’s lungs as she ran down the bridge of the nether fortress. The wither skeletons were behind her as she went as fast as she possibly could to the point that it felt like her legs might give out. But she couldn’t stop, she needed to keep running. The hot air was so much warmer than she remembered, feeling like it was singeing her armorless skin. She couldn’t fight back without her weapon and was completely defenseless as she kept pushing on.

Without warning, a blaze hovered up above the sides of the bridge ahead, launching a volley of fireballs at the shark. She almost evaded the incoming rain of fireballs, but one hit and immediately began burning with excruciating pain. Faltering in her steps, the shark fell to the ground and quickly scrambled to stand back up, but it was too late. She arose face to face with one of the skeletons as with lightning speed one drove their sword through Gura’s chest.

The shark collapsed onto the ground, paralyzed from the pain. Waiting for the finishing blow, she closed her eyes, but after nothing happened, she slowly opened them. The sooty skeletons were gone along with the sword that had sliced right through her, but the pain was still present.

As she winced in pain, Gura became aware of approaching footsteps and moved her head to look in the direction of the sounds, having to fight the pain of doing so along the way. Standing right out of reach was Amelia who scowled at her.

“Ame!” Gura called, trying to reach out to the detective.

“How could you let this happen?” Amelia scowled.

Confusedly, the shark asked, “wh-what do you mean?”

“How could you let me die?” The detective angrily spoke.

“I-”

“If you had just gotten out of the way of a single sword strike, I would be alive!” Amelia yelled to the shark.

Gura winced at the harsh tone and closed her eyes temporarily, whimpering “I didn’t mean to.”

“You know it's your fault!” The detective angrily screamed.

Gura was beginning to feel tears flow as she looked up at Amelia, gasping in horror as she saw the detective with lifeless eyes, gushing blood from multiple wounds through her clothing as she collapsed onto the ground.

“Ame I’m sorry!” Gura sobbed as she tried to reach for the detective, but was in too much pain to fully extend her arm.

Trying to pull herself towards the detective’s body, Gura began to hear a sudden roar in the distance, which was getting louder and louder. The shark stopped moving to look in the direction that the deafening sound was coming from. In just mere moments, a wave of water washed over Gura as she was swept into a current, unable to do anything to fight against it. In desperation, the shark tried to grab onto the detective’s body, but could only watch as it was swept further away into the ocean slowly watching Amelia disappear beyond her line of sight.

And so, she was left alone, out at sea in a scene that was all but familiar to the shark. The nether landscape that she had just been in was completely gone, and in its place was a real ocean, no blocks in sight. There was nothing to be seen in the murky water, no ocean floor, no sea life, no land. It was just her out in the ocean, a sight that she was beginning to miss. But this exact spot? It brought back memories. Terror. Fear. Grief. This was the same place that she had found herself in after fleeing Atlantis. It was the most isolated she had ever felt, and she didn’t even know where to go.

Beginning to panic, the shark tried to scream Amelia’s name, but there was no answer, no saving grace. As she tried to look around for anything or anyone, the water around her began to shift; she was being dragged down to the depths. The water around her began to darken as less and less light reached the depth she was at. With her remaining strength, she tried to swim against the current, but she didn’t get much fight against it before her muscles gave out and she began to sink into the depths.

“Why don’t you join me and your family, Gura?” A voice boomed from the depths. It was Amelia’s.

The shark shot up in a complete panic, ready to fight for her life. She was no longer submerged but her sight was blurry and she could barely hear anything around her as her ears loudly rang. Suddenly, something grabbed her from the side and she quickly turned to bite her attacker. Her jaws clamped down on something as it tried to pull away, but her pointed teeth held strongly into the soft surface they were buried in. A voice yelled and her attacker quickly retaliated, using the shark’s bite to grab her and wrap her in a squeezing hold. Gura quickly began to thrash in the hold until the voice that was yelling was finally audible.

“GURA SNAP OUT OF IT!” It screamed as the shark slightly lessened her bite.

Slowly, the hold that Gura was caught in began to seem less and less threatening and more comforting. The shark then tightened her bite for a moment when a hand was placed on her head, but when it began running through her hair, she slowly relaxed her body and released her bite. The taste of blood filled her mouth as she began to rapidly blink, trying to clear up her eyesight.

“It’s okay Gura, you’re safe.” The voice calmly whispered to the shark, finally being recognizable as Calliope’s.

Gura tried to speak, but found that she couldn’t get the words out and her cheeks were wet as tears streamed down them. The reaper wrapped her other arm around Gura and the shark sank into the embrace, allowing her tears to stop flowing as she attempted to take deep breaths in between sobs.

Eventually, the shark calmed herself, but sat there in silence. She wished it was Amelia comforting her, but the reaper seemed to have figured out what would calm her down.

“You okay now?”

Gura nodded and Calliope finally let go, letting the shark stand up on her own. Looking at the reaper, Gura noticed that Calliope was holding her arm, small amounts of blood flowing through her fingers.

The shark felt completely sick at the sight as she gasped, “Oh no. Calli, I’m so sorry!”

“I’m fine.” The reaper responded before slightly wincing when she slightly moved her hand that was covering the wound. “You want to talk about what got you into attack mode?”

“It was…” Gura felt her throat tighten as she recalled the dream. “...a nightmare.”

“What kind of nightmare?”

Gura thought about what to say for a moment. “Bad memories about the past… and…” Gura thought carefully about what to say next, “I saw Ame die again.” The shark purposely chose to omit the part about Amelia saying it was her fault…

...because she believed it.

“I know this is going to hurt to go through, but we all knew that it would happen eventually. Ame was going to live the least longest out of all of us, even if this is much earlier than expected, you’ll eventually learn to move past it.”

“No I won’t…” the shark muttered under her breath.

Calliope gave her a confused look. “Gura I know you were good friends, probably the closest friend to Amelia out of all of us, but you still have thousands of years in your life. Of course you’ll get over it.”

Gura remained silent for a moment before she shook her head. “Calli, I… I can’t.”

Calliope was in disbelief as she stared at the shark. “Mortals almost always do. The loss of a friend rarely ever brings a soul to a standstill.”

There was a long pause as Gura thought over what she was about to say next, constantly questioning if she should say it, but ultimately realized that Calliope might understand better if she just said it. “What about when they lose a lover?”

“Well, yes. That can create lifelong effects on one’s…” Calliope seemed to finally realize what Gura meant, “... soul.”

There was a long silence as the reaper’s confused look began to slowly change into one of concern. “You two were together, weren’t you?”

Gura nodded as she sat herself back against a wall, aimlessly examining the lifelong scars on her tail.

“How recently was this?”

“While we were stuck in here.”

“I guess… I never expected that.”

“Yeah...” Gura absentmindedly mumbled.

There was an awkward silence until the shark spoke up again. “I just told her how I feel and now she’s gone.” After a moment Gura raised her fist as she slammed it against the wall behind her. “I hate this dumb fucking game.”

Calliope had a momentary look of surprise at the shark’s use of language. “Gura, do you think you could help me with something?”

“What?”

“I brought Amelia’s body back… her soul is still unnaturally tied to her body and I’m trying to figure out why and how.”

Confusedly the shark asked, “what does that mean about her soul?”

Calliope paused before explaining, “I’m not quite sure, but there’s a few things I’ll need to figure it out. First of all, I need you to tell me what the hell is going on and how long you two have been stuck here. And secondly, I have a feeling I’ll need to feel around in the Nether to confirm or disprove some of my current theories.”

Gura felt her heart quicken as she nervously asked, “the Nether?”

Seeing the shark tense up at the suggestion, Calliope reassured her, “don’t think about that for now, just begin by telling me what happened so far.”

The shark wasn’t quite sure if she even wanted to continue going. Amelia is what motivated her to work to make their way to leave the world, but the fact that the detective was dead didn’t seem like it was real. Still, if she could get some sort of answer from it, she was willing to help. And if nothing changed from it, she was about ready to burn this world to the ground, until it reunited her with the detective.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

Loneliness was not something new to Gura. She’d been through the pain of it when she lost her home, but the void in her heart was much worse than she had ever experienced. While Calliope trying to comfort her helped ease her pain, the reaper wasn’t the best at helping with emotions. Worse, the shark felt useless. Aside from occasional talks with Calliope, she was bedridden for what had to have been a few days. Since she couldn’t see the sun, the only indicator of time passing was when the pink haired woman would fall asleep in a nearby bed.

In a depressive slump, Gura had to remain in bed the entire time while her body fully recovered from the damage that the withering had done. While rest was often very tempting, she could never bring herself to let her consciousness slip. She just couldn’t. Not when she saw Amelia each time. When she finally fell asleep, it was when Calliope had returned for the day to rest. For the first couple days, Gura would be startled awake after a dream, but was able to hold in any cries of fear. 

On the fourth night, she awoke screaming, causing Calliope to jump up as well. Of course, the reaper tried to calm her down, which she was able to do. The problem was that Calliope’s reassurances didn’t last for long. Gura appreciated that the reaper was trying her best to help, but she just couldn’t quite understand what the shark was going through due to her immortal outlook.

The one pleasant thing that would happen in their daily routines was the talks they had. It had begun with their initial conversation to catch Calliope up on what was going on. At that point, the thought that time was passing in the real world had never crossed Gura’s mind, but Calliope’s perfectly timed appearance had proved her otherwise. While the exact amount of time that she and Amelia had been trying to survive was something she hadn’t kept track of, she knew it had to have been at least a month. At first, Gura had been worried that she’d disappeared for that long without anyone knowing, but Calliope had informed her of their disappearance only lasting a few days.

Some good news was something Gura desperately needed, so she at least felt some relief knowing that those back in reality hadn’t been without them for very long. The rest of the two’s talks had been more of Gura explaining to Calliope things about the world. The reaper had mostly stuck to basic tasks at first, learning from the shark on how to farm in order to get a sustainable food source for the two of them. With the meat supply dwindling, she was grateful for the knowledge that food wouldn’t be a problem.

The rest of the time was spent watching Calliope adjust to the way life was in the game. For her, food had been the hardest part as she couldn’t understand how a flat, pixelated item could somehow be a filling food. She had repeatedly asked questions to the shark about it, to which Gura had always responded “I don’t know. Just eat it.” Which she eventually did.

It was a boring and repetitive cycle otherwise, and the shark was overjoyed when she finally had the strength to move again. First on her list of things to do was to get some fresh air, which gave her time to examine the wheat farm that the reaper had worked to develop. Gura scoffed at the sight of the small farm, seeing how underdeveloped it actually was. Deciding to try to improve it, she headed into the storeroom to get a hoe and bucket.

Her visit, though, would lead to a desire to avoid that room as much as possible, since she quickly found that Calliope was storing Amelia’s body there. Gura had walked in on the reaper examining the dead detective’s soul again and felt a pit in her stomach as she moved as quickly as she could to grab what she needed and get out. Her expansion of the farm was much more than she should have, forcing her to decimate the grass plants in the area for more seeds, but it gave her something to do to distract her.

Daily routines of more basic chores finally broke when Calliope had told her, “it’s time.”

Gura knew exactly what that meant, and frowned. It was inevitable that the reaper would bring up her request to explore the nether again. She just nodded and took a deep breath in. Calliope wanted to visit a soul sand valley in the Nether, which the shark had gone through when traveling with Amelia, so she was to lead the way.

Reluctantly, Gura stepped into the storeroom to grab an armful of iron so that Calliope could have her own set of armor. As she did, the shark made a glance to the side that she would immediately try to forget about. Amelia laid lifelessly against the wall, the punctures in her armor still clearly on display after Calliope hadn’t been able to get the rest of the detective’s metal suit off. Wanting to get out of the room as quickly as possible, Gura grabbed the two pairs of gold boots that she and Amelia had worn into the nether and swiftly stepped back into the main hallway.

Despite having to show Calliope how armor worked, the reaper was able to understand how it worked. Gura watched as the pink haired reaper removed her spiked cloak, carefully folding the ancient looking piece of clothing and placing it down. As Gura created each piece of armor, she watched Calliope slide them on, finally pausing when she realized that there wasn’t enough iron left to make the reaper a helmet.

“Uhh… there isn’t enough iron left to make a helmet, you’ll have to go get Ame-” the shark coughed to interrupt her speaking then continued, “you’ll have to go get the spare in the storeroom.”

Calliope hadn’t noticed that Gura had avoided saying that name, rather she was trying to get used to the fit of the armor, especially with a particularly tight chestplate. Disappearing into the back room, Calliope grabbed the helmet and slid it on.

“You’ll want this.” Gura said as she handed a sword to the reaper.

Calliope glanced between the blue weapon and the shark a few times before warily saying, “I hope I won’t have to use this. Swords aren’t really my thing.”

“Then let’s get this over with quickly.”

Stepping back into the burning hellscape, Gura wasted no time turning until she could recall where the soul sand valley was and began to lead the way towards it.

“So… what exactly do you want here?”

Calliope seemed like she hadn’t heard the shark at first, instead surveying the land as they passed. The shark was about to repeat the question when Calliope finally spoke, “I’m seeing if the Nether has any function as an underworld here.”

“An underworld?”

“I mean, isn’t that what it's supposed to represent? If I can figure out to what degree this dimension fits into the overall scheme of things, I might be able to figure out why Amelia’s soul is in such a strange situation.” 

Gura was about to speak when Calliope cut her off. “And if you are about to suggest that she isn’t moving on by her own will or something, there’s no fucking chance. Very few beings can interrupt the flow of life and death, and I can tell you for sure that Amelia is not one of them.”

The shark began to formulate continued questions about Amelia, but there was something else that was nagging at her to ask. “So what about Kiara, how does that work for her?”

Calliope seemed to be momentarily surprised by the change of subject, but shook her head as she groaned, “Kusotori’s soul allows her to rebirth, even without having to access the underworld, such as some other beings. Which only makes her impossible to get rid of.”

“You’re still pretending that you want nothing to do with her?”

The reaper glared at Gura, and if the shark hadn’t known Calliope very well, she would have thought that she was about to be killed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Pretending that the reaper’s glare wasn’t burning right into her soul, Gura gave her a look of disbelief. “After everything that you’ve done with Kiara and every time she tells you that she loves you?”

“I don’t remember you being a couples counselor.”

“So you admit you’re a couple?”

Calliope groaned at the realization of what she had implied, then tried to redirect the conversation. “Just because you fell in love with Amelia doesn’t mean you understand how love works.”

It was now Gura glaring at the reaper as Calliope regretted her words.

“Sorry.” She ashamedly said.

Gura continued walking, now in complete silence. Her hand was beginning to turn red from how tightly she was gripping her trident.

When the edge of the Nether wasteland finally met the soul sand valley, Gura paused at the edge as she allowed Calliope to pass without saying a word. The reaper walked a good distance in before dropping to her knees and carefully placing her hands in the soul sand. Repeatedly, Calliope would move to different parts of the valley, reaching out towards the surroundings then making a strange facial expression before moving to a new spot. Eventually, the reaper let out a loud, frustrated groan and trudged back to Gura through the soul sand.

Calliope walked past Gura and back where they came from, her hand on her face as she was deep in her thoughts.

“That’s it, you’re leaving?” The shark asked, moving to catch up with the reaper.

“I… I need to get back where we’ll be safe. I’m… trying to process what I’ve felt here.”

Gura followed Calliope back through the portal, being slightly concerned at the off tone of voice that the reaper had. Pulling her armor off as she walked through the hallway, Calliope headed right into the storeroom and stood over Amelia’s body. Placing her hand over the detective’s chestplate she murmured something to herself before turning and pinching the bridge of her nose.

Finally walking in as well, Gura concernedly asked, “what happened?”

Calliope sighed as she shook her head, “none of this makes sense. I just needed to know what role the Nether played in being an underworld here, since that’s what it's obviously meant for. Soul sand should have been the strongest connection or at least an indicator, hence the ‘soul’ part of it.”

“And…?”

“There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was just hoping that Amelia’s soul couldn’t move on if it wasn’t in the Nether, but I can already tell that going there won’t make a difference. The Nether is just another dimension here, no role in the afterlife.”

Gura didn’t know if she should be excited or terrified of what Calliope was ranting about. “So… what does connect to the afterlife here.”

“That’s the damn problem Gura, there is no afterlife here. There’s nothing.”

Terrified. That’s what she should be. “Th-then what happens when we d-die here?” Gura stuttered.

Calliope silently began thinking,  leaving Gura without an answer. Instead, the shark finally let herself look at Amelia’s body. Slowly she walked over and felt extreme sorrow looking at her body lying there in peace. Multiple thoughts and ideas ran through the shark’s head until she muttered, “if she died, but there’s nowhere to go after what happens?”

“I-I don’t know.” Calliope was getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to see an answer.

Gura sighed as she slowly raised a shaky hand and pressed it against Amelia’s cheek. It was still warm. Feeling that caught the shark off guard as she moved to grab Amelia’s hand. It was warm as well.

“Umm… Calli?”

“What?” The reaper said in a frustrated tone.

“People’s bodies normally lose their extra heat after dying, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how it works.”

“Well… it’s uhh… not that hot in here, right?”

Calliope was now curious as to where Gura was taking the conversation. “Not that I know of, why?”

“Ame’s body’s still warm.”

“What?” The reaper allowed an expression of shock to show on her face.

Calliope quickly moved over, pressing her hand against the detective’s cheek to feel the strange warmth, rather than the normal cold she had been feeling from touching Amelia’s iron chestplate. It was strange for Gura to see Calliope so expressive as she was being, but after a few moments of her pupils rapidly darting around, she muttered, “it can’t handle her moving on.”

“What?”

“Amelia’s soul isn’t ready to move on because it physically can’t. There’s nowhere for it to go, and… I believe that this game world we’re in isn’t capable of handling a soul that is ready to be reaped.”

A flutter of hope sparked inside Gura as she processed what the reaper was saying.

“From there, she’s still warm, which would indicate that she’s alive. But she has no heartbeat and definitely no brain activity.” Calliope thought it over for a moment longer before her eyes widened. “That's it…”

Gura could feel her heart racing as she awaited the reaper’s epiphany.

“She’s not alive and she’s not dead. The game world is prohibiting her from moving to the stage of death, meaning her body is stuck in the exact moment she dies. It’s like she’s somewhat frozen in time.”

The shark’s breaths quickened as she desperately asked, “does that mean we can save her?”

The reaper pondered it for a moment before nodding, “if we had some sort of magic or artifact that could stop a death as it happens, then I believe so, yes. Though, unless you have some sort of special magic power that does that, that won’t be happening.”

“I-I don’t b-but… I think I m-might remember something t-that might work,” Gura stuttered from the excitement of a chance to save Amelia.

The beeping of notifications was tolerable at first, and quite ignorable for someone who was trying to get more sleep. Tolerable quickly turned into extremely annoying when the pings turned into a loud ringtone as Kiara finally rolled onto her side to grab the phone that was buzzing on the nightstand.

Noticing it was still dark out, the phoenix was enraged that someone would dare interrupt her sleep. If it was part of her KFP staff she was ready to do unspeakable things to them, but instead it was many missed calls from Ina. Trying to quickly push away her tiredness, the phoenix answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Kiara, Calli still hasn’t gotten back to any of us.”

“What?” Kiara surprisedly asked.

“I know we said we’d reassess the situation in the morning if she didn’t respond by then, but Enma’s freaking out right now.”

Kiara groaned as she got out of bed and pulled out a pair of clothes. “I’ll fly over to Ame’s house to see what’s going on.”

“Kiara that’s a horrible idea.”

“Then what do you suggest I do? If Calli’s missing, I’m going to go find her.”

“I’m saying let’s change how we go about this. Calli disappeared on her own. If we go together, we’ll be safer if there is something malicious involved.”

Kaira considered it for a moment before groaning, “fine, I’m getting ready then flying over to your house for a pickup.”

“A pickup?”

“Yup, you’ll be flying the phoenix way.”

“Well… if it's a safe option.”

“You will be safe on Kiara Airlines.”

Ina chuckled a little, “just try to update Jenma on the situation, so she can cover for you and Calli. I’ll tell Enma what our plan is.”

“Got it, see you soon.”

“Fly safe.”

Quickly slipping into her normal outfit, Kiara began sending messages to Jenma as she headed out the door, wings of fire blazing to life out of her back as she took to the sky.

Chapter Text

Flying over an entire ocean was always a challenge for Kiara, as covering that much distance was quite exhausting to her. But having to pick Ina up once she got to the priestess’s home and then carry her over the continent towards where Amelia’s residence was? Completely draining. Additionally, Kiara had to wrap her hands around Ina’s chest to hold her in position since the priestess brought her tome of the ancient ones.

Ina may or may not have slipped slightly a few times along the way, leading to a quick scream of surprise from the priestess as Kiara tried to readjust her grip while still flying straight. It seemed that Ina had finally had enough after the fifth time, asking, “can you hold on tighter or something? This is putting me ina uncomfortable situation.”

In response, Kiara let the priestess slip for a moment to which she quickly screamed, “okay! I’ll stop with the jokes!”

The phoenix let out a sigh of relief and laughed, “if it was Calli or Ame I would have a little more to grip onto.”

A groan was heard from below as an annoyed voice huffed, “so I can’t make any puns, but you get to make flat jokes?”

Touchdown was much more messy than Kiara would have liked, dropping Ina right above the ground before tumbling forward, unable to catch herself upon impact. The priestess dusted herself off from all of the dirt that Kiara’s crash had kicked up and walked over to help the phoenix up. The orange haired woman laughed it off, thanking her friend for the assistance.

Neither really knew what to expect when they walked through the nearby city streets towards Amelia’s residence. It was on the outskirts of the town, meaning it didn’t normally receive visitors. With a detective like Amelia, she was the one to visit you.

There was a wall that surrounded the courtyard of the building, mostly to discourage anyone from actually trying to break in. Kiara was a little too exhausted to fly over the wall, but took a few deep breaths in as she readied herself for a wing assisted leap. Instead, she felt something wrap around her waist and pull her off the ground. The surprise from the sudden grab made her quickly snap her gaze to the side, finding Ina’s tentacles extending from her back.

With the phoenix in her grasp, the priestess used her tentacles to pull herself up the wall, lightly setting Kiara down on the other side once she smoothly glided herself over with the help of the tendrils.

Clicking the knob on her belt, Kiara grabbed the compacted forms of her sword and shield and unfolded them, ready to fight if there was a danger nearby. The first thing she noticed though, was the door completely knocked off its hinges. If anyone was capable of doing that, it definitely would have been her reaper wife.

Both understood the need to be quiet at the moment and Kiara stood on guard in front, while Ina remained close behind, having the book of the ancient ones wide open and ready to use.

Whether it was the complete absence of sound or the fact that many of the lights in the house were still one, the atmosphere in the building was unnerving. Kiara, who wasn’t even afraid of death, was still on edge as they began to scan the rooms of the house. If Calliope had disappeared when she arrived here, the phoenix was not willing to take any chances.

Their scan of the main hallway eventually found a single item of interest, which caused Kiara’s heart to begin to race. Lying on the floor was the reaper’s phone with no Calliope in sight.

Quietly whispering, “found something,” to the priestess behind her, Kiara reached down to pick up the smartphone. The Lock Screen was filled with missed calls and discord notifications, but Kiara didn’t know the password to get in and check further since Calliope had changed it the last time she had found some slightly revealing pictures of the phoenix after leaving it unattended for long enough.

They continued their search, but found nothing else and eventually reached a point where they were sure no one else was in there with them.

“Where the hell are they?” Kiara asked.

“I think it would be a gur-ate idea to go check Gura’s house then, see if we can find anything there.”

Kiara groaned at the joke. “There’s no way I’m flying any more today… although maybe a little rest couldn’t hurt.”

Ina suspiciously watched the phoenix head into Amelia’s bedroom and jump onto the bed.

“This isn’t your home and you’re just going to sleep in her bed?”

“I mean, we’re all good enough friends. Sleep feels really tempting right now though. Ooh!” A familiar gleam shined in Kiara’s eye, “you should join me. I’m feeling a little tight from that flight so maybe you can use those tentacles of yours to… I don’t know… help loosen me up?”

The priestess took a deep breath in and then began walking out the door when her attention was momentarily grabbed by the sight of the detective’s computer as she muttered, “so that’s what Calli meant.”

“Hmm?” Kiara perked up at the mention of the reaper.

“Ame’s computer. I see what Calli meant by the computer was screwed up.”

As she looked to see what Ina was talking about, Kiara finally noticed the extremely distorted Minecraft screen that was displayed.

“Shit. What is that?” The phoenix said, placing her hands on the computer desk.

“I’m not sure, but that almost looks like the result of Ame’s raging.”

Kiara wanted to see what was going on, so she grabbed the computer mouse. That decision though, caused her to Yelp in surprise as a shock of electricity ran through her body.

“Kiara, what happened?” Ina quickly rushed to check on the phoenix.

“It fucking shocked me!” She cried, sucking on the finger that she had felt the volt for through.

“Well that’s not good.”

“Ugh. Now I feel even shittier than before.”

“Just go lie down then, I'll do one final check.” Ina comfortingly pushed the orange haired woman towards the bed.

After a moment of hesitation, Kiara whispered, “thanks,” as she flopped down in the bed.

Watching Kiara for a moment longer, Ina turned her attention back to the computer and its supposed shocking mouse. Rather than risk a similar injury, the priestess began to extend one of her tentacles towards the mouse. For a moment, nothing happened and moving it with her tentacle elicited no response from the screen.

It was after a few seconds of confusion at the lack of any results that the electricity zapped through Ina and she backed away, retracting her tentacles as she did. The priestess decided that dealing with the computer wasn’t worth it and turned back around, considering joining Kiara in bed for some extra rest, but quickly found that the phoenix was nowhere to be found.

“Kiara?” She called, but instead of a response from the orange haired woman, the voices of the ancient ones in her head began to get extremely noisy.

It was like a chorus of voices were yelling at her that something was wrong. Ina bent over slightly in pain as she became aware of a strange sensation, as if she was being ripped away from existence. With the sudden premonition of danger, Ina quickly pulled out her phone, trying to type out, ‘help’ to Enma. Each press on the phone keyboard led her to feeling more and more disassociated with reality, making each letter harder to finish then the last.

With a final press of the ‘p,’ Ina felt like her strength was getting sapped away and her vision was becoming blurry. Try as she could, she was no longer precise enough to press the send button, collapsing before she could send the warning.

When Ina’s eyes finally snapped open, an immediate, pounding headache took all of her attention. She curled up into a ball on the ground and placed both her hands on her head, hoping to make the pain stop. Practically screaming in agony, the priestess could barely feel something touching her and trying to pull her up, but the feeling was almost completely numbed out by the increasingly agonizing pain.

It was like her brain was being torn in half as voices were screaming at her in an incoherent mess that she couldn’t make out anything of. One of those voices seemed to be coming from nearby rather than in her head, but the pain itself was too defending to be able to understand what was being said to her. It was too late to do anything when she realized a major part of her was being torn out.

Even though the pain kept worsening, each second passing led to the voices of the ancient ones becoming more and more distant, until…

...silence. Silence and darkness.

Kiara had been looking around at the suddenly blocky surroundings, not believing what she was seeing, when Ina suddenly materialized out of thin air and began letting out a bloodcurdling scream. She had rushed to try to help the priestess but quickly found that Ina wasn’t responding to her touch or anything she would hear. Without any other options, Kiara had sat down next to her and tried to grab the purple haired priestess, but Ina squirmed her way out of the hold. Well, more like vibrated her way out.

Ina’s entire body was vibrating, much more than should be humanly possible. Not only that, but Kiara could feel vibrations of air coming from Ina’s head as she tried to comfort the priestess.

Eventually, Ina went limp and Kiara had a moment of relief at seeing her friend’s suffering end, but that relief was short lived.

Instead, the phoenix began to deeply worry as she watched the ends of the priestess’s hair begin to separate. What were her two hair tentacles now were normal hair ends, the only evidence that it had been there were the orange tips to her new segment of hair.

Feeling panic set in, Kiara muttered to herself, “That can’t be good."

Chapter Text

The explosion was completely unexpected and sent Calliope flying back, slamming into the walls of the cave. She cursed to herself as she stood back up, pacing back over towards where Gura was using her trident to play keep away with multiple zombies. She couldn’t help the shark though, as she was dealing with her own foe before one of the silent suicide bombers had snuck up on her. Another step forward was met with an additional arrow aimed right at her, this one being the arrow to finally pierce her armor. It hit her straight in the stomach as she flinched for a moment, but it wasn’t going to stop the reaper.

With great strength, Calliope stood still as she grabbed the arrow and ripped it out, tossing the pixelated item aside. If this were some average human, they probably would have been running in terror by now, but the monster only seemed to momentarily hesitate. Perhaps it was realizing how doomed it was for a slight moment, at least, that’s what the reaper hoped it was feeling. In reality, the emotionless design of the blocky monster strengthened Calliope’s murderous intent as she stepped towards the monster.

She didn’t even flinch as the next projectile flew towards her, continuing towards the boney mob as the arrow bounced off her armor. The skeleton had been trying to keep a distance as it shot, but it had finally backed it’s way into a corner. Watching it pull back one final arrow, Calliope raised her sword and waited for the moment it was fired at her, swiftly swinging the weapon to deflect the arrow. After that, there was nothing left for the mob as she dealt a deadly blow to the monster.

With a pile of bones now on the ground, the reaper turned her attention towards Gura, who had slowly been advancing through the zombies that separated the two. Calliope moved in towards Gura, although the shark was handling the monsters fine on her own, especially since she had a shield. The reaper figured she didn’t need one with the survivability and stamina of her human form, so it left her other hand free to carry extra supplies, or in this case, a pickaxe for their mining venture.

That was what they had been doing for the past few days; exploring the system of caves that were next to the stronghold.  If they were going to get this supposed totem that Gura had talked about, they needed to be ready for whatever it would take to find it. According to Gura, Amelia had been the one to explore them, supposedly when the two had avoided each other for a bit. That, of course, meant that the shark had no clue where she was going at first, apparently never having been in there before their first venture in. Even with that uncertainty, she had to give it to Amelia, most of the caves were lit up, and there was a rail system that went much of the way down the tunnels.

A minecart chest was what they had been using to extend their trips down into the mineshaft, easily putting the ores they collected into it before carting it up to the surface when they were done. It made things quick and easy, as well as saved time. Calliope knew they couldn’t waste any time as disappearing from reality for too long would probably make it seem like something much more sinister had happened to the three.

The reaper sighed as she picked up the pickaxe she dropped and walked up to Gura, who had finally finished stabbing at the last zombie with her trident. She waited patiently for the shark to catch her breath, looking around the rest of the cave to see if they had missed any ores in the meantime. As Calliope examined the cave, an unexpected sound suddenly caught her attention and she quickly spun to find its source.

That’s when she and the creature locked eyes.

There were very few things that could actually make a reaper like her feel fear. The only real time she had felt fear recently had been when Kiara died and lost her memory again, although she told herself that it was just worry that the phoenix wouldn’t be able to be a part of Hololive any longer. But this towering creature? It completely towered over the reaper, with its dark, lanky body almost blending into the distant darkness of the uncharted section of the cave.

While Calliope was experiencing fear, the other creature seemed to also show an emotional response.

Rage.

The enderman’s jaw unhinged as it began charging at the reaper, who quickly turned to the shark, “we’ve got an enderman!”

Gura tried to ready herself as quickly as she could, but the tall monster was too fast for her to react in time as it sped past and ram into Calliope. The reaper was knocked against the wall and tried to lift her sword up to counterattack, but the monster was already in front of her, punching its arm into her gut, right where her arrow wound was. She could feel her armor denting from how powerful the blow was and physically cringed at the wave of pain that she experienced from the impact.

Mercilessly, the monster slammed her again, this time right in the face. The speed at which it was striking made Calliope lose all hope of attacking back, instead dropping her sword in favor of protecting her face. The next hit didn’t occur though, as a sudden metallic crash rang in her ear as Gura’s trident just barely missed her head. She watched it return to the shark’s hand and saw that Gura looked horrified.

Groaning with pain as she let herself bend over slightly, Calliope asked, “did you get it?”

Gura shakily stuttered, “n-no, it… it teleported away w-when the trident should have hit it.”

It was then that the reaper could taste the blood in her mouth from the hit her head took. She’d been harmed in her human body before, but this was something else entirely, knowing that she was truly susceptible to danger here was becoming unnerving for Calliope to think about. But it was better that it was her than Gura, considering her physical toughness.

She began examining the large dent in her chestplate when Gura suddenly gasped, “behind y-“

The shark’s warning didn’t finish quick enough as something slammed extremely hard into her head. It quickly knocked her to the ground, her helmet sliding off from the impact. Calliope was temporarily paralyzed from the shock of the crash, causing Gura to step in to trust her trident at the monster. The reaper was able to recover and see the trident sticking through the enderman, but the monster didn’t seem to be too wounded and vanished into a purple fog.

Gura looked around momentarily for the attacker, and when it didn’t seem like it was returning, she set her trident down and reached to help Calliope up. It was then that the reaper had to helplessly watch the enderman appear behind Gura and wrap its arms around her as it turned to throw her aside. The shark hit the wall and collapsed onto the ground, causing a sudden rush of adrenaline through Calliope’s body.

The sun was setting as Kiara tried to understand what was even happening. She just couldn’t get herself to believe that what she was seeing was real, no matter how obvious it was that she was in a Minecraft world. Her first thought was to slap herself repeatedly until she woke up from whatever weird dream it was, and when that didn’t work, she dunked her head in the nearby ocean. Of course, she didn’t remember that you’re supposed to splash water on the real person and not the one in the dream, which meant that her face was not completely soaking for no reason.

It took the phoenix a few more repeats of the process to finally grasp that it was real, so she turned her attention back to the unconscious Ina, who was beginning to become hard to see under the rapidly approaching darkness of night.

“Uhh… Ina, you can wake up now.” Kiara waited for the priestess to stir, but when there was no response, she groaned, “you better not wake up and be all psychotic or something, because you really scared me with all that screaming you did.”

Kiara was at least smart enough to realize that ocean in all directions was not a good thing, especially with nothing else on the island with them, besides what looked like a used shelter…

‘That's weird,’ the phoenix thought to herself. ‘I don’t remember seeing things like this while playing.’

It took much longer than it should have of her staring at it before she realized that it might have been made by someone, rather than just generating that way. Eventually, all the pieces clicked together in her bird brain to where she realized that all the weirdness with the computer and Calliope’s lost phone pointed to the fact that her three genmates were somewhere in the world.

She didn’t even know where to start, and now that night had fallen, she considered trying to drag Ina into the hole and try to hide there for the night, but she didn’t know how to even cover the bunker once they were in. As she was thinking of ideas, she heard a gurgling groan from nearby, slowly turning around to see the outline of something approaching under the moonlight. Seeing this, she tried to reach down for her belt and weapons, but found that they weren’t there. To her, this was especially terrifying since it meant she couldn’t return to her true phoenix form. It was then that she understood that she either had to run or hide.

Choosing to run, she moved quickly to find Ina’s unconscious body. After tripping over the poor priestess, she reached down to carefully grab onto her, taking a deep breath as she prepared to fly again, even with how tired her body was from all of the flying she had already done.

With one powerful flap of her flaming wings, she took to the sky, holding onto Ina as tightly as she could. Choosing a direction at random, she began flying straight out, but found it somewhat hard to focus from how much flying she had done and how little sleep she had gotten the night before. Her only hope was that she could find the others and get Ina some help, because there was no way in hell that she would know what to do.

Over time, it became harder to focus and she became drowsier, but she wouldn’t let herself succumb to sleep that easily. Instead, she looked down at Ina, who was illuminated by a soft, orange glow emanating from the phoenix’s wings. Ina’s expression was peaceful as she slept, and Kiara couldn't deny that the priestess looked quite attractive under the soft light, ‘but nowhere near as attractive as Calli,’ she told herself.

The tiredness only became worse over time, to the point where Kiara was beginning to hear strange whisper-like sounds. At first, she cursed her tired brain for playing tricks on her until a deep pain sunk into her bare back and she yelped in pain, letting Ina slip in the process. Quickly, she began to dive towards the water, scooping the priestess back up and began slowing her rapid descent, just barely missing plunging into the water.

Putting as much effort into flapping the wings on her back as she could, she started gaining altitude again. As she ascended, Kiara turned aside after hearing something to see a pair of glowing green eyes swooping past her…

and then another …

...and another.

The enderman had turned its attention towards Gura now, which gave Calliope the chance to roll to the side and grab her sword with her newfound surge of strength. As she ran up behind it, she readied her sword as if she were going to use her scythe to decapitate a foe. A strong slash struck at the monster’s neck and it screamed in response, swinging around to knock Calliope back, but the reaper merely slid along the ground, smirking as she remained steady.

Seeing this, the enderman reached down and picked up a block of gravel that lined the floor. If it was a fight it wanted, Calliope was going to give it that fight.

Rather than immediately charging at it again, she let it make the first move. The monster quickly sprinted towards her, moving the block of gravel as a low swing at her. The thing was that Calliope had seen countless approaches like this one, fighting other mythological beings in the past that were refusing to die when it was their time. With that knowledge, the reaper barely dodged the bash and counterattacked with a decisive sword stab. Momentarily, the enderman remained through the sword, but it eventually collapsed, leaving behind a dark blue pearl as it did.

“I’m up!” Gura yelled, ready to get into the fight. When she realized that the fight was over, her cheeks turned red with embarrassment. “Oh… you did it…”

The reaper smirked for a moment before the burst of energy she had gotten finally wore off and the damage that had been done to her body finally caught up with her, causing her to drop to her knees.

“Calli?” Gura rushed over, bending down to meet the reaper’s eyes.

“I’m fine.” She said, hiding the pain she was experiencing.

Calliope mustered the strength to stand up but before she could attempt to begin walking, she began experiencing a sensation that she hadn't fully realized was there the whole time. As much as she wished that it couldn’t be real, there was no mistaking the presence of two new souls far in the distance.

Gura clearly saw the reaper’s eyes widen, jokingly asking, “jeez Calli, did you have some asacoco recently?”

Calliope’s expression didn’t change though as she muttered in a serious tone, “someone else it here.”

Gura was confused at first, asking, “what does that mean?”

“I can sense two other souls in the distance.”

Gura froze as she realized what that most likely meant. “You aren’t suggesting…”

“It‘s probably them.” Calliope thought about it for a moment before saying, “I didn’t think they’d come looking for me so quickly...”

“Well, where are they?”

Calliope was about to speak, but a new wave of pain stuck her as she collapsed backward and groaned in pain.

“Calli, are you okay?” Gura worriedly asked.

Groaning, the reaper spoke, “I just need some rest, can you move fine?”

“Yeah, the enderman didn’t hurt me too bad from that throw.”

Calliope nodded, “then you need to go find Kiara.”

“Me? You’re the one that can sense them!”

“I’m not very used to being…” the reaper paused at a wince of pain, “...in this much pain in my human body, so there’s no way I could get anywhere right now.”

“Bu-“ Gura began to speak.

“No. Just listen. They have to be over the ocean, that’s where I arrived and that’s where it seems you guys did as well. You’re an amazing swimmer, so you’ll have the best chance of finding them on the ocean.”

Gura nodded as she seemed to think about it for a moment, “ok, just… try to get back to the stronghold before you rest.”

Calliope faked a smile, “don’t worry about me.”

Gura frowned for a moment, but began heading up the cave tunnel towards the stronghold. Now that she was alone, Calliope sat herself down to rest along the wall. Her best hope was that Kiara or Ina would know where to find one of these totems of undying that Gura had talked about, since the shark only knew that they existed, not where to find them.

Kiara had to begin taking evasive flight patterns as she flew to avoid the phantoms that were chasing her, but they kept catching up and somehow biting her. It was hurting a lot, but she continued to use her body as a shield for the priestess. Eventually, she began using her altitude to her advantage, beginning to descend so that she could glide right above the water’s surface. With there being no point looking for land while the flying monsters were on her tail, she kept trying to outmaneuver them, but they were horribly persistent. In between dives, she would attempt to gain altitude again, gaining some distance each time. The problem was that her strength was beginning to run out as she was losing the ability to gain more altitude, instead having to stop diving while she was still high up.

She lasted a few minutes longer before she couldn’t keep it up any longer and desperately looked around to find any landmass. For just barely long enough, she was able to stay airborne in order to spot a tiny island. She wasn’t able to fly any longer, but was still high enough to where the free fall she was in was now most likely deadly.

She had the option of landing in the water and Ina most likely drowning because she wouldn’t have the strength to pull the priestess out of the water, or landing on the ground and herself most likely dying. Of course, she used the last of her strength to angle towards the land, turning midair to prepare to act as somewhat of a cushion for Ina.

Kiara closed her eyes as the seconds ticked by, and finally, the impact arrived, and with it, brought immediate darkness.

Gura had just barely been able to catch sight of the falling embers as she saw the phoenix falling straight towards a nearby island. Trying to go as fast as she could, Gura swam towards the small landmass. She had made the right choice in leaving her armor behind so she could swim much faster, only having brought her trident for any possible danger, which Kiara seemed to have attracted. 

Right as she breached the surface near the island she heard the phoenix’s impact and the sound made her feel physically sick. It sounded like Kiara had broken every bone in her body from the impact, although it was too dark for the shark to see how bad it really was.

Instead, she turned to face the oncoming sounds of winged monsters. Realizing what they exactly were, she began throwing her trident at them as they dove at her, carefully moving out of the way of their swoops at her.

When there was only one left, it had almost got a hit on the shark, but Gura perfectly timed the return of her trident with a lightning fast thrust forward to impale the phantom, killing it immediately.

As she was left panting to catch her breath, Gura turned and noticed that there were two bodies there. By the sound of the crash, she didn’t know if either had survived. Feeling her stomach drop at the thought that there might be more lives this game had claimed so far, she bent down to examine what seemed to be Ina’s body, but before she could do any examination of the priestess though, a spark from nearby caught her attention.

Right before the shark’s very eyes, Kiara’s body burst into flames, and she could only watch as the fire engulfed the phoenix.

Chapter Text

The ancient ones tried to stay connected with Ina for as long as they could, but eventually even they couldn’t preserve their bond with the priestess through the dimensional barrier. With her consciousness halfway between the real world and wherever her body was, the ancient ones trying to hold onto Ina for as long as possible was only draining the priestess’s strength. She had no idea how long she was in that stalemate of the ancient ones trying to pull her back into reality while whatever barrier separated them impeded any progress, but she was too weak to be able to help in any way. When their magical bond finally broke, it wasn’t out of the ancient ones giving up, it was in order to not tear the priestess’s mind in half.

It was like a stretched rubber band finally snapping back. Some of the magic that the ancient ones had tried to use suddenly rushed through Ina as the connection severed. It was an instant awakening from the extended slumber she had been trapped in, creating a large burst of energy the moment her eyes shot open.

The last thing she expected though, was to find herself in a free fall, looking upward to see an intensely illuminated light above her that contrasted the surrounding night sky. For a few moments of falling, she used the light as a focal point since she didn’t know what else to do without any power left, but the light quickly faded and Ina was left falling in the dark.

Then was the time Ina began to scream as she shut her eyes, not knowing how much further she had left to fall. Bracing for impact, the priestess was completely caught off guard by a sudden stop, slowly opening her eyes to find herself in someone’s arms.

“Ina, are you okay?” A familiar voice asked as they tried to recover from having caught the falling priestess.

She recognized that voice from anywhere, looking up at the outline of the shark. “Yeah… I guess I couldn’t help but fall for you.” In reality, Ina had completely forgotten how strong the shark was for her size.

Gura audibly groaned at the priestess’s joke, complaining, “you just fell from the sky and you’re still gonna make jokes like that?”

Ina laughed it off, waiting a moment longer before asking, “by the way… where exactly are we?”

The shark sighed loudly, “I’ll explain later, just… can you walk for now?”

Throughout the entire time the conversation had been going, Ina hadn’t realized just how sore her body was. It was almost as if she had taken a harsh beating while she was unconscious. “I think my legs will give out under me if I try to walk.”

“Then, I’ll try to hand you back to…” Gura trailed off as she began to look to the sky. “Where’d Kiara go?”

Having completely forgotten about the phoenix, Ina began to worry upon realizing she hadn’t seen the orange haired woman yet. “Uhh… was she with you recently?”

“Yeah, she was flying while she carried you… there was like a strange sound, then I heard you screaming.”

Ina chuckled, “did it not occur to her that just carrying me on the ground would have been easier than trying to fly?”

“First of all this is a serious situation,” Gura retorted as she began walking, “and secondly that whole ground travel thing wouldn’t quite work out for her right now.”

“Wouldn’t work out?” Ina questioned, but received no response as the shark suddenly gasped and ran forward, carrying the priestess as she did.

Ina turned her head to see what Gura had seen, noting the glowing purple flames that were in the distance. As they approached the flames seemed to engulf the area. While something important seemed to be nearby, Ina couldn’t help but be distracted as there hadn't been enough light until now for her to see that the terrain around her was unnaturally blocky. She didn’t get time to question it though, as Gura stepped carefully around some of the purple flames and set the priestess down to rush over to a large mass in front of the two.

It took a moment of staring at what was before her for Ina to realize that the large mass wasn’t part of the surroundings, but a massive creature.

“Kiara…” she muttered under her breath.

Quickly, the priestess made her way up to join Gura and found herself breathless at the sight before her. She had never expected to see Kiara’s true phoenix form, even at times forgetting that the bottom left woman was actually a creature of myth. If she had been on fire before, she had been extinguished now, which left her beautiful shades of orange and green feathers on display under the ominous purple light of the fires.

Purple.

It finally sank into the priestess that she was the cause of the strange color of the flames. The magic explosion that had originated from her must have hit Kiara as she was falling, which explained why she had been airborne in the first place.

Ina felt her throat tighten as she muttered under her breath, “I’m sorry Kiara.”

“Why are you sorry?” Gura confusedly asked.

“I… I did this.”

“You did this?” 

“I couldn’t control it… I-“ Ina was suddenly cut off as the phoenix began to shift, moving to get up in front of the two.

As Kiara stood over the two, she suddenly fell sideways, extending a wing to try to catch her large body.

“I’m… so sorry Kiara, I-” Ina stopped as the words caught in her throat.

The phoenix acted like she didn’t hear Ina, instead leaning down towards the ground in a strange matter. At first, it seemed like the bird was pained, but suddenly fire sparked to life on the back of Kiara’s wings, washing over the area with a new orange light. Gura was the first to do anything, stepping forwards towards the large phoenix.

“Are we supposed to get on?”

Silently, the phoenix bowed her head and Gura assumed that she was correct, quickly climbing up onto the back of the bird. Ina was frozen in place though, like a deer in the headlights.

“Stop wasting time and get on.” An annoyed voice called from the back of the phoenix.

Ina swallowed enviously as she stepped up towards Kiara. She didn’t understand why the phoenix wasn’t saying anything. Or could she not? It wasn’t much like Kiara to instantly forgive, especially after being knocked out of the sky, but the phoenix seemed to be in a hurry to get them airborne. 

Ina slowly stepped forward towards the bird, softly placing her hand against Kiara’s phoenix body. The action brought her to realize why she hadn’t complained about being blasted out of the sky; she was dying. With the amount of magic that had been released upon Ina’s awakening, most of it had found its way into Kiara’s body. It was shocking to Ina that with all of the magic that she could sense within the phoenix, Kiara was still managing to hold onto her strength and remain alive.

Silently, the priestess whispered, “I… I’m sorry.”

Taking a deep breath in, Ina climbed up onto the phoenix’s back and the bird began flapping her wings, flying in the direction that Gura directed her.

Kiara eventually touched down right outside of a torchlit clearing. While it had taken a lengthy amount of time to get there due to Gura not being able to tell directions from the night’s cloak of darkness, they finally arrived… somewhere.

Ina and the shark slid down from the phoenix’s back and the priestess began limping on her sore legs towards the direction Gura walked off in. A few steps into the walk, Ina turned back and looked towards Kiara. The phoenix was still completely silent and her flames around her wings had died out. Instead, the bird was looking past the priestess and Ina followed her gaze to see Calliope walking towards them.

“Kiara...” the reaper muttered under her breath as she walked up towards the phoenix. “I never thought I’d see you like this again.”

Rather than seeing where Gura went, Ina limped over to join Calliope in front of the large bird. There was a strange silence in the air as the two immortal beings simply stared at each other.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Calliope began speaking, “I know, I can feel it too. How long do you think you can keep holding on?”

Ina was now quite intrigued at what was going on as she began glancing between the two beings, waiting for the silence to be broken again.

It was the reaper that spoke up again. “That’s not very long. A true regeneration here might not be possible, and I’m not going to put your life on the line for that.”

Finally, Ina realized what was going on and confusedly asked, “are you talking to her?”

Calliope looked to her side with an expression that made it seem like she hadn’t known Ina had been there the whole time. “Uhh… yeah. Kusotori and I know how to communicate with each other while in our true forms.”

“But… she’s not making any sound…”

“To you, yes. But…” the reaper was interrupted as something suddenly struck her. 

An arrow had lodged itself into her shoulder, and instead of reacting in pain, Calliope gave a murderous glance in the direction that the projectile had come from. Right in the edge of the torch lit field was a skeleton, and before the reaper could react, Kiara suddenly stood up. The phoenix walked over and in one swift motion, crushed the mob with her bird legs before strutting back over to roost near Calliope.

The pink haired reaper gave a slight nod of thanks before turning to Ina. “I need to talk some more with Kusotori, so you think you could try to comfort Gura?”

“Comfort?”

The reaper sighed as her facial expression shifted into a frown. Ina could immediately tell that she was in for a long explanation.

“At least Kiara and Ina are here now.” Gura could be heard from the room Calliope had told her to expect the shark to be in.

Ina took a deep breath in as she prepared herself to see the other thing that the reaper had warned her of; Amelia’s lifeless body. She stepped in and her stomach sank at the actual sight of the detective. It was sickening to see the wounds and gashes that were in her armor and she had to look away for a moment to collect herself.

“...but I promise that I’ll get you back soon.” Gura continued her one-sided conversation with the lifeless Amelia, which Ina was warned had become a daily habit for the shark.

The priestess collected herself as she concernedly asked, “Gura?”

The shark was silent for a moment before getting up and walking over to Ina. Rather than saying anything like the priestess had expected, the shark’s smile slowly faded into a frown. Tears began to well up as Gura unexpectedly moved in close and wrapped her arms around Ina. After a moment of shock from it, Ina hesitantly returned the embrace. Her heart melting when the shark sunk further into the hug and she realized how touch starved Gura really was. Ina temporarily forgot about her worries for Kiara and let her gloved hand rub the back of the shark.

Ina softly reassured the shark, “I’m here for you.” Slowly nodding, Gura took a deep breath in, finally separating as she looked back at Amelia. “You seemed so composed earlier when you were bringing us back, where’d that go?” Ina softly asked.

“I… I’ve begun to get tunnel vision in situations like that. I can’t stand seeing anyone get hurt any more.”

“Because of Ame?”

The question definitely hurt the shark to hear, but she nodded. Ina smiled as she moved her hand to the shark’s cheek, wiping a tear off with her glove as she did.

“Thank you.”

“I'm the one that should be thanking you for catching me back there.”

“No, really.” Gura let out a soft smile, “I’ve really needed someone who I can talk to like this.”

“Haven’t you had Calli?”

“She…” Gura trailed off. “She doesn’t know how to comfort like you or Ame can.”

“Then I’ll be here for you.”

Gura was finally smiling again as she stared into Ina’s eyes. After a few moments of watching, the shark suddenly seemed to realize something as she asked, “what happened to your hair tentacles?”

The priestess felt her guilt return as she muttered, “I’m human now.”

“But.. weren’t you a human this whole- oh. You lost connection with ao-chan?”

Nodding, Ina felt her throat tighten as she croaked, “and that’s what’s damaged Kiara.” The priestess saw that Gura gave her a look of intrigue as she explained what happened.

“Well, that’s not your fault! Besides, Kiara was able to fly us here.”

“Thanks, but… I believe that Kiara’s condition is much worse than it seems… she’s just not letting us see that it is.” The purple haired woman choked out the words.

Seeing this, the shark hugged Ina again, this time, Ina was the one being comforted.

“Thank you.” Ina whispered.

Calliope stayed out all night, which left Ina and Gura to get sleep on their own. It had been quite strange for the priestess to sleep in a blocky bed, but she decided to not ask questions about it. In the morning, Ina was awakened by a tapping on her shoulder.

“Calli wants to talk to us.”

Drowsily, the priestess followed Gura up the stairway to the surface to meet with Calliope. The giant phoenix was in the back, resting, as she told them to sit. The explanation was straight to the point; Kiara knew of where to find the supposed totem of undying that Gura and Calliope had been looking for. Her explanationas to why she knew about them was because she had looked up how to get them with the goal of acting like a real phoenix when they played Minecraft on stream. That knowledge put their target as the woodland mansion that Calliope had noticed when she went to find Amelia.

The second part was what pained Ina as the reaper confirmed that Kiara was, in fact, dying due to the overwhelming amount of magic flowing through her body that couldn’t be dispelled. Calliope didn’t know exactly how much longer she had, but her worried tone, which was exceedingly rare for the reaper, let Ina know that it was on the lesser side.

“So, we’ll have to get two totems?” Gura annoyedly asked.

Calliope shook her head, “Kusotori was only able to regenerate here because her special belt wasn’t here. Otherwise, it would have stopped her from shedding her human body to arise as a phoenix. She was able to skip the part where only her soul remains and rebirth in her true form immediately. That only works once though. Now if she dies, she has to go through the entire process for her form to be reborn.”

“So she’ll just be able to rebirth?” Gura interjected.

“Will you just let me finish?” Calliope groaned, waiting for the shark to sheepishly nod. “The problem is, I don’t know exactly how a phoenix dying here would entail. I know for sure that she would not be able to reform, but at what point her rebirthing process would be stopped is unknown. Which means that dying here could be extremely dangerous for Kusotori if not dealt with carefully.”

“So she needs to get back to the real world…” Ina muttered, beginning to see where the conversation was going.

“Yes. And if you didn’t know, phoenix souls typically reincarnate in a new dimension each time, but Kusotori has been able to master the ability to rebirth in the same dimension. With that control, she and I are hoping that right as her body will begin to burn up, she will be able to send her soul back to the real world and get help… and also regain her human form.”

“That’s…” Gura didn’t know how to begin what she wanted to say.

“I’ve dealt with her deaths for what feels like an eternity, there’s no doubt that she’ll be able to pull this off.” Calliope reassured the two.

Gura phased out for a moment, as she glanced off into the distance. “Then… there’s no time to wait. We should go get that totem now.”

Calliope cast a confused look at the shark, “but Ina still doesn’t fully know how things work here, you’re still trying to rush into this too quickly, Gura.”

“No. I can’t wait any longer. You’re either coming with me, or I’m going alone.”

“Gura I know how much you want Amelia back, but I don’t-”

“I agree with Gura.” the priestess interjected.

“What?”

“I know time doesn’t seem like much to you Calli, but having to see a friend in such a condition as Amelia is in every day? I can see why Gura is the way she is; that’s not something that should be prolonged. Besides, if you don’t exactly remember; I’m not anywhere near as physically fit as all of you are, so I doubt I’d be much help in a fight.”

The shark felt slightly relieved upon realizing that the reaper hadn't told Ina that of her relationship with Amelia. She took a deep breath in before suggesting, “You can carry extra supplies then.”

“I still think you two are getting too quickly into-”

Suddenly, the large form of the phoenix shifted as she got up, moving slightly closer to roost next to the reaper.

Calliope looked up at Kiara and after a few moments of silence growled, “don’t agree with them!”

“So, even Kiara’s on our side?”

"It seems so..." She annoyedly sighed. "Fine. We’ll go… but you’re flying us there Kusotori, no matter how weak you are right now.” She glared at the phoenix.

Chapter Text

Gura slid down from Kiara’s back, already pacing to the edge of the tree canopy. Restless was an understatement for describing the shark as she impatiently tapped her foot as the others slid down from the phoenix.

“How are you unfazed by that landing?” Calliope called from behind, the quietness of her voice told Gura that the reaper wasn’t even looking at her.

Gura didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. Her grip on her trident tightened as she stood, looking over down from the top of the tree towards the mansion entrance below. Powerfully swinging behind her, the shark’s tail moved tirelessly. This was her chance to make sure everything would be fixed, and there was no way that she was going to mess up.

“Gura...” a voice softly whispered from behind. “I know you’ve been here the longest. I can’t even fathom what you’ve gone through so far, but rushing into this won’t get Ame back any faster.” Ina lightly grabbed Gura’s arm, running her gloved hands up and down it, examining the scratches and scars left on them.

“I…” Gura knew that Ina was correct, but she couldn’t quell the feeling of urgency that was at the forefront of her mind. “I just can’t wait any longer.”

“Ame’s a close friend of mine too. I’d think I’d know her just as well as you, and I can tell you that she’d want for you to play it safe.”

“Friend…” Gura muttered under her breath, eliciting a slight look of confusion from the priestess. She couldn’t get herself to bring up what she wanted to say though, so she jumped to the first thing she could think of. “Well.. if the positions were reversed I know for a fact that Ame would have already charged in and attempted to save me.”

Ina smiled for a slight moment, but it faded to a frown as she clasped her hands around Gura’s. “That’s because that’s who Ame is. Her ability to time travel has made her the compulsive and relentless detective we know today. But you aren’t her. You can’t get free second chances like she can.”

Something clicked together in the shark’s head as Amelia’s behavior in the world began to make more sense. “But… she hasn’t been that way.”

‘What do you mean by that?” Ina questioned.

Gura’s tail finally stopped swaying side to side and her heartbeat slowed as she sat down at the edge of the canopy. “How much did Calliope tell you?”

The priestess quizzically examined the shark, then slowly moved to sit down, finding it somewhat awkward since she wasn’t used to wearing armor. “I guess a basic rundown of what you told her… as well as some things she’s figured out here.”

“Any specifics?”

“I just know that you and Ame have been through a lot.”

Gura placed her hands in her lap, letting them rest on the metal of her armor. “On the first day here, Ame kinda threw us into working immediately. She was quick to think and everything, even sending me out into the ocean to look for anything we could use. I was… attacked during the day and returned to that island where we all arrived at. Ame… changed that night. I think… she began to think twice about her plans. It was strange, honestly.”

Ina looked out into the skyline as she sighed, “I guess the concept that she had no do-overs here sank in. But she still tried to call the shots, right?”

“Of course, she’s the Minecraft addict, so I trusted her to know what to do.”

Ina chuckled a bit, “to think we’re stuck in a block game.”

The shark managed a small smile as she spoke, “I honestly don’t think I can ever touch this game again after we get out of here.”

“I can imagine why.” Ina slowly placed her hand on Gura’s shoulder and waited until the shark looked at her to flash a warm smile, “I know this may sound weird, but it looks like something’s on your mind, would you like to get it out?”

Gura took a deep breath as she thought about everything, slowly nodding her head as she pulled her knees in. Slowly she thought of how to phrase her words, carefully recalling, “for a while now, Amelia has been holding onto some sort of secret. She says it’s what keeps her going and she said she’d tell me after we’d get out, but…”

“But what?”

“I… I can’t help but feel that she’s keeping it until we get out of here so that she can say it without the fear of making a mistake.”

“Gura, If it's really important, I don’t think she’d be waiting until she could rewind time. I think she’d just be waiting until it’s the right time to say it. Besides…” Ina calmly shifted her gaze upwards, “...she cares for all of us. You know that. If there’s anyone she’d be truly honest with, it's going to be us.”

Gura chuckled, “I guess you’re right.”

“Well… if this secret is so important that she’d want to wait that long, I’m sure it's very important to her.”

“Yeah…” the shark nervously trailed off, realizing she’d somewhat lied to the priestess.

Ina seemed to pick up on Gura’s change of mood, turning to her to concernedly ask, “is something wrong?”

“I just... wanted confirmation.”

“Confirmation?” Ina gave a puzzled look to the shark.

“I… wasn’t exactly truthful there. Ame’s already told me the secret.”

“Then why the questioning?”

“I wasn’t sure if she had only done it because I presented the perfect opportunity.”

“You presented the opportunity?”

Gura wasn’t quite sure if saying what it was would hurt the priestess, so she felt like she needed to ask, “what exactly is your friendship like with Ame?”

“Hm?” Ina gave Gura a confused look at first, “oh… umm, I guess Ame’s the closest friend I have. You don’t typically get friends when you’re an eldritch abomination.”

“You’re not an abomination!”

Ina’s gaze dropped as a sorrowful expression washed over her face, “but I am. At least with Hololive, there are people who don’t care about what I am… like you and Ame. So… where were you trying to take this?”

Gura closed her eyes as she said, “I’m just so worried right now because I have…” the shark took a deep breath in, preparing for how the priestess would react, “...a dead girlfriend.”

Carefully, Gura studied Ina’s expression as it changed from momentary confusion to the realization. A different type of sorrowful frown barely showed on her face as she stared blankly outwards. Sighing, the shark pulled in her knees further as she put her head down. She knew Ina had some feelings for the detective and it hurt her to see the priestess disheartened, which is why it was a complete surprise when a set of arms wrapped around Gura forming a comforting hug.

“I’m happy for you, Ame chose well.” Ina whispered from their closeness.

“Thanks… I guess,” the shark mumbled.

“But you have to share her from time to time…”

“What?” Gura gasped, pulling away from the hug.

Ina began laughing at the shark’s reaction. “I’m just kidding.” Showing off a warm smile, Ina’s expression became much more lighthearted as she chuckled, “feel better now?”

The shark’s cheeks reddened as she whispered, “yeah.”

“Good.”

“Alright, we’re ready to go.” Calliope called from behind, pausing to suspiciously examine the two women. “Am I interrupting you guys’ moment?”

“No.” Gura laughed as she jumped to her feet, extending her hand to help Ina up.

Slowly, the three snuck into the mansion, beginning to explore the long hallways of the building. Calliope and Gura were on high alert in the front while Ina stood behind, carrying a shield for her own protection as well as a few golden apples to toss to the other two in a pinch.

“So Kiara said we’re looking for a wavy hand one?” Gura questioned as they prepared to round a corner.

“Yup.” The reaper stated quite blandly.

“That doesn’t describe much.”

“I’m sorry that Kusotori’s too busy dying to have a perfect memory.”

Gura cringed a bit and then tried to fix her tone by asking, “so how’s she holding up?”

“I mean, an almost crash landing on arrival here and her strength to continue flying is gone; I’d say not too well.”

Gura tensed up as she spun around the corner, trident ready to throw. A single vindicator stood in the way, and she quickly threw the weapon at the enemy. Hitting its target, the trident began to float back to the shark, leaving a perfect opening for Calliope to move in and deal a fatal sword slash to the mob.

“Can Kiara just turn into a real phoenix whenever she wants?” Ina piped up.

“If she doesn’t have that belt of hers, yes. She just… doesn’t really like that form. Kusotori’s much more fond of her human body.”

“And you’re always in your human body so you can be with her?” Gura teased.

“No! I simply choose to remain in this body because it makes dealing with humans much easier.” Ina and Gura exchanged smug glances at each other, which did not go unnoticed by the reaper. “Oh my god, I expect childish behavior like this from Gura, but you too Ina? You guys are behaving like children.”

Having cleared the hallway, they turned back around heading towards the entrance.

“Children? Well, whatever you say dad.” The shark shrugged.

“Oh my god…” Calliope groaned under her breath.

Rather than heading down the other hallway, the reaper led the group up the staircase at the entrance. Ina began to check behind them as she chuckled along with Gura. Finding a few more axe-wielding inhabitants of the mansion, the group took care of them, getting dangerously close to taking a hit or two along the way. Their exploration of the upper floor eventually led them to the end of a hallway and face to face with a different looking enemy. Immediately it began to wave its hands in the air and all three immediately put all of their focus onto the evoker. 

As Gura threw her trident, she was caught off guard by a small flying creature moving in front of her throw, blocking the trident from hitting its target. While it did die, another one just like it descended from above. Taking a charge at the shark, it stabbed its miniature blade through her armor. Next to her, Calliope was charging at the evoker, getting the first clean slash on it. Surprisingly, the enemy held strong, backing up just enough to be out of reach as it waved its hand in the air again, causing a surge of pain to shoot through the reaper’s legs.

Looking down, Calliope found herself stuck to the ground by multiple sets of fangs that had emerged from the ground. The reaper groaned, feeling the blood beginning to run down the small gashes in her armor.

“We have more company!” Ina warned, as the two spun around to see more axe-wielding vindicates approaching.

The shark finally struck her trident through the other vex, shifting to stand between the priestess and the evoker. Likewise, Calliope moved to guard Ina from behind, who simply took cover in between the two women. 

Gura had seen the enemy’s attack, and that was enough for her to think of a possibility to counter it. Running as fast as she could at the evoker, the shark waited for the moment the fangs began to emerge from the ground to stick her trident into the ground and vault over the oncoming attack.

Behind her, Calliope was having to hold off three enemies at once, trying to step out of the way of each axe swing. At some point, she found it much easier to prepare to move just enough to where the axe would bounce off the armor, but with her wounded legs she eventually made a mistake and revived a powerful axe swing into her shoulder. As she groaned in pain, she took a step back to try to cover the priestess, but quickly found a gloved hand reach around her and press something up to her lips.

The reaper didn’t waste any time eating the apple that was passed to her, as she began to feel the pain numb.

“Thanks.” She mumbled, stepping forwards for a rage filled stab into the nearest enemy.

Sprinting out of the mansion, Ina ran into the nearest clearing as Gura and Calliope held up the enemies that were pursuing them. She glanced down at the totem in her hand one last time, making sure she hadn’t lost it since Gura had tossed it to her.

The very beat up shark reached the clearing and collapsed onto the ground, as she let out a loud sigh of relief.

“Did you still have it?” Gura rolled onto her back as she turned her head towards the priestess, who proceeded to show it to the shark.

“Well, you two should begin walking back now.” Calliope suggested as she joined the two.

“Wait, walk?” Gura confusedly asked.

“Were you even paying attention on the way here?” The reaper scolded.

“No…” Gura mumbled.

“I’m helping Kusotori pass on, so I’ll be heading back on my own.”

Gura nodded as she looked towards Ina, “you ready?”

“You’re the one on the ground…”

“Oh, yeah.” The shark said as she jumped up. “Alright, I… think… I know the way back, so just follow me.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” the priestess stated.

“Relax, we’ll be fine!” The shark claimed as she began to walk off into the distance with Ina in tow.

Calliope chuckled to herself slightly as she made her way up the hilltop and climbed up nearby tree leaves to reach the top canopy. Before her laid Kiara, still barely holding onto life.

“Guess it’s time…” the reaper sighed.

“We’ll see each other again, so don’t worry.” Kiara’s voice reassured Calliope.

“I’m… not worried about you not showing up… just worried that you won’t get back here in time.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” The phoenix chuckled.

“Whatever,” the reaper huffed as she raised her sword, “just try to get your memories back as quickly as possible, ok?”

“Of course my wife.”

Burning embers crackled in the air as Kiara quickly stood up, finding the floor around her to be burning up. While she understood that the flames couldn’t harm her, she quickly moved to grab a blanket off of a nearby bed and began to use it to suffocate the fire. Once the final cinders had died out, she tossed the now slightly burnt blanket aside as she examined the scorch marks on the wood floor. She was in someone’s house, but she couldn’t remember how she had gotten there… or who it belonged to.

The next thing that she noticed was the complete lack of clothing she had on, looking down to examine all of the curves of her body.

“Damn. I’m one hot chick.” She told herself, having somehow forgotten what her body looked like.

Taking a few paces around the room as she tried to remember how she had gotten there, her attention was grabbed as she stepped on something. As Kiara reached down to find the object, she found someone’s phone lying on the ground. At least she knew what a phone was.

Turning on the screen she saw some unread messages from someone named Enma.

‘Did you guys find anything?’

‘Hello?’

‘With the current emergency we are facing is completely unacceptable for you to not answer your phone.’

‘If you don’t answer within ten minutes I’m declaring a state of emergency and getting the nearest flight to your last known location.’

Sent 4 hours ago.

Kiara was confused by the seemingly desperate messages, examining one final missed call as her curiosity got the best of her and she called the number back.

“Ina, what the hell have you been doing?” An extremely annoyed voice asked.

“Uhh… who is this?” Kiara confusedly asked.

“Ina are… wait. Kiara? Why are you answering Ina’s phone?”

“How do you know who I am?”

“I swear Kiara, this isn’t the time for games.”

“I have no idea who you or this ‘Ina’ are.”

The voice on the other side paused before changing to a much more serious tone, “Kiara did you just recently regenerate?”

“Regenerate?”

The woman sighed, “do you have any recent memories?”

“N-no…”

“Then you’ve just regenerated, you know, that phoenix thing you do?”

“I know I’m a phoenix! I just… don’t remember dying.” Kiara puffed her cheeks.

“I don’t have the time to be going through this right now.”

“Well, how do I know that I can trust you, what if you’re evil and I don’t remember you?”

“We’re not doing this right now. I’m your friends’ manager…” there was a heavy sigh, “even if you don’t remember them.”

“And…”

“Just trust me, ok? I believe that everyone else is in serious danger and I need your cooperation.”

“What do I need to do?” Kiara asked suspiciously.

“I’ll be arriving by plane in hopefully 10-14 hours. We’ll need to figure out what to do by then, and you’ll need to have your memories back.”

“So… you’re already on a plane?”

“No, but I’ve requested a private jet to be sent to me from Yagoo, so I’m waiting for it to arrive, which should be in an hour or two.”

Kiara looked down at her body. “Do you think you can make a stop before you leave?”

“There’s no time for sidetracking.”

“Please? This is so I know I can truly trust you.”

Enma groaned, “what is so important?”

“Do you think you can buy me a pair of clothes… and some underwear… and a-“

“I’m not going to bring you an extra pair of clothing.”

“But I don’t have any clothes! Unless… you want to see my gorgeous naked body…”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait, please bring clothes!”

“Fine, just please relieve some of my massive migraine by recovering your memories.”

Gura took the final step down the staircase as she began to throw off her armor. Each second that passed was a second of having waited too long. After she threw off her final piece of armor, she felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around to face Ina.

The priestess handed Gura the golden totem, “go ahead and wake Ame up, I think you’d appreciate some time alone with her.”

The shark gave her an appreciative smile as she ran into the back room and stood over Amelia’s body. Already having shaky arms in anticipation, the shark positioned Amelia’s palm facing up and pressed the totem into her hand, carefully wrapping the detective’s fingers around it.

At first, nothing happened, and the shark had a moment of pure anxiety staring down at Amelia. Suddenly, though, sparks began to crackle from the totem as it shot into the air and quickly vanished into thin air. Seconds later, the detective shot up, taking quick, shallow breaths. Gura didn’t waste any time as she dropped down and immediately wrapped her arms around the detective.

“Oh shit!” Amelia yelled. “Did I pass out?” Frantically looking around the room, she groaned, “I didn’t get the damn milk, oh shit. I’ll go get it-“

“Shhh.” The shark softly whispered, putting her finger on the detective’s lips. “I’m already cured.”

“Wh-“ Amelia confusedly began speaking. “How?”

“That can wait for now, Gura said as she laid down on the detective’s lap.”

“Are we dead?” Amelia asked, but when confronted with the shark shaking her head continued, “well.. uhh… why are you so clingy right now?”

Gura frowned as she sat up, “I’ve really missed you. You... you died.”

“I died?”

“Yeah…”

“How am I still alive then? Did I respawn?” The detective enthusiastically asked.

“No, you were dead for about two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” The detective gasped.

“I just want to be with you right now, I missed you so much.”

“I-I’m sorry I was gone for so long…” Amelia placed her hands on the shark’s cheeks, “how worried were you?”

“Extremely, if it weren’t for some help, I don’t think I would have continued on. I… I think I’ve already cried out all the tears my body will ever make.”

The detective groaned as she moved her hands to pull off her ruined chestplate, and it finally slid off even with how much Calliope had tired before.

“Well then, I guess I’m back now.” The detective wrapped her arms around Gura.

“I love you, so much, and I won’t let anything happen to you ever again.”

“Oh please!” Amelia huffed, “you’re the one that needs looking out for. It’s not like there’s much that can surprise me anymore.”

“Oh really?” Gura squinted her eyes as she spun around in Amelia’s lap.

In a single motion, the shark had a sudden spike of courage as she grabbed the detective’s partially torn tie and pulled her in close as their lips met. Amelia was caught completely off guard at first and didn’t know what to do, but quickly closed her eyes and pushed further into the kiss, using her arms to pull the shark’s body in closer.

Out of fear of oxygen deprivation the two separated and, while panting, Gura teased, “how’s that for a surprise?”

Taking a deep breath in, Amelia grinned, “one that I’d love to experience again.” Without wasting another moment the detective pulled the shark back in, now just noticing how quickly Gura’s tail was wagging about.

Chapter Text

The distant sunlight was dimming as Amelia kicked the last block into place. Letting out a loud sigh of relief, she joined Ina and Gura on the ground, completely sore from all of the work she had done.

“That’s all you guys have in you?” Calliope stared down at the three on the ground.

“Sorry miss superhuman, but we actually get tired.” Gura complained, messing around with the sleeves of Amelia’s coat, which she was wearing.

“Seconded.” Amelia groaned.

“Humu humu.” Ina agreed.

“Whatever. You guys keep lying around out here, I’ll be inside.” With that, the reaper disappeared inside the new building.

Once Calliope was out of earshot, Amelia sat up and stretched her arms, “nice work team.”

Many days of hard work had finally paid off for the group as they laid in front of their new home. The amount of wood they had needed to collect as well as sand for glass had been boring, exhaustive, and time consuming, but the final product was well worth it. With mixtures of logs, planks, and cobblestone it was much more aesthetically pleasing than Amelia and Gura’s old hut.

They had worked as a team. Calliope had done most of the wood chopping, being a natural since the motion involved was much similar to swinging her scythe… and her increased endurance over the others. Amelia and Gura had compiled the supplies and began the construction while Ina occasionally helped, mostly just guiding the two lovers on how to build the home in a visually pleasing way. In reality, they all just wanted a break from fighting things, a change of scenery, and some fresh air. The stronghold base had worked for a while but the bland stone bricks were beginning to become an eyesore. Besides, they had a lot of free time until Kiara was expected to return.

“Well, shall we go see the finished product?” The detective yawned.

Gura and Ina nodded tiredly as well, following Amelia through the door to the house as she closed it behind them. The warm light from the torches lit the main room, which was quite barren at the moment, only having the furnace and crafting table they needed to make the house. Around the edge of the room was a staircase leading down towards the stronghold, while another one on the other side of the large room led to the upper floors.

“I think I’m going to call it a night.” Ina sighed as she began walking up the stairway.

“Goodnight, thanks for the help today.” Amelia whispered.

The priestess nodded as she disappeared upstairs.

“I don’t think I could have taken another second living down there.” The shark suddenly groaned.

“Seriously. If we’re going to go through hell half of each day, at least we can be in comfort the other half.” Amelia agreed.

“At least we're here now," Gura yawned. "Should we go to bed as well?”

Amelia thought about it for a moment. They still had quite a lot to do from moving things to the surface, but ultimately decided that sleep was too tempting. “Sure.”

Gura smiled as she and the detective walked up the stairs into the little hallway they had created. Along the sides were four rooms, which was originally supposed to be five, but a simple request had changed those plans. Gura opened the door to the first room and stepped in as Amelia followed her into the shared bedroom. Sighing, the detective went and sat on her side of the double bed, staring out the entirely glass back wall towards the sunset in the distance.

“We’ve got a nice view from here,” Amelia noted.

“Well of course doofus, we built the dang place.”

“Oh, we’re going back to those names now?”

“Always have, always will.”

“Fair enough…” The detective chucked, “dork.”

Amelia watched as the shark moved to the corner of the room, slowly moving to unbutton the cream colored coat she was wearing.

“Oh, trying to give me a better view?” The detective’s teased as the shark draped the coat over an armor stand.

“I’d say something back, but I feel like you’d take your coat back, so I’ll let that one slide…” Gura chuckled. “I just wish I still had my hoodie. Now I just have this…” the shark motioned to the quite revealing under clothing she was left with.

“If it makes you feel any better…” Amelia was about to continue but found her cheeks warming as she stared at the shark. “Wow…”

Upon realizing that Amelai was staring directyl at her, Gura smiled as her face reddened. Heading over towards her side of the bed and getting under the covers, she whispered, “So… are you just going to stare at the wall all night?”

Amelia, who had been in the process of thinking about many things, snapped out of her trance, “oh… uhh.. no.”

Slowly, the detective undid her tie and tossed it aside, before sitting back down on the bed. She sat there silently for a few moments before turning to the shark and whispering, “I’m really starting to get sick of seeing blocks like this.”

Gura frowned as she turned to Amelia, “I’m really starting to miss things back at home… like the food.”

“Are you ever not thinking about food?”

“Sometimes.” The shark mumbled.

“I mean… I could go for some shark right now.” The detective smirked mischievously towards Gura.

“W-well that’s not on the menu today!” The flustered shark responded.

“Oh… we’ll see about that…”

Trying to change the subject, Gura quickly asked, “what about you, is there anything you’re missing?”

“Well…” Amelia considered it for a moment. “Besides everything looking normal, not much. There is one thing that I do miss that could be made up for right now.”

“And what’s that?” The shark asked, somewhat nervous for what the answer would be.

“Your singing.”

“M-my singing?” Gura asked, not having expected that outcome.

“Of course. Why do you think I tune into all of your karaoke streams? Your voice is beautiful.”

“Oh?” The shark sank down into the covers slightly to hide her warming cheeks. “I think I could do something about that.”

“For me?” The detective pretended to be surprised.

“Anything for you.” Slowly, the shark sat up in the bed, “so, what do you want me to sing?”

Ina took a deep breath in as she lightly knocked on the door, not sure if the reaper had fallen asleep yet.

“Come in,” an emotionless voice called from within.

Nervously, the priestess stepped inside Calliope’s room. She was somewhat surprised to see the reaper standing out the window.

“Do you need something?” Calliope asked, not bothering to look towards Ina.

“Uh, yeah…” Ina sighed as she moved to stand next to the reaper, “I was hoping we could talk for a little bit.”

Calliope glanced sideways, raising an eyebrow as she questioned, “why do you need to talk to me?”

“Well…” the priestess rubbed the back of her neck, “I don’t need to talk to you specifically, I just need someone to talk to right now.”

The reaper’s red pupils shifted slightly, her indifferent expression softened a little as she slowly turned her head to look at the barely visible line of orange sunlight in the distance. “Alright.”

As the last hint of sunlight disappeared below the horizon, Ina muttered, “I don’t know if I want to go back.” Quickly, the reaper snapped her head sideways, giving a look that burned right through the priestess as it seemed to demand answers. “Maybe I phrased that wrong,” Ina sighed as she looked out towards the stars, “I think I’m afraid to go back.”

The reaper’s expression didn’t change, instead she blurted, “why the hell would you be afraid to go back?”

Ina dropped her head as she sorrowfully spoke, “because I actually have free will here. I… I’m not intertwined with the ancient ones. I have my head to myself here and I’m… human again.” Calliope’s face relaxed as she began to frown, so Ina continued, “I forgot what it was like to be able to daydream and be the only voice in my head; to not have some sort of obligation to ancient beings that I’m stuck with.”

“Ina.” the reaper whispered, softly grabbing the priestess’s hand to examine her glove. “Honestly, I forgot that you were even human at one point, I’ve only ever known you as a priestess.”

Slowly, Ina moved her hand up from the reaper’s. “Well, I've learned to get used to it… to the point where I couldn’t even remember what it was like to be a human.” The priestess began to trace her hand against Calliope’s soot colored dress, examining the marks and scratches that were already appearing in the cloth from her time in the world. In a mix of many different thoughts, a question formed out of Ina's mind. “What about you? What even brought you to choose a human body?”

Calliope blanked out upon hearing the question. She didn’t respond for a lengthy time; instead, she slowly glanced around the room. Ina let the reaper think, slowly examining the slight changes in her expression.

“I guess…” she began hesitantly, “I wanted to do more than reaping, perhaps further my interest in rapping. Hololive was the easiest way for me to integrate with humans, so I took the chance.”

“And Kiara? You two knew each other before Hololive, was it just a coincidence?”

“Yes.” The reaper blurted out quickly, almost too quickly.

“I see…” Ina paused, “so, would you say that it was worth it going through that change?”

Calliope thought about it momentarily, but smiled as she reassured, “of course. I don’t plan on ditching this body anytime soon. Besides, if I hadn’t made this choice, I wouldn’t have met you guys.”

Returning the smile the priestess chuckled, “we’re quite the strange group.”

“Yeah, we are.” Calliope sighed, her expression returning to a frown. “But that’s the thing about you Ina, you’re unique like the rest of us. We all have problems that make us… us. If you don’t return to being the priestess of the ancient ones; if you decide to remain as a human… they’ll just find their next victim to serve them, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll have as much self control as you.”

“What?” Ina confusedly asked.

“What I’m saying is, you’re probably the best person to be entrusted with a duty like managing the ancient ones. You’re calm, patient, and most importantly: you care for others.”

“You really think that?” The priestess nervously asked.

“Of course.” The reaper smiled as she ran her hand through Ina’s hair, “bedsides, I kind of miss those head flaps and hair tentacles of yours.”

Feeling her cheeks warm from Calliope’s soft touch, Ina sheepishly stuttered, “th-thanks.”

“If you need to talk about anything else, just tell me, okay?”

Ina nodded, and began to walk out the door before pausing, “there is one more thing I want to ask.”

“What is it?”

“Ame and Gura are already sharing a room, how come you’re not sharing one with Kiara?”

The reaper glared at Ina, “Kusotori and I are not in a relationship.”

Ina purposely backed all of the way towards the door before pausing as she chuckled, “keep telling yourself that, Calli.” With those final words, the priestess closed the door and quickly shuffled back to her room to avoid what felt like a murderous intent following her.

Quickly paced steps of a woman followed her escort as they led her to a maintenance vehicle, wasting no time sitting in the passenger seat as the worker stuck the woman’s possessions in the back. Knowing the woman was in a hurry, her escort quickly started the vehicle and began driving down the road on the boundaries of the airport.

The woman pulled at the collar of her white shirt before brushing some of her dark hair aside, revealing peeks of the blood-like color underneath. As her escort drove, she massaged her forehead to try to relive her headache. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, so she pulled it out as her dark red eyes read the message. Jenma had responded, letting her know that Calliope and Kiara’s absences had been dealt with. Closing the message conversation, Enma checked the Twitter announcements she had written for Amelia and Gura… and now Ina to make sure the public was still buying their excuses. She let herself relax for a moment as she read the supportive comments, hoping that it would all be resolved soon. Unfortunately, her temporary relief was quickly upset as a message popped up on her screen.

Incoming Call from Yagoo.

Enma cleared her throat as she answered the call to hear what her boss had to say.

“Yes sir, I’ve landed at the airport. I’m being driven to the helicopter now.”

…

“No sir, I haven’t been able to contact Takanashi again. She recently read my messages though, so she’s still there, just unresponsive.”

…

“Of course sir, I’ll have this taken care of as quickly as possible.”

…

“I’ll alert you once the problem has been identified, sir.”

…

“Understood.”

With that, Enma ended the call and turned to the driver, “can you go any faster?” The man nodded as he began to accelerate.

Eventually, the vehicle was parked and Enma didn’t waste any time waiting for her escort, instead heading to the trunk of the vehicle and grabbing her two belongings. Wrapping the carrying strap for her blood red katana around her back, she also grabbed her large duffel bag, which included multiple necessities as well as Kiara’s clothes that she had requested. The helicopter pilot was already waiting as Enma situated her belongings into the vehicle and put on the microphone headset she was handed. She was less than an hour away from her destination of the city in which Amelia Watson lived and was preparing to be yelling at a phoenix who couldn’t seem to return her calls.

Chapter Text

Early morning brought a heavy thunderstorm that hung over the world, forcing Amelia and Gura to retreat back inside. Both were quite exhausted from the night’s work, with an arrow or two digging into their flesh, but they had tried to work through the pain. Carrying the arrows they could along with their tools, they barged inside the shared home and carelessly dropped all of their possessions on the ground.

“Do you mind?” An annoyed voice grumbled.

“Well I’m sorry Calli, we’re tired.” Gura complained.

A softer voice chuckled, “oh, give them a break Calli.” Slowly standing up, Ina walked over to Amelia and grasped the pixelated shaft of an arrow, quickly pulling it out and tossing it aside.

The detective winced at the suddenness of the action. “You could have warned me you were going to do that.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“We’re doing this for you, so you better be nicer.” Amelia groaned.

“My sincerest apologies, detective.” Ina smiled, brushing her glove against the blonde’s cheek.

“Oi! Lay off my girlfriend!” Gura pouted.

“I deeply apologize for touching your personal possession.” Ina chuckled, eliciting a glare from the detective.

“I’m the one who’s going to show you how to aim that crossbow, so you better be nicer.” Amelia hissed.

Slowly, the priestess stepped aside, picking up the nearby crossbow to examine it. She softly smiled towards the detective before panning towards the rest of the room. “At least Calli and I finished moving everything over.”

The reaper stepped forward, “I had to carry Ina up the stairs at the end.”

“You didn’t have to add that.” The priestess pouted. Gura and Amelia smirked at Ina, who frowned as she headed for the stairway. “I’m going to rest for now, I’m tired from moving everything.”

The others nodded at Ina, who disappeared upstairs. The shark soon moved to sit against the wall on the side of the room.

“How long was it supposed to take for Kiara to get us out?” Gura complained.

Calliope sighed. “Well, getting us out is our best case scenario, although if she can’t she’ll have to rejoin us. But trust me, whatever Kiara’s doing right now, I’m sure she’s trying her best to help us.”

Approaching the gate of Amelia’s house, Enma carefully unsheathed her katana. With one arm carrying the duffel bag, she used the other to quickly slash at the gate’s hinges. In one swift motion, the metal fell to the ground as she muttered to herself, “Sorry about the property damage, Watson.” Keeping her hand tightly around her blade, she cautiously stepped into the house as she kept a fighting stance at all times. The first thing she picked up on was a very quiet sound of crackling nearby, much like a fire, although it was coming from around a corner.

A slight peek around that corner led the manager to finding two sources of concern. On her right, a closed door seemed to be partially consumed by a purple substance. On her left, was another closed door, the sound of fire coming from within. As quietly as possible, Enma took a deep breath and set down her duffel bag. Slowly hovering her hand over the knob, she mentally prepared herself for whatever she would find inside. In one swift action, Enma slammed the door open and swung the katana into the air inside, ready to be redirected at any threats.

Instead, the manager found an extremely unexpected sight. She immediately dropped her arm and relaxed her fighting stance, staring unamused at the very naked Kiara who was sitting in a bath of water. The phoenix seemed to jump at the sight, a large flare of fire exploding from her hair as she quickly dove backwards to submerge herself. Enma raised her eyebrow as Kiara surfaced from the bathtub and took a deep breath.

“What am I looking at exactly?” She unhappily growled.

The phoenix stared blankly at her for a moment, her orange hair quickly turning back into fire.

“Preventing a house fire?” The phoenix shrugged.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Enma tried to convince herself that her job was worth it. “Where are the others?”

“This might not sound believable at first, but…” Kiara trailed off as she seemed to think about something.

“But what?”

“They’re… trapped in Minecraft…”

Enma almost smiled a little bit. Almost. That was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard, and being part of Hololive, she’s heard some quite ridiculous things. She shook her head as she was about to demand Kiara to tell the actual truth, but she took another look at the phoenix and saw the serious expression on her face. Giving a bewildered look to Kiara, she asked, “what is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.” The phoenix sighed. “Ame’s computer’s all weird and it literally brought us into a Minecraft world.”

“Us? How are you here th-“ Enma’s perceptiveness of the situation led her to figure out the answer to her question. “That’s why you revived, isn’t it? You died there?”

Kiara slowly nodded, the fire that had engulfed her hair dimming slightly. “I’m supposed to be getting help right now, but I’m kinda stuck in here, so luckily you’re finally here.”

Enma confusedly examined the phoenix’s hair, “why is your hair on fire?”

“This? Oh… I had to return to my true phoenix body for a bit. My body’s still trying to deal with the after effects of that, which includes letting off excess energy by burning it out.”

“You shed your human body?” The manager surprisedly asked.

Nodding Kiara sighed, “I had to, to keep the others safe… to keep me safe. Now I’m dealing with the consequences of that, which includes my fire randomly flaring up, hence the reason I have to be in the bath right now.”

Enma, reached back and dug into the duffel bag, carefully placing a stack of clothing on the ground. “You owe me for this.”

“Thanks.” The phoenix frowned, “we need to do something pretty quickly here, though.”

“Why so?”

Kiara pointed past the manager, towards the door across the way. The purple tone had seemed to have climbed up the door further. “I’m guessing that’s a bad thing?”

Nodding, the phoenix spoke, “Ao-chan seems to be making part of Ame’s room into a void.”

“Ao-chan?”

“Ina’s book.”

“You five and your weird names…” Enma sighed, “do you know why it’s doing that?”

“No clue, although I have a feeling that it’s because Ina’s separated from them.”

“Ina‘s separated?” Enma could feel her headache worsening. “Great. What else could go wrong?”

“About that…” Kiara began, causing the manager to glare at her. “Ame’s computer is in that room, which also happens to be rather close to that spreading void. If it keeps spreading, it might affect the computer and…” Enma could hear the worry in the phoenix’s voice. “They might be lost forever.”

Enma understood what was at stake as she quickly pulled out her phone, “I’ll request some help. Roboco should be able to deal with the PC’s issues.”

“There’s no time.” Kiara asserted.

“Then what else do you suggest?”

“We need to go in with them.”

“Go in?”

“Hear me out. We don’t have much time out here, but time moves faster in there, so we have more time to act. From what I heard, the hope is that if we beat the game, we’ll be able to get out.”

Enma sighed, “that doesn’t exactly sound like a plan. Besides, is Minecraft beatable? From what I’ve seen of your streams, it looks like a sandbox game.”

“Uhh… technically?”

“Very reassuring.” Noticing the phoenix’s hair fire die out, the manager fixed her glasses. “Well then, get some clothing on and explain to me what the plan is.”

“I found some more!” Amelia called from around the corner as Ina walked over to take the shining blue gems from the detective.

“Great, we’re almost there, right?” Gura asked from around a nearby corner of the cave.

“Are you being serious?” The detective groaned.

“What?” The shark appeared from behind a wall.

“I knew your math skills were bad but I didn’t think they were that bad ya dummy.”

“How many do we need?” Ina asked as she deposited four more diamonds into the Minecraft chest.

“Well, we’ve gotten fourteen from previous mining trips, plus seven more from this one, that puts us at twenty-one. And we need…” Amelia squinted as she ran the numbers through her head, “ninety-nine more.”

“Ninety-nine?” Gura yelled

“Well, we want to have five sets of diamond armor, just in case Kiara comes back.”

“That’s still way too much!” The shark groaned.

“Well, do you want all of us to die?” The detective raised her eyebrow.

“No…”

As Amelia walked over the shark, she pulled off Gura’s helmet and rubbed her hair. “That’s what I thought. We wouldn’t want to let a stupid video game claim our lives.”

Pouting as she snatched her helmet back, Gura began to walk back to her tunnel in the cave, purposely whacking Amelia with her tail along the way. The detective chuckled as she stepped over towards Ina.

As the detective passed, Ina smirked. “You two are both half idiots that make a full idiot when put together.” 

“Nah, Gura’s three fourths of that idiot. I’d say I’m the other fourth.” Amelia winked.

“My apologies then, it seems I underestimated your intellectual abilities.” Ina chuckled as she sat back against the wall.

“You know, this would go faster if you helped mine.”

“If I can barely do ring fit, what makes you think I could deal with hours of labor like that?”

“Well, your own chat has tried to remind you to exercise before.” Amelia teased the priestess.

“Well… I uhh…”

“Didn’t listen to them?”

Ina nodded in defeat as she slouched down further. “That really isn’t my type of thing.” After sitting by for a little bit, the priestess groaned, “Calli’s so lucky that she gets to sit up there. Like, I know she has to be ready at all times to meet up with Kiara if she comes back, but still.”

“Well, she gets to do a lot of looking out the window into the thunderstorm, so it’s not much more exciting than down here.” The detective paused for a moment and chuckled to herself as she thought of something, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Kiara took another week to do anything because she found someone to lust after while her memories were gone.”

“Like you?” Ina smirked.

Amelia coughed as she heard the question. “That was one time, besides, this is Kiara we’re talking about. I honestly don’t know how Calli puts up with her… bottom leftness.”

“Kiara is quite the-“ Ina began but stopped speaking when she heard a muffled explosion. After a moment of thinking about what she just heard, the priestess noted, “That sounded like it came from above us.”

“Gura?” Amelia panickily called.

“I’m fine!” The shark called as she came running over.

“Then…” Ina began, before she felt her stomach drop, “that had to have been directed at Calli.”

The priestess wasted no further time sitting around, immediately sprinting as fast as she could in her armor up the cave tunnel, ignoring Amelia and Gura called her name as she ran.

“I’ve never seen her run that fast…” Amelia muttered.

“Come on doofus! We have to catch up to her!” Gura grabbed the detective’s hand and began leading her up the cave.

Ina reached the staircase that led to the stronghold and already felt out of breath and as if her legs were going to give out. She didn’t stop through. The worry she was feeling felt so out of place. ‘Calli will be fine,’ she kept thinking along the way, not understanding why the suspense of not knowing was gnawing away at her.

Rounding the corner, she kept her strength up and climbed the steps of the final staircase that lead towards their home. She barged into the main room and looked for any damage to the building, feeling even more stressed as she snapped to look outside. It was bright out once again, with no sign of any rain.

The priestess charged outside, her legs now feeling like jelly from too much use. She couldn’t bring herself to slow at all. Her gaze darted around as she looked for any sign of the reaper. ‘Why am I so worried?’ She thought to herself, but quickly felt sickened as she saw a gigantic crater near their farm.

As quickly as possible, Ina ram towards the edge of the crater. Right as she reached the hole, Ina’s legs finally gave out and she fell down just barely short of her target. With her remaining strength, Ina pulled herself to the edge and lifted her torso so that she could peer into the crater.

At the bottom of the hole was Calliope, lying lifelessly amongst the dirt blocks. “Calli!” Ina gasped, slowly lowering herself into the hole to reach the reaper. She gulped as she looked at Calliope’s tattered body. There was a large hole in the side of her clothing, exposing a fresh wound on her side. Beside her lay a torn veil and cracked headpiece, directing Ina’s gaze towards the reaper’s head to see a line of blood running down the side of her face.

“Calli…” she whispered.

The priestess looked up and grabbed the reaper’s arms, attempting to drag her out of the hole. She definitely shouldn’t have had the strength to do it, but she slowly pulled Calliope up to the surface. Once the reaper was out of the hole, Ina let her body drop to the ground as her arms ran out of strength. Taking quick, shallow breaths, Ina tried to give her arms and legs time to recover.

“Ina!” A voice called from a large distance, “behind you!”

Ina turned to see a creeper approaching her and felt terror as she realized she didn’t have much strength to get away. She was about to begin scooting backwards when she realized that Calliope was right next to her and would be right in the blast radius when it reached the priestess.

Having a moment of realization, Ina used the last of her strength to stand up and take a few steps towards the green monster. She couldn’t move very fast as her legs stiffened up with each step, but she knew she would have to put herself in harm's way to prevent Calliope from being hurt any further. She stood silently as she prepared herself to use the last of her strength to jump away from the blast.

When it was finally close enough, Ina watched as the monster began to fizzle and glow. Turning to try to jump away, Ina’s legs gave out and she ended up falling to the ground. Knowing it was too late, the priestess braced for the explosion as the monster behind her completed its primary objective.

Slowly coming to consciousness, the priestess held her hand on her head to try to soothe the raging headache she had. Carefully sitting up, she found that she was in her room off the house, lying in her own bed. The next thing she noticed was her complete lack of clothing as she moved to arms to cover her chest, wincing as she touched damaged skin. She was finally noticing her wounds as she sank further back into the bed.

“Ame? Gura? Calli?” Ina called.

At first, there wasn’t any response, but she soon after heard footsteps approaching as Gura stepped inside.

“Oi! You awake now?” The shark said.

“Y-yeah. What happened?”

“You totally failed at getting away from that creeper and it did some damage to ya.”

Embarrassedly, Ina whispered “Where are my clothes?”

“You’re the first time one of us was that close to an explosion. It kind of vaporized enough of your shirt to where there was no point in trying to keep it. At least your gloves made it.”

“What about Calli?”

“Calli’s still out.”

What happened to her?” Ina asked.

Gura looked aside, “we’re not sure yet, although that was one hell of a hole she was in. Uhh…” Gura began to unbutton Amelia’s coat. “You’d probably be better off wearing this.”

Ina gave the shark a look of surprise as she slowly reached her hand out to grab it, “are you sure?”

“Eh, I don’t need the damn coat. If I get too cold I can just cuddle the real Ame.” Gura chuckled, causing Ina to lightly laugh as well.

Ina leaned back momentarily before a sudden urge came over her to check on Calliope, especially after the condition she had seen the reaper in. So, she waited for Gura to leave the room before sliding on the coat and slipping out of bed, feeling the pain of every step along the way, but she needed to know how her friend was doing.

As she snuck down the hallway, wincing as the muscles around her wounds moved, she opened the door to Calliope's room and stepped inside. Neither Amelia nor Gura were present, leaving the reaper as the only other one in the room, laying under the covers. Ina frowned as she stood over Calliope, truly seeing the almost burn marks on the reaper’s side.

She softly whispered, “please tell me that you’re okay.”

As if being awoken by those words, the reaper’s eyes slowly opened as she glanced around the room.

“Calli, how are you?” Ina nervously asked as she moved in closer.

Frowning, Calliope attempted to sit up, but couldn’t get herself enough of the way up, leading her to have to try multiple times. “I’ve been better,” she mumbled seemingly unfazed by the pain she was experiencing. Slowly, she looked down to examine the wound on her side and the new hole in her outfit that it had created.

“What happened back there?” Ina comfortingly asked.

“Hm?” The reaper said at first, not paying attention. “Oh, there was a creeper. It snuck up on me and I thought I had gotten far enough away from the explosion, but whatever that thing did to begin glowing blue must have made it stronger.”

“Glowing blue?” Ina tilted her head.

“I guess you’d have to see it to believe it.” Calliope groaned, her tone finally cracking to reveal some of the pain she was feeling underneath.

“I guess so…” Ina mumbled.

The reaper shrugged before reaching upwards to run her hand against her hair. After a few times her eyes widened as she began to rub the top of her head quicker. “Where’d my veil and crown go?”  Calliope demanded.

“Your…” the priestess thought about it for a moment. “Oh… I was the one that found your body, they… were damaged badly in the explosion, so I left them there.”

“Like.. how badly damaged?” The reaper asked, almost fearfully.

“Beyond repair. There was barely anything left of the veil.” Ina softly confirmed.

Slowly, Calliope’s gaze dropped as she began to frown. It was a full frown as well; something Ina had never seen from the reaper.

“If it makes you feel any better, I also lost my clothing in a similar way. Now I’ve got… this.” The priestess gestured to the rest of the coat.

Calliope didn’t respond though, instead she dropped her head and Ina worriedly sat on the edge of the beds softly smiling towards the reaper. “Calli… are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m fine,” the reaper answered, “just tired.”

Ina slowly moved closer, picking up in the off tone of Calliope’s voice. Gently, the priestess put her hand on the reaper’s chin and lifted her head up. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Calliope’s eyes watering. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to. Instead, she slowly moved her gloved hand to wipe the tears off of the reaper’s cheek.

“Why are you so damn caring?” Calliope asked, almost a chuckle. Maybe it would have been one if she hadn’t been crying.

“Those meant more to you than you’ve made it seem like, huh?” Ina calmly asked.

Slowly nodding, the reaper opened her mouth to speak, but words didn’t come out. Instead, she thought about it for a moment before asking, “do you mind if I say what’s on my mind?”

Ina reassuringly smiled and Calliope took a deep breath in.

“When we were talking last night and I said that this was the first time I’ve had a human form, I was lying. I’ve been in this body once before. It was a long time ago, way before you, Ame, and Gura were even alive. Kiara and I… were actually married. That veil wasn’t just for show…” the reaper sniffled. “That and my crown are the last two things I have from that day. Honestly, it was one of the happiest days of my life. Kiara and I have always loved each other, but it’s always been harder for me…”

Ina softly brushed some of Calliope’s hair aside causing her to barely smile.

“Kiara getting her memories back quickly is a luxury nowadays. Back then she never really remembered anything of her past lives, aside from a few things. Which is why it was my fault that I let her convince me to marry her. Eventually, though, Kiara’s time came and she passed onto the next dimension. While she remembered how much she loved me whenever she arrived back in the underworld, her memory of that life never came back.”

Calliope leaned her head back.

“I was forced to watch her fall in love with others in her next few lives. It hurt to see, so I decided to wall her off so as to never make that mistake again. Of course, I couldn’t stand to see my human body at that time, so I left it behind and returned to my underworld duties. Hololive was the only reason I ever chose this form again.”

Ina confusedly looked at Calliope “But Kiara remembers now, why don’t you just give into her advances?”

“Because…” the reaper took a deep breath in, “I don’t know if I want to. Don’t get me wrong. Kiara’s still my best friend and I’ll love her forever, but you’ve seen Kiara say how much she loves me then proceed to chase after someone else.”

“Like Ame?”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Calliope groaned. “What I’m saying is that Kiara will always be there for me in the future, and I’ll be there for her. But right now… I don’t think I want her rowdiness. I want someone who’s calm and quiet.”

“Are you suggesting…”

“I think I just need a change right now. I’ve been holding onto those memories for so long that I just need an excuse to forget them; to move on in my own way. So yes, I am.” The reaper moved aside to make room in the bed.

Ina gave a genuine smile as she sat down next to Calliope. “Thank you.”

Leaning her head over onto the priestess, Calliope whispered, “I hope you don’t mind if I fall asleep like this.”

Chuckling, the priestess whispered back, “I think I'll end up doing the same."

Chapter Text

Kiara snapped awake to the familiar sight of a lone island amidst a vast ocean. There were many things buzzing through her head as she awaited Enma’s arrival. The urgency to get out was a very real danger with what she had seen in Amelia’s room. While she had been in the bathtub trying to control her release of fire, the void had spread a lot further than when she had last seen it. Of course, neither her nor Enma wanted to find out what would happen while standing in that void, so after Kiara had explained to the manager what their plan was, the two had rushed into the room, passing over the void as quickly as possible in order to get to the detective’s computer. There had been no need to wait with the current time restriction, so they both quickly tapped the computer mouse and winced from the shock while they waited pass out.

Just the pass over the void had immediately made the phoenix feel drained of energy, which made her fear that this colorless puddle was a real danger to the group. That was something she’d need to bring up with Ina once they regrouped, but there was no reason to think about such things when she needed to be looking for the direction to head towards. As she walked the perimeter of the island, Kiara tried to remember the point from which she had taken off during her first visit to the world, but found herself having no clue where to go. 

After a minute or two of anxiety ridden pacing, there was a nearby thud as an unconscious Enma landed on the ground. The phoenix rushed over towards the woman and shook her awake.

“Enma, are you okay?” Kiara worriedly watched as the woman blinked herself awake.

“It seems so.” Enma responded in her unenthusiastic voice. Clutching her head as she stood herself up, the black haired woman slowly began to look around, silently muttering, “you really weren’t kidding.”

“You were still doubting me?” Kiara offendedly gasped.

Unamused, the manager glared at the phoenix, “no matter how you approach it, this is probably the most outlandish thing I’ve ever seen.”

The phoenix sighed, “yeah, I guess you’re right. Let’s… just figure out where we have to go.”

“Do you not know where we need to be?”

“It’s not my fault! The first time I arrived here, it was during the night and I was chased by these flying little shits.” Kiara angrily groaned.

“Well, are there any nearby landmarks you could use?”

“Not that I know of... I think we need to wait for Calli to sense our presence and send help.”

“We don’t have the time to wait like that,” Enma frustratedly groaned. “I’m not going to find out what happens when that void reaches Watson’s computer.”

Kiara was already out of ideas so she sat herself down, tugging at the long shirt Enma had brought her. The manager, though, wasn’t ready to give up as she began looking around. Her gaze eventually paused as she looked up at the sky. Adjusting her glasses, the black haired woman turned her head back towards Kiara, “does the sun always follow the same path in this game?”

“Hm?” Kiara looked up at the bright square in the sky, “yeah, Minecraft’s sun and moon always rise and set on the same path.”

“Then could you use that as an indicator of what direction to fly in? Do you remember where the moon was headed when you arrived?”

Kiara was surprised at Enma’s suggestion, but realized it would work. “Yeah, the moon was orbiting in the direction I was headed in. I just need to know where the sun will be heading in!” Excitedly, the phoenix stood up and began watching the sky.

“Will you even be able to tell if the sun is moving? Even though time moves faster here, you said it is still about a day. That’s not much movement that the sun would be doing…”

“Well… uhh…” Kiara found herself not knowing what to say.

“I think we’ll just have to take a risk.”

“Take a risk?”

Folding her arms, Enma looked to the horizon. “With where the sun currently is, there’s either a fourth of a day’s sunlight left or we’re only a quarter into one. I’d rather follow the sun assuming that it's going to get dark and wind up having much more time than expected than the opposite.” 

Kiara cocked her head as she mulled it over, glancing back and forth between the sun and Enma. “Are you sure we should take that risk? Following the sun like that will only give me a forward direction, I have no way of knowing how far left or right I’d need to go.”

“Frankly, I think this risk is warranted given our current time restraint.” The dark haired woman said, as she adjusted her glasses.

Kiara groaned as she took one last look at the horizon before begrudgingly walking towards the edge of the island. Enma raised an eyebrow as she watched the phoenix begin to remove her shirt.

“Catch.” Kiara said as she threw the piece of cloth at the other woman.

“Why exactly are you removing your clothing?”

Sighing, Kiara turned to the manager, “it’s just my shirt. If I’m going to be flying, I’ll probably burn it up. This one isn’t fireproof like my normal one.” Kiara then let a smirk grow on her face as she strutted forwards towards Enma, “and you better take in this sight for as long as you can since I typically reserve showing my beautiful body for Calli and Calli only.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose as she glanced away from the phoenix’s bra, the dark haired woman groaned, “stop messing around and start flying.”

“Fine…” Kiara huffed as wings of flame protruded out of her back. “I’m just hoping that you’re sending us in the right direction.”

Carefully, Amelia set the last handful of diamonds on the floor as she sat down against the wall. Gura was at the crafting table nearby. Placing together a few extra golden apples to replace their dwindling supply.

“I found a few more on the way up, we’re at twenty five now.” Amelia noted.

Gura smiled as she turned to face the detective. “I checked up on Calli then Ina. Ina was awake when I went in so I gave her your coat.”

Amelia chuckled, “we better get out of here as quick as possible or we’ll all be out of clothing.”

Pouting, the shark moved closer and sat down beside Amelia. “You’re lucky that yours are still in one piece.”

“I mean, I could shed a layer or two to make it even… if you’d like.”

Gura’s cheeks flushed as she gave a look of surprise to the detective. “Y-yes! I mean… no! There’s… uhh… too many others here!”

A devilish smirk appeared on Amelia’s face as she laughed at the flustered shark, “so you’d want it if the others weren’t here?”

“No! That’s… not what I meant! Y-you’re misinterpreting it!” Gura then quickly elbowed the detective. “Stop looking at me like that!”

Laughing more as she got up, Amelia walked towards the door yelling over her shoulder, “I’m going to get some fresh air, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

Gura coughed a few times in an attempt to calm herself, managing to choke out the words. “I’ll go check on Calli and see if she’s woken up yet.”

As she stepped through the door, Amelia took a deep breath and began to walk towards the crop fields. A new harvest of wheat was ready, so she decided to just get the work done to restock their bread supply. As she knelt down to begin harvesting the stalks of wheat, she heard something from behind her. It was pure instinct for her at that point to whip around as quickly as possible to check for any danger, but found herself confused when there was nothing out of place. The detective continued to snap her head around looking for what had made the sound until she finally saw a distant figure in the sky.

“Kikiriki!” A familiar voice yelled from above, causing Amelia to smile at the sight of the approaching phoenix.

She was rather surprised though, that there was someone else being carried by Kiara. As the phoenix approached, Amelia was able to finally make out the figure and felt some nervousness as a familiar dark haired woman was staring at her. Carefully, Kiara lowered herself to the ground and set Enma down.

“Shirt. Now.” Enma sternly commanded once the phoenix’s flaming wings had retracted, who quickly slid on the article of clothing that was tossed to her.

“Uhh… Enma. I didn’t expect to see you here.” Amelia nervously spoke.

The manager’s cold gaze panned over to the detective. “You and Gawr have caused me lots of stress the past few days with whatever you want to call this.”

“This isn’t our fault!” Amelia defended.

“I’m quite aware. Still, your disappearance was completely unplanned for so I’ve been having to work around the clock to deal with it.”

“Well… thanks for that by the way. I guess we should get you adjusted to this place since you’re here now. It should be about a week or two until we are fully prepared to fight the dragon, so you’ll have time to catch up.” Amelia began leading them back to the house.

Enma’s tone suddenly changed to a more grim one. “I’m afraid that we do not have the time for such preparations.”

“What?”

Kiara finally spoke up, “Ao-chan’s creating some sort of dark void in your bedroom, and it's spreading. There’s a good chance that it will reach your computer and… we’re worried that we might be trapped here… or worse… if it is allowed to spread that far.”

Fear consumed Amelia as she processed the words that she heard. “Then we need to get going, don't we?”

Kiara nodded, “I know that this situation is pretty shitty, but there’s six of us now. I think we will be able to do this. Oh!” Kiara suddenly gasped. “I searched up what you guys asked me to… about beating the game, and now I know what we need to do.”

“Then we don’t have any time to waste, let’s head back to the house so Gura can hear this.”

“Gura? What about Ina and Calli? And… uhh… nice house by the way.” Kiara mumbled.

“Thanks. But Calli and Ina are in their rooms resting right now, they both got hurt earlier so they’re recovering.”

“Are they doing okay?” Enma asked.

“Ina already woke up and Calli is still asleep, but Gura’s checking on her right now.”

Kiara frowned a bit but began to follow Amelia back to the wooden house. The detective ran ahead, stepping inside first to find Gura with a somewhat shocked look on her face. Walking up to the shark, Amelia asked, “is something wrong?”

“In the time since I last checked on Ina, she moved into Calli’s room. They’re both sleeping tog-” Gura’s face suddenly went white as she saw the two other women step into the room.

Kiara looked at the two of them strangely and asked, “did I hear someone mention Calli?”

Amelia glanced between Gura and the phoenix quickly blurting out, “Gura was just telling me how Calli was still asleep and all.”

Momentarily, Kiara seemed to be confused by what the detective said, but quickly narrowed her eyes, “why does Gura look so nervous?”

“Nervous? No! Not me! Why would I be nervous?” Gura tried to play it off.

“What’s happened to Calli? I swear if you’re hiding anything important from me, I’ll show both of you two to the usual room when we get back.”

Nervously, Amelia mumbled, “it’s nothing bad. Ina and Calli are just resting together.”

“And you allowed this?” Kiara cried.

“Why are you so worked up about this? I’m sure that they just needed some comfort after getting injured. It’s not like they’re suddenly a couple or anything.” The detective shrugged. “If you think otherwise, you can ask Calli when she wakes up.”

The phoenix suspiciously glanced between the two and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Enma growling, “can you three stop acting like children and focus on the problem at hand?”

All three nodded in agreement, begrudgingly in Kiara's case, as Enma began to pace around the room.

Amelia turned to the shark. “So, Ao-chan’s creating a void that is consuming everything in my room and might affect the computer, so we now have a time constraint.”

“Seriously?” Gura gasped. “We need to rush this?”

Amelia nodded as she looked at the phoenix, “so, what do we need to do?”

Kiara temporarily frowned as she glanced at the two, but sighed as she began to explain, “we need to get twelve eyes of ender, which need ender pearls and blaze powder. And, you were right about there being a portal in that stronghold below. Once we get those eyes of ender and fill the portal’s frame, we’ll be able to reach the end and fight the dragon.”

Gura frightenedly squeaked, “we need to fight more enderman for those pearls though! Those things are terrifying!”

“Not exactly…” Kiara began, “we can get them from trading with piglin in the nether.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Amelia asked. “Let’s get ready to head to the nether.”

“Is there anything you guys still need for this venture?” Enma looked at the group.

Amelia nodded, “from experience, I can say we should all at least get diamond chestplates to protect our vital organs. We still need to get seven more if all four of us are going to have them.”

“I’m not going to need one. It will be better if I can go without one so that I’ll be able to fly.” Kiara insisted.

“Are you sure?” Gura asked.

“I’m positive.”

“Then we’re pretty much ready.” Amelia began searching through chests, “Kiara, look for gold in these chests. Gura, go get your armor and trident from upstairs. And Enma, come with me. I’ll give you a basic rundown of how things work here.”

“Here’s the last four we need!” Gura to the rest of the group as she stepped away from the piglin.

As carefully as possible, Gura stacked the final amount of ender pearls in their amassed pile, along with a few potions of fire resistance they had also managed to barter from the native pig population.

“That’s twenty then. Everyone grab five and a potion and let's bring them back.” Amelia called to the other three.

“Tell me again why we needed eight extra?” Kiara asked.

“Just for emergencies. The ability to teleport might be a lifesaver.” The detective noted.

Slowly, the group made their way back to the portal and deposited their rewards inside the stronghold. Their gold boots clanked as they walked from the stone bricks of the stronghold back into the fiery hellscape of the nether. A few steps in, Kiara stretched her arms as her wings began to protrude out of her back.

“Now this is my type of place; nice and warm.” Kiara smiled.

Gura groaned in response, “Warm’s an understatement.”

Amelia chuckled a little before pausing at the feeling of a tap on her shoulder. Turning to see who it was, she found Enma extending her arm out to hand her one of the potion bottles.

“How does any of this even work?” The manager asked while peering down at her armor, particularly the blue chestplate.

“Eh, we figured it was better not to question it.” Amelia shrugged.

“Just take our word that it will block some hits, which is a blessing given how quickly you can be torn up here.” Gura let a hurt tone seep through in her words.

Nearby Amelia’s smile faded as she turned to look into the distance. “Let’s just… be careful this time. We cannot risk one of us getting withered again.”

“Again?” Kiara asked. “What happened?”

Gura and the detective locked eyes with each other, both seeing the darkness in each other's gaze at the remembrance of the situation.

Slowly, Amliea turned her back to the group and took a few steps forward. “Just forget I said anything. All you need to know is you need to be as evasive as possible when dealing with wither skeletons. If they can bury their sword into you deep enough their withering effect will not naturally go away.” With that, she began heading into the nether wasteland as the other three slowly began to follow her. Kiara began to fly overhead, circling back every once in a while to tell them the best direction to head in. With Amelia having remembered which way the fortress was, it was only a matter of making it to their destination. Eventually, Kiara confirmed that the soul sand valley was up ahead and the detective advised the group to be on high alert. 

A few skeletons were the first threats that noticed the group. One was preparing to shoot when the phoenix suddenly swooped down on it, grabbing it as she carried it off of a nearby cliff and dropped it into the ocean of lava.

“You have a sword ya know!” Gura yelled from the ground.

“It’s more fun to drop them though!” The phoenix laughed as she dove down on the next target for a sword slash.

Amelia felt an arrow clank off of her diamond chestplate as she spun around to face the skeleton that shot her, but found Enma already standing beside the monster. The blinding speed at which the black haired woman moved her sword was astonishing to Amelia. There was a flash of blue from the diamond blade as the detective blinked and by the time she opened her eyes again, the monster was already collapsed on the ground. Having to snap herself out of her awe, the detective turned to focus on the next skeleton of the group. Quickly, Amelia realized just how ineffective her sword skills were compared to the likes of Enma and Kiara with her first slash at the monster seemingly doing little to it at first. The glowing sword, though, caused the monster to quickly burst into flames. Amelia smirked at the sight of the flaming mob and turned to see Gura’s trident returning to her hand after getting rid of the last of the group of monsters.

“Woooo! That’s more like it!” Kiara excitedly yelled from the sky above.

Staring up at the phoenix, Amelia muttered to the others, “is it just me or is she a little too happy to be getting in fights?”

“That seems to be how Takanashi does things,” Enma sighed. “At least she’s-”

The dark haired woman was cut off by a sudden cry in the distance. The other three looked up in just enough time to see Kiara dive below an incoming fireball.

“We’ve got two ghasts behind us!” Gura yelled from behind.

“And two in front!” Kiara called from above as she ascended over another fireball.

Slowly, Ina awoke to being surrounded by warmth. Upon realizing that she was lying on Calliope, the priestess tried her best to not wake the sleeping reaper, instead trying to make slight adjustments in order to get into a more comfortable position. She made a bad move though and groaned in response to the pain of the movement. In response to her groan, the reaper began to shift underneath. 

Ina watched as Calliope’s eyes fluttered open and she softly whispered, “good night.”

At first the reaper just nodded as she looked at the priestess before she realized what was said. “Don’t you mean good morning?”

“No, not really.” Ina spoke softly as she moved her gloved hand up to cup Calliope’s cheek. The reaper closed her eyes as she felt the priestess’s touch. Slowly, Ina traced her finger down to Calliope's chin and carefully tilted the reaper’s head to look out the window.

“Oh…” Calliope whispered upon noticing that it was dark out.

The priestess chuckled as she pressed herself down against the pink haired reaper. “You’re quite the comfortable pillow.”

“And you’re quite the comfortable blanket.” Calliope smiled as she ran her hand through Ina’s hair.

After a few moments of silently resting on the reaper, the priestess asked, “Can you sense if Kiara’s back yet?”

Calliope, who was still fully waking up, took a deep breath in as she closed her eyes. Ina could feel her body tense up slightly as the reaper began to speak, “I… can’t sense any of them.”

“What?” Ina gasped as she sat up.

“I can’t feel any of their presences.”

The priestess slowly began to get up as she panickedly asked, “did we get left behind?”

“Of course not!” Calliope exclaimed, “They wouldn’t leave us behind.”

“Then where could they have gone?”

“I-I don’t know,” the reaper began before an idea came to mind, “actually… I might know. If I’m right, we need to start getting ready immediately, because we’ll be going to the nether.”

“Would that be why you can’t sense them?”

“It would make sense. When Amelia was dead, I had Gura take me in there to test a theory, and while we were there I couldn’t sense Ame’s soul. Although, I have no idea why they would attempt to go back there on their own…”

Ina worriedly paced around the room as she tightened her hold on the cream colored coat around her. A thought about the situation finally clicked in her mind as she muttered, “Unless they aren’t on their own…”

Calliope pondered the priestess’s suggestion as she nodded, “If Kusotori is back already they might have left us to rest. We should get going, there’s no telling how far into the dimension they’ve gotten so far.”

“Okay.” Ina agreed as she followed the reaper to the door of the room. “Wait,” she whispered.

“Something wrong?” Calliope asked.

The priestess nervously looked at the reaper. “If we’re really going to be together like this, shouldn’t I be worried about Kiara?”

Calliope sighed as she walked up to Ina and placed her hand on the priestess’s shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine, and if not, Kiara will surely listen to what I have to say.”

Ina gave a fake smile to the reaper, as she began to head downstairs. There was only one thing in her mind as she realized just exactly what she had gotten herself into, ‘if this game doesn’t kill me, Kiara definitely will.”

Chapter Text

The group scattered as the first fireball landed. The flames that spread from the explosion burned a deep blue as Gura slid right out of the way of its path. In the airspace above, Kiara was already flying in towards the nearest ghast, but had to quickly fall back when one of the flying ghosts prepared for its next shot at too close of a distance for the phoenix’s comfort. Amelia found herself spinning around trying to keep track of the four enemies and, therefore, barely noticed Enma looking to her for what to do.

“What’s the plan here?” The manager aggressively yelled as she dove forward in order to avoid another incoming fireball.

Glancing at the two other women, the detective shouted to her side, “stay alive, Kiara and Gura are the only ones that can do anything to them.”

The shark had already readied her trident for a throw and upon seeing the next fireball heading her way, threw her trident to intercept the projectile. The fireball was knocked backward and even though it missed the monster that had fired it, it was still far out of the way of hitting anyone.

Enma quickly picked up on the shark’s maneuver and yelled over her shoulder, “these things can be reflected?”

Understanding what the manager was thinking about Amelia shouted back, “yeah, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that with your sword, there’s too much of a chance of it going wrong.”

An explosion above caused the three to quickly look at what happened, as they all felt a bit of fear at the sight of Kiara being launched backward out of a cloud of smoke. The phoenix was in free fall for a few moments before stabilizing herself as she got enough lift from her wings to just barely stop herself from colliding with the ground. Letting out a scream of rage, Kiara swiftly launched herself back at the ghast that had knocked her down. 

Amelia had wanted to see how the phoenix was about to ravage her target, but her head quickly snapped to the side as multiple screams of the ghasts filled the air as the monsters coordinated their fireball strike. It was a blur as Amelia tried to jump to somewhere that wouldn’t be in the immediate vicinity of a blast, but the area the four fireballs covered knocked her to the ground as she felt the wind get knocked out of her. The detective winced as she took in a deep breath of the burning air and just barely saw Gura hitting the ground nearby, clearly having been sent airborn from one of the explosions.

There were multiple sounds that happened in close succession. In the distance a dying cry of one of the ghasts could be heard; Kiara’s sword had found its target. Right next to the detective, a heavy set of footsteps squished into the soul sand as Enma stood with her sword drawn over where Gura laid. Amelia groaned in pain as she stuck her sword into the ground and used the weapon to upright herself. Between her and the other two lied Gura’s trident and the detective quickly began moving to pick the dropped weapon up.

More cries from the three remaining ghasts let the already overwhelmed group know that another set of fireballs were heading their way. Two of them were heading towards Amelia, which she used all of her strength to leap backward away from the other two, and as she laid on the ground with the two fireballs exploding in front of her, she watched in horror as Enma stood on guard in front of Gura, facing the oncoming fireball. With the shark’s trident in one hand and her sword in the other, the detective tried to prepare to throw the trident to reflect the fireball. She quickly realized that she wouldn’t have good enough aim to intercept the projectile and instead looked at the dark haired woman’s stance, realizing exactly what she was about to do.

With lightning fast speed, Enma swung her sword at the oncoming fireball as if it was a baseball, sending the explosive projectile flying back at where it came from. Whether or not it was the original ghast that had shot it or not, the fireball found its way back to one of the flying monsters as it turned to smoke, a small white object fell to the ground from where it died. There was no time to inspect it though, as the remaining two monsters were getting into position for their next strike.

Beside the detective, Gura had finally been able to sit up and Amelia moved to hold onto the shark so she could fully stand up. With one arm wrapped around the detective, she took her trident and placed it into her other hand, preparing to throw it at the fireballs when they were launched. The fall had somewhat injured her arm though as she winced once it was in throwing position and had to drop her arm to her side.

Enma glanced back at the two and upon realizing that neither would be able to help, shifted her position to stand in front of them ready to risk deflecting a fireball again. Luckily, there was a flaming blur that passed above them as Kiara swooped in towards the two monsters. The ghasts fired and Kiara dove under the first one while slashing the second, sending it far off into the distance. Slicing at one then pulling back for a second and third slash, another ghast fell, leaving only one… and its currently traveling fireball.

Taking a sturdy position, Enma prepared to slash at the fireball and in the final moments swung the sword at a blindingly fast speed in hopes of returning the projectile at its attacker. It was just milliseconds off of hitting the projectile as the manager was sent flying back, crashing into Amelia and Gura along the way as the two were knocked to the ground. Enma’s body tumbled backwards a little further before finally coming to a rest where she remained unconscious. Kiara had circled around to finish off the final ghast, but the monster kept backing away during her approach, buying enough time for it to fire again.

There was no time for the phoenix to react as she was once again blown out of the sky. This time, she couldn’t react in time and slammed into the ground. Amelia had just barely gotten up when Kiara hit the ground nearby and realized that with everyone else down, she would have to deal with it herself. So as a last stand, she raised her sword and stood defensively between the three, waiting for the next fireball to launch.

The flying monster hovered in the air as Amelia heard its scream of warning and she readied her blade to strike. Aimed directly at her, the fireball was quickly approaching as the detective mentally prepared for the moment. It got closer and closer as Amelia began to tunnel vision on the projectile. Then, right as it hit, a strong gust of wind blew past the detective as a large object collided with the fireball. Astonished, Amelia looked to the side to see Gura on her feet and gripping her side as her trident returned to her side.

The shark gave a weak smile as she limped over towards Amelia to lean on her. Together they held their breath as the fireball returned towards the ghast, just barely hitting the monster, but still enough to kill it nonetheless. They both let out a deep sigh of relief as Gura dropped to her knees and chuckled, “we did it.”

As she inspected a tear shaped item on the ground, the detective groaned, “we still haven’t even made it to the fortress.”

“But we’ll have those fire resistance potions for there, right? There won’t be any ghasts we have to deal with.”

“Who knows…” Amelia shook her head.

“Did we win?” Kiara mumbled from behind.

“This, Kiara, is just the beginning.” The detective sighed, causing the phoenix to drop her head into the soul sand in defeat.

The group silently stood over one of the entrances to the Nether fortress. Kiara was examining a few char marks on her exposed stomach while Enma watched her skeptically. “You should have just worn a chestplate.”

“Because I can fly I was able to get two of those ghasts, you’re welcome by the way!” The phoenix huffed.

The manager shook her head as her dark red pupils stared intently at Amelia. For the detective, the gaze was strangely intimidating, most likely because the dark haired woman no longer had a pair of glasses covering them after they had been cracked from her crash.

“We were able to find a blaze spawner a little bit into the tunnels of the fortress, so that’s where we’ll be heading.” The detective said.

“Uhh… Enma?” Gura began. “Can you see without your glasses?”

Enma gave a tired expression to the shark as she muttered, “they’re fake.”

“Fake?” Gura gasped.

“Wait, really?” Kiara looked over.

“It was suggested that I wear them to look less intimidating. The style kind of grew on me over time.”

Amelia glanced over nervously at the manager and mumbled, “I can see why.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Gura impatiently asked.

“Nothing… I guess. Just be on high alert for wither skeletons.” Amelia turned to the rest of the group.

Carefully, they began to sneak into the fortress, passing a single wither skeleton or two along the way, which they took extreme caution in dealing with. Eventually, they reached the point before the terrace that held the blaze spawner. The four of them exchanged glances with each other as Gura, Amelia, and Enma each drank a fire resistance potion from their bartering while Kiara just watched.

“Remember: we need six, but one or two more wouldn’t hurt.” The detective instructed the group.

The others nodded as Gura and Enma charged onto the terrace with Amelia as Kiara remained facing away to guard the hallway. Immediately, they were met with three blazes that unleashed a volley of fireballs, which were completely ineffective on the group. With this resistance they quickly moved in and decimated the fiery monsters.

“Got one!” Gura yelled.

Coming up empty handed from the other two, the three sat down against the Nether brick fence of the terrace as they awaited the next group of blazes from the caged block.

“So if a few ghastly are giving us trouble here, how hard is the end going to be?” Enma suddenly asked.

“Hm?” The detective tilted her head.

“Well, have you actually thought about how hard this upcoming fight will be for us? We’re going to be fighting a damn dragon in another dimension.”

“Well… kind of.” Amelia dropped her gaze.

“It doesn’t matter, does it? We have a strict time limit so we can’t really think about it.” Gura grumbled.

Enma concurred with the shark’s statement and the group awkwardly looked around until Kiara yelled from behind, “I’ve got a few skeletons coming my way!”

Gura jumped up and headed to back the phoenix up as another set of blazes spawned. It was a group of four of the fiery monsters and Amelia and Enma didn’t waste any time beginning to attack them.

That was their routine for a bit, one of the three would back up Kiara if needed while the others would remain next to the spawner in case the next group of blazes spawned. Slowly but surely, the blaze rods began to pile up until they had five. Enma and Gura were awaiting the next wave while Kiara and Amelia were fighting off the next wave of oncoming wither skeletons. It was all going well until the phoenix suddenly cried out in pain and Amelia directed one last slice at the skeleton in front of her before spinning around to see a wither skeleton with its blade stuck into Kiara.

“Kiara!” Amelia screamed as she rushed to back the phoenix up.

Making a quick slash at the skeleton with her sword, the monster burst into flames from the enchantment. With it crumbling to dust by itself, the detective quickly inspected the phoenix’s wound as she turned to the others.

“We need to go back, now. Kiara’s been compromised!” She fearfully yelled.

“No.” Kiara muttered.

Amelia was confused at the phoenix’s protest. “What?”

“Get whatever you still need to get, my body’s natural healing from being a phoenix should be able to combat the wither if it gets bad enough. There is no way in hell we’re going to make a second trip, we lack the time or energy.”

Enma and Gura were already standing beside and the manager spoke up, “you heard her, let’s get the last blaze rod we need.”

Even though Enma quickly moved back up, Gura and Amelia gave each other worried glances before nodding slightly as the shark returned to the terrace.

The detective began eyeing Kiara’s wound and as she moved closer, she asked, “may I?”

Nodding, the phoenix stood still for Amelia to put her finger up to the large gash and feel the blood that was still seeping out. Physically cringing, the detective began to notice small gushes of black blood and realized that Kiara was indeed withered.

“Anything else you want to take a closer look at?” Kiara asked in a strange tone.

“What does that mean-“ Amelia began before the phoenix shoved her chest in the detective’s face. “What the hell?” Amelia asked as she pushed away.

“What’s wrong Calli?” The phoenix asked.

“What’s wrong? What do you mean wha-“ The detective paused. “Why’d you call me Calli?”

Kiara gave a confused look, “uhh… that’s a funny joke Calli…” Suddenly, the phoenix paused as she seemed to take a long look at Amelia, “wait… you aren’t Calli.”

“Of course I’m not Calli! How did you mistake me for Calli?”

“I-I don’t know,” Kiara stuttered.

Concernedly, Amelia spoke, “I think this stuff is going to your head.”

“We got three more!” Gura called from the terrace as each of the two other women descended the staircase carrying four blaze rods in their free arm.

“Then it’s time to go, I think Kiara’s beginning to lose it.”

Enma and Gura gave concerned glances to each other as they pushed Kiara into following Amelia towards the exit. Eventually they reached the bridge that opened back up and found a group of wither skeletons in their way. Three of the four prepared themselves to fight while Kiara seemed to blank out.

Suddenly, crackles of fire announced the presence of a blaze as a volley of fireballs came towards the group. It hit Amelia and Enma who immediately felt the burning as they realized that their potions were no longer in effect. The surprise attack caused the three to break formation as the detective dropped to the ground to try to relieve the fiery pain she was feeling. By the time she looked back up, she saw a wither skeleton looming over her with its sword ready to strike. Feeling a wave of fear overcome her, the detective prepared to try to intercept the blow.

Instead of being struck, an unexpected arrow landed into the side of the monster’s skull as it backpedaled from the sudden strike, right into a new figure that had dropped down behind it to deliver a strong sword strike to finish it off. As the monster collapsed, Amelia looked up to see a pink haired woman standing in front of her.

“Calli!” The detective smiled as the reaper reached down to help her up.

“You were in a skele-ton of trouble there, good thing we were here!” Another softer voice chuckled from behind.

Turning to see the priestess approaching with a crossbow in hand, Amelia smiled at the sight of Ina. One thing that was immediately obvious was rather than a chestplate, the priestess had on Amelia’s coat.

“I think you’re missing a piece of armor there.” The detective pointed.

“Oh, I just figured it’d be more helpful to have some pocket space for a few necessities.” Ina smiled as she retrieved an arrow from her pocket and began reloading the crossbow. “If I’m going to be completely honest, I’m shocked that I actually hit that arrow. I expected to totally miss that.”

“Well it seems your aim saved me, so thanks for that.”

“Calli!” Kiara yelled from nearby as she ran up to hug the reaper.

“Why the hell are you not wearing a shirt or chestplate?” Calliope aggressively asked.

“Just for you to see my amazing body!” Kiara laughed as she cupped her bra.

“No!” Calliope shoved the phoenix away. “Why the hell are you being horny right now? There’s still a fight going on.”

“Kiara’s been stuck pretty deep with a wither skeleton’s sword, I think it might be affecting her mentally,” Amelia interjected.

Calliope paused for a moment in consideration. “I guess that could make sense, her body would be trying to constantly repair itself due to her healing abilities as a phoenix, so her mind would be taking the brute of the damage.”

Amelia’s eyes widened at how causally Calliope said it. “So you’re saying she’s losing her mind?”

“Well, yes… but it’s only temporary and her body should be able to fight off the wither by itself, it will just need time.”

“A little help?” An annoyed Gura yelled from nearby.

“No, let’s get out of here!” Amelia yelled back.

Backing up towards the rest of the group, Enma and Gura waited near the cliff with the others. Calliope and Ina gave each other a surprised look at the sight of the manager, but quickly began to scale the cliff along with the others. At the top, they were met with a few blazes that had flown above the area of the Nether fortress. Quickly, the group tried to deal with them, but Ina ended up missing a shot as the arrow flew past the blaze and found a different target…

...a zombie pigman.

“Uh oh.” Ina muttered as nearby pigmen began to turn their head towards the group, which had now been put on the monsters’ hit list.

Seeing the large group of zombie pigmen heading their way, Enma was the first to charge into the nearby crimson forest. There, they were quickly cut off by some hoglins and were out of options to travel in as a group.

“We can’t be together as a group right now, everyone split up and meet at the portal, hopefully you know the way.”

The split was purely coincidental. No one had time for decisions as three groups of two were formed heading in different directions. One consisted of Calliope and Gura, one of Amelia and Enma, and the last of Ina and Kiara.

Ina had to rest along a nearby ridge a little bit into their escape and Kiara waited nearby. The phoenix began to give the priestess strange looks as Ina was beginning to be unnerved by Kiara’s glares.

“How are you holding up Kiara, is the wither getting to you?” The priestess asked, trying to lighten the tension.

Instead of a response the phoenix immediately pointed her finger at Ina. “What were you and Calli doing together in bed?”

“Oh that?” The priestess nervously chuckled, “that was just Calli and I trying to feel comforted after almost being blown to pieces.”

“And you’re sure that nothing else more is going on?” Kiara raised her eyebrow.

“Completely sure!” Ina nervously said. “Though… uhh… you should probably talk to Calli sometime, it seems like there are some things she might need to say to you.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t think now is a good time to discuss it, you should probably wait until you’re mind’s in the right place.”

“And why would that be? Unless you’re afraid whatever it is would upset me and you’re afraid of how I’d respond?” Kiara began inching closer.

Ina was beginning to sweat from how nervous she was feeling, well, sweating more than she was from the Nether heat. She did not like how perceptive Kiara was being “N-no, that’s not it, I was saying-“

“There’s more than just seeking comfort from each other isn’t there?”

Ina gulped as she realized Kiara was raising her sword, “no, y-you’ve got it all wrong. Y-you’re just th-thinking too harshly about everything because your mind is b-being affected.”

“I think my mind is perfectly fine, Ina. Although it is currently thinking about what fried tako would taste like.”

Ina’s stomach dropped as she slowly backed away from the phoenix, but she couldn’t help but squeak out, “can’t we tako bout’ this?”

“Unless you want to look me straight in the eyes and tell me without any hint of fear that Calli is mine and mine only, I suggest you start running.”

Ina watched as the phoenix raised her sword and waited no further as she began to run as fast as she could.

Amelia and Enma eventually passed through a neighboring warped forest along the way. Their quick sprint had outpaced their pursuers as they slowed their pace inside the blue forest. When they were almost completely through, Amelia accidentally made eye contact with a nearby looming figure, which began to screech. The enderman gave no warning as it teleported behind the detective and slammed her forwards to which she rolled off of a nearby cliff down into the flat area of Nether wasteland. Enma tried to retaliate against the towering monster, but it quickly teleported to peruse its target.

Aggressively, the enderman grabbed Amelia and slammed her down against a nearby surface. At first, it seems like it was just trying to knock the wind out of her, but when her armor began to heat up under her, the detective realized she was being pressed against magma blocks. Her own protective metal suit was becoming a furnace, with her still inside it as it began to absorb heat from below. In the distance she saw Enma approaching and knew that even if the manager got a hit in on the enderman, there’s a good chance it would be healthy enough to keep up its hold on Amelia, so instead she used the strength she still had to throw her sword aside.

The shimmering diamond blade slid across the ground, right to Enma’s feet who quickly swapped her blade for the detective’s and moved in to slice at the enderman. At first the monster shifted slightly to dodge the blow, but the manager’s sword mastery allowed her to quickly slice again, striking deep into the monster as it erupted into flame and began randomly teleporting around.

Amelia wasted no time in getting up as quickly as possible and had to immediately pull off her armor, screaming in pain as her hands felt like they were on fire from the temperature of the metal. There she was, standing in the minimal clothing she wore with armor, with a nice new burn mark scarred into her back where the metal had seared her skin. She gave a nod off appreciation to Enma as she waited for the pain of the burns to subside.

Ina, of course, couldn’t outpace the phoenix, but the amount of time that Kiara hadn’t shown up for was beginning to be unsettling. Which is why when something swooped down and grabbed her, she screamed in surprise. The phoenix now held her as she was being brought airborne so the priestess fought Kiara’s grip the best she could, eventually falling towards the ground and landing with an extremely painful crunch.

Realizing that with Kaira’s mind being unstable at the moment, it was a life of death situation, so she didn’t let herself recover from the pain, instead picking up her crossbow and beginning to limp away. She knew she was somewhat close to the portal, but didn’t quite know how close or if she could even survive long enough to find out. There was only one thing she could do, and while it greatly pained her to do it, she turned around to see Kiara swooping back down towards her and carefully readied her crossbow. When the phoenix was extremely close, she fired the arrow to ensure that it would hit and began limping away again.

The projectile stuck into Kiara’s abdomen and definitely caught her off guard, but it didn’t stun the phoenix for long. Ina slid down a steep hill further into the Nether wasteland and finally saw in the distance the familiar obsidian structure with four women around it.

“Help!” She screamed as they all turned to see her limping forwards.

Calliope was the first to begin running over but was too far away from when Kiara swooped down and slashed at Ina, cutting right through the priestess’s coat and making a large cut down her back. The phoenix then landed in front, coming to a sliding stop as she began to pace towards Ina with her sword drawn.

Out of fear, the priestess fell onto her back and used her arms to scuttle backwards but Kiara was getting too close. When the phoenix was finally in striking distance, a pair of arms wrapped around Kiara’s throat as Calliope got her into a choke hold and began to cut off the phoenix’s air flow. Ina could only watch in horror as Kiara began to fidget then go limp and collapse out of the reaper’s hold.

Calliope wiped a tear from her eye as she knelt down next to Ina, “are you okay? How badly did she hurt you?”

“I-I’m fine now. Th-“ Ina felt extremely light headed from the extreme amount of adrenaline in her body. “I think… I’m going to pass o-“ was all the priestess could say before she blacked out.

Calliope was the only one who got out of the situation unscathed. Her and Gura’s route had been direct and unchallenged, which meant that they had arrived first at the Nether portal. This lack of harm meant that she also had to be checking in on the others for a bit.

Amelia and Gura were resting in their room, Enma was put in Ina’s and the priestess was fast asleep in Calliope’s bed. The only one that was left was Kiara, who still had her own bed in her room. It was not very long after that the reaper could sense movement from upstairs so she climbed the steps and took a deep breath as she opened the door to Kiara’s room.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Kiara had her knees pulled in and had her head buried in them. As the reaper got closer she realized that the phoenix was, in fact, crying.

“Kiara…” she calmly whispered causing the phoenix to quickly look up, showing her tear stained face.

“I-I tried to kill her.” She sobbed.

Calliope sat down next to Kiara and wrapped her arms around the phoenix. “You had no control over your actions, your mind wasn’t working properly.”

“I can see why you chose her over me.” Kiara dropped her head.

The reaper sighed as she asked, “so Ina told you?”

“No. My insane self somehow pieced it together from how I was scaring Ina.”

“Oh.” Calliope averted her gaze.

“So does that mean we’re done for? You’re done with me?”

“Of course not!” The reaper reassured Kiara.

“Then why did you choose her? You know I love you. I say it to you all the time. Then you go and choose her!”

“Kiara, I still love you, I always will. But there’s something I’ve come to realize about life. After seeing all of your past lives, lives where we were once happy together, gone and replaced with ones where I had to watch you fall in love with someone else, they taught me something.”

“Taught you what? If it’s the fact that you can’t trust falling in love with me, then that makes no sense. I specifically mastered remembering my memories and being able to reincarnate in the same dimension for something like this.”

“No. It taught me the significance of mortality.”

“What?”

“Kiara, you and I will have each other for a very, very long time. Until the day your phoenix soul finally burns out, I’ll be there for you, and you’ll be there for me… I hope. But the friends we’ve made; Ame, Gura, Ina, and all the others, are only a blink in our overall lifespans. I love Ina like I love you, but I’ll have you for an unfathomably long time in the future. For Ina, I only have her for this one lifetime. If I just kept following you and second guessing what exactly I wanted to do, I knew I’d regret it for the rest of eternity. That is why I always say no to you Kiara; the arrangement you’re asking me to join you in would trap me in it with you for the rest of your lifetimes.”

“Calli… I.” Kiara was completely silent as she slowly leaned onto the reaper. “I-I get it. I… agree with you, actually.”

“Don’t be afraid to do the same, Kiara.” Calliope lightly pressed her hand against the phoenix’s cheek.

“Just remember: no matter what, I’ll love you forever.” Kiara smiled as she moved her face in close.

“As will I.” The reaper said as she slowly leaned in as well.

Lips met as the two kissed for a long few moments of pure love between the two.

Calliope slowly pulled away. “I… better go check up on Ina, you should get some more rest as well. Tomorrow will be our last day of preparation before the final fight.”

Kiara smiled. “Ina‘s a great match for you. I’ll… try to apologize to her tomorrow.”

The reaper nodded as she closed the door and headed into her room where the priestess was sleeping, carefully slipping into bed with Ina so as to not wake her.

Chapter Text

At some point the next day, a makeshift table had been set up out of blocks in the downstairs room as supplies were being piled up. As the group slowly awoke, they gathered downstairs and waited for the rest to get up. Eventually, Calliope came downstairs, which left Ina as the last to awake.

“I guess we’re just waiting for Ina now.” Amelia sighed as she tossed the blaze rods on the makeshift table.

Calliope glanced around the group before announcing, “I think it will be better if we continue without her. I think she was pushed to her limit yesterday, so there’s no telling how long she’ll be out for.”

Off to the side, Kiara dropped her gaze as she tried to hide a look of guilt while the others gave each other worried glances.

“Well, let’s get started then.” Enma placed her hands on the table when the silence had gotten uncomfortably long. “Watson and I have been coming up with a plan based upon the research Kiara did about the end.”

The manager looked towards Amelia who stepped up to the table. “Once we locate the portal somewhere in the stronghold below, our only threat will be a silverfish spawner near the portal.
It shouldn’t be any issue for us. The real challenge begins once we get into the end. Our first threat will be where we end up. We’ll end up on an obsidian platform in one of two locations: over the void or underground. We’ll need to have plans for either outcome.” Amelia turned to Enma.

“Which is why we are going to bring a minecart full of necessary supplies into the end. We have little room for error here, so we’ll need to bring resources that we wouldn’t be able to carry otherwise. If we are underground, we’ll have a diamond pickaxe in the minecart and then we’ll carry it up. In the case we’re over the void, Takanashi will be trying to ferry us all across, including the minecart.” The manager looked towards Kiara who’s expression remained the same frown she’d had all morning.

Amelia took a deep breath as she continued. “Whatever we do, we cannot fall off the end island. If one of us falls off like this, there’s no coming back, we’ll be gone forever.” Calliope let out a heavy sigh as Gura tensed up. “We will not be able to directly deal with the dragon at first. There’s ten obsidian towers that encircle the center of the island, each containing a crystal that can heal the dragon. So until we deal with those, any damage we deal to it will be meaningless.”

Enma began pacing around the table as she spoke. “This is where Takanashi will be an extremely important part of the plan. Her ability to fly will be critical in taking out most of the crystals. She’ll be given a crossbow to deal with the unguarded ones. The problem is, a few of them have iron bar cages protecting them, meaning a few of us will need to be dropped off at these guarded towers and mine in ourselves to create an opening for Takanashi to hit them with the crossbow.”

Amelia tapped Kiara on the shoulder. “Which is why we’ll need you to be in your best shape. Calli, Gura, Enma, and I will be getting any last resources we need today while you save your strength and Ina recovers.” The phoenix cringed a bit at the mention of the priestess. “During the actual fight, our hope is to use the spare ender pearls we got to teleport up to the tops of the towers to save you from having to actually carry us up. That means that you’ll only have to carry us down to the ground.”

Enma nodded as the role of speaking returned to her. “If all goes well and we get rid of those towers, the next phase of our plan will begin. At that point, it will not be practical for Takanashi to be flying around anymore, especially with the airspace controlled by the dragon. So, that’s when she’ll put on a spare chestplate we’ll bring and join us on the ground. Watson’s our best shooter we have here with her pistol experience so she’ll be dealing with long distance damage to the dragon with the crossbow and however many arrows we’ll have left at that point. Gawr will be able to chip away at the dragon a little bit with her trident, but her main objective will be to try to get the dragon to turn away if it tries to swoop down at us.”

“Right,” Amelia interjected, “from what Kiara researched, hitting it hard enough should get it to turn away, be we still don’t know exactly how it will behave with the strange circumstances we find ourselves in. We do still know one thing: the dragon will occasionally perch at the bedrock structure in the middle of the island. This is where Calli, Kaira, and Enma come in. They’ll be able to use their swords at that point, but we’ll all need to be extremely careful because the ender dragon is capable of launching us pretty far if we get too close. So… I guess that leaves Ina. Enma and I figured that she’s not really meant for combat, so she’ll be protecting the minecart and getting things to us as we need.”

“Among the things we’ll be bringing,” Enma began, “will be whatever golden apples we still have, Takanashi’s chestpate, spare ender pearls, blocks, the pickaxe, and a few potions. Since we got two extra blaze rods, Watson mentioned some sort of brewing stand. While I don’t know how it works, apparently she’s seen others use it.”

Kiara finally spoke up, though in an unenthusiastic tone, “I’ve seen Pekora-senpai use them, I could tell you a few of the potion recipes.”

“Then we’ll need to get on that before we go,” Amelia noted. “That talk will come later though. We’ll also be bringing water buckets since the end is infested with endermen. After seeing how dangerous these things can be, we need to be extra careful to not look them in the eyes.”

“There’s… so many things that can go wrong there…” Gura worriedly looked at the two speakers.

“Well, we’re in for one hell of a fight, this is about the best we’ll be able to do…” Amelia sighed as she placed her hand on the shark’s shoulder. “But... “ the detective smiled warmly at the group, “I’m glad all of you are here with us.”

“Aww, Ame…” Calliope smiled.

“We’ll have time to be emotional later, it’s time to get going, we still need to prepare.” Enma brought an end to the moment.

Everyone else besides Kiara sighed as they began to disperse to get ready for the day. Amelia was heading up the staircase when she felt her wrist get grabbed. Turning around she found the phoenix giving her a pleading look. “Is something wrong?”

“You’ve been here for a long time, I was wondering if you’ve ever seen pumpkins around here?”

“Pumpkins? Why?”

“I… I wanted to make something, but it would need pumpkins to do.”

“May I ask what it is you’re going to be making?”

Kiara hesitated as she quietly mumbled, “I’d rather not say.”

“Oh, well… your best bet would be to check by the destroyed village, there were some pumpkins growing there.”

The phoenix nodded as she began to walk off, “thank you, I’ll be back later.”

“Wait, you’re going right now?” Amelia suprisedly asked.

All the detective got was a nod from Kiara as she tossed her shirt aside and stepped outside, immediately followed by the sound of crackling fire from her emerging wings.

Gura carefully sat down against the cave wall and leaned over onto Amelia’s shoulder. In front of them were multiple furnaces that were currently smelting valuables ores. The plan was for the groups to take turns going into the mine to get rest inbetween, and Calliope and Enma traded places a while ago, finally giving them some rest.

Gura’s tail nervously slapped against the ground. “Ame?”

“Hm?”

“I’m… kinda scared about how this is gonna go.”

The detective took a deep breath in and leaned her head over onto the shark’s. “I’m honestly just as worried as you are, but with everyone else with us, I know we’ll be able to do this. Though… if we do fail and this is where we disappear, then at least we’ll all do it together.”

“That isn’t very reassuring…” Gura frowned.

“I… I know. I’ve just… been thinking, what the hell is going to happen when we get back?”

The shark looked at Amelia awaiting further explanation.

“I mean… you and I are probably going to have some bad scars in the end. That slash Kiara did to Ina might be one for Ina as well. Calli’s probably going to have a mark from that explosion for a while, and Kiara might have some scratches and scars as well. Besides, with you and me together, things are probably going to change a bit… and then there’s Ina and Calli.”

“Do you still think we’ll all be able to work together still?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

The shark frowned as she tried to bury herself deeper into Amelia’s side. “I’m not the only one seeing Kiara completely down and Calli kind of being cautious around her. Then Ina still hasn’t woken up, but… would she even forgive Kiara after what she tried to do?”

The detective was momentarily silent as she ran her hand through Gura’s hair. “I… I don’t know. Kiara wasn’t mentally stable at the time, but… she tried to kill Ina. I guess I can see what you mean. Things might be a little too tense between the three to be able to collaborate for a while.”

“Enma’s the only one getting out of this unscathed, huh?”

Amelia cringed a bit as she whispered, “with your history of jinxing yourself by saying things like that, I have a feeling you may have just guaranteed that she’ll get hurt in one way or another.”

“I… uhh… you’re probably right,” the shark sighed.

“I think we’re going to have to take a few weeks off of streaming if we make it back though.” Amelia paused as she contemplated a recurring idea she had been having. Slowly she began to whisper, “I think I might quit being a detective for a bit.”

“What?” Gura suprisedly asked.

“I’ve… had enough thrill and excitement for a while, I think I’ll just want some time to chill and relax. I wonder if I could convince Enma to give us the whole month off.”

“The whole month? Would you really need that much time?”

Amelia chuckled a little. “Have you thought about what will happen when we get back and you’re all alone again?”

The shark mulled it over and whispered, “oh yeah… I guess I won’t see you for a while.”

“Unless you’d like to change that…”

Gura’s eyes widened as she turned to look at the detective. “You’re not suggesting-”

“According to Enma, my house has sustained a lot of property damage. I’d either need to pay to fix it all, or move out. Perhaps I’d have a very close friend, who I’m deeply in love with, who might be kind enough to give me a home to stay in while I figure out what to do.”

Beginning to turn red like a tomato, the shark began to stutter, “I- I- uhh, with me? At my house? J-just you and me?”

Amelia began to laugh, “it’s okay if you say no.”

“No! T-that’s okay, I-I’d like that. B-but…” without warning, the shark’s nervousness faded as an evil smirk appeared on her face. “There is one thing that my joint living contract will require.”

“And what’s that?” The detective asked curiously.

“You’ll have to do some live karaoke streams with me.”

“Singing? No way, I’ll just deal with my destroyed home.”

“Hey!” Gura pouted as she shoved the detective aside. “I guess I’ll retract my offer then.”

Amelia laughed as she sat back up, “fine… you’ll get one once in a while, but you better not make fun of my singing.”

“Oh, you already know I will!” The shark teased.

In reaction, the detective shoved Gura back. “We’ll see who’s making fun of who, stupid.”

“Oh yeah, what’cha gonna do about it, doofus?”

“I’m gonna shut you up.”

“And how would you do th-” Gura was cut off as the detective pulled the shark in close for a completely unexpected kiss. Gura was completely frozen in place at first, but her tenseness quickly faded as she pushed into the kiss. 

It held for a few moments before someone from nearby scoffed, “get a room you two.”

Both completely red faced, turned to see Calliope looking at them questionably. Enma walked up from behind and muttered under her breath, “I can tell that those two are going to be a large pain to deal with in the future.”

“While you two were being lovey-dovey, we got the last diamonds we needed to get the two more chestplates we wanted. I guess Kiara will be the only one without a diamond chestplate now.” The reaper shrugged.

“What she’s saying is that we can call it a day already. Let’s all make sure we’re well rested for tomorrow so we’ll all be in our top shape.” Enma interjected.

Calliope nodded and began walking up the stairway first, hoping that Ina was okay.

Kiara took a deep breath as she approached the crafting table. A piece of sugarcane, an egg from a chicken she found, and a pumpkin that was near the village. Turning the sugarcane into sugar, she then placed the ingredients into the special recipe she had remembered and grabbed the pumpkin pie that was created. It was the most meaningful thing she could think of that she could realistically make, so she nervously began to walk out the door to head to where she had spotted Ina in the distance.

From a distance, she could see the priestess sitting on a ledge over a nearby river with a fishing rod in hand. Along with Amelia’s coat, the priestess was also wearing Calliope’s spiked coat, most likely to cover the clean cut that was torn into the back of Amelia’s coat from being attacked by Kiara. 

The phoenix wanted to just approach Ina and try talking, but couldn’t bring herself to. She was completely nervous and didn’t know if the priestess would forgive her, let alone see her as a friend anymore. She began to think of possible scenarios of what to say in her head as she paced back and forth from a distance. Finally, she gathered the courage to slowly walk up to Ina, who glanced to the side upon noticing the phoenix and seemed to cringe slightly.

After a few moments of silence, the priestess looked back down at the river and cast the fishing bobber out into the water. Kiara felt her stomach knotting as she dropped her gaze.

“I don’t even know where to begin...” Kiara spoke. “I’m… so, so, so sorry about what I did. Whether I was actually affected by the wither or not, I have no excuse for what I did to you.”

Ina seemed to hold her breath, but acted like she hadn’t heard the phoenix, who was feeling worse already.

“I’m not expecting you to forgive me, or even talk to me ever again, but at least let me give you something. It’s… nothing that could ever even come close to making up for the fear and pain I made you feel, but it was the best I could do.”

For a moment, Ina paused as she turned her head sideways slightly. Slowly, she set the fishing rod down and scooted back to fully be on the river bank. Without looking towards the phoenix, she nodded as she pulled her legs in. Kiara slowly inched forward as she extended her arm to hand the pumpkin pie to Ina, who slowly reached for it, while still trying to avoid looking at the phoenix. The priestess began to look at the item that she was handed and her expression changed slightly, but Kiara couldn't pick up on what it meant.

“I’ll... leave you alone now…” Kiara paused for a moment as she turned away, “...and Calli as well. Hopefully that will make up for it.”

The phoenix paused for a moment before beginning to walk away, but was caught off guard as Ina began to speak.

“The fear I felt at that moment upon realizing you were actually about to act on your threat… was the same type of fear from when I first became a priestess for the ancient ones.” Ina stared blankly out into the distance. “All of last night I had nightmares from the first days I became who I am. I hoped I’d never have to feel that feeling again, not knowing if I could even make it out of what was happening to me, but even if I did, things might not ever be the same.” The priestess scooted over slightly to make more room at the ledge and Kiara hesitantly made her way over to join Ina. “Yesterday, I was afraid that I was about to die by your hand. Now that I think about it though… I think less of it was worried about me and more of it worried about if you’d ever forgive yourself if you had succeeded.”

Kiara slowly sat down next to the priestess, “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself anyways.”

Ina glanced sideways slightly before croaking out, “I was in disbelief that there was a point that you’d go to with an infected mind to where you’d try to kill me over Calli.” A slight smile appeared on the priestess’s lips as she stared down at the pumpkin pie in her lap. “But at the same time, you’re willing to put aside your feelings for Calli to try to make it up to me.” Slowly, Ina finally looked at Kiara and the phoenix finally saw the tears running down the priestess’s face.

“One day I might be able to be with Calli again, but even if I have to wait multiple lifetimes so that you can be happy, it will be worth it.” Kiara smiled slightly.

Ina’s own grin faded to a frown again as she looked back out at the horizon. “But that wouldn’t make me happy.”

Kiara felt confusion as she gave a questioning look to the priestess. “But… you’d finally be with Calli, you two could be happy together.”

Shaking her head, Ina began to choke on her words, “I-I was so afraid yesterday because I was being attacked by someone I love, Kiara. I don’t want you to avoid Calli and I because I love you too.”

“W-what?” Kiara was taken aback.

“I love all four of you: Calli, Gura, Ame, and you. I’d feel horrible if you isolated yourself like that... because I love you. I… I forgive you Kiara, don’t feel bad about what happened… and don’t feel like only one person can be with Calli.”

“Only one? Wait... are you saying-”

“You talked with Calli last night, didn’t you?” Ina turned back towards the phoenix.

Kiara nodded as she sighed, “yeah, she told me we could be back together one day… just not while you’re still here.”

Ina raised her gloved hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. “She was trying to protect me. She doesn’t know how I feel about you or if I’d even forgive you, so she took the safest option of distancing you.”

“I..” Kiara began, but felt the priestess’s finger press up against her lips.

“If you truly want to make it up to me, come with me back to the house so we can talk about this with Calli. If…” Ina chuckled a little, “...if all works out and I’m sandwiched between you two tonight while I fall asleep, I think I can say that all will be forgiven.”

Kiara felt herself calming as she cracked a smile. “Thank you Ina…” the phoenix began but paused as she examined the priestess’s beautiful features. She laughed to herself slightly before sighing, “wow… I-I guess I’ve always felt the same, it's just… it’s taken you telling it to my face to realize it.”

“The pie’s good, by the way.” Ina mumbled as Kiara looked up to see the priestess eating it. “Though I have one last request as we head back.”

“And what would that be?”

“Could you carry me? My legs are still too sore to walk very quickly.”

“Kiara, get up!” Amelia yelled into the phoenix’s room, but found herself confused by the fact that not only was Kiara missing, the phoenix’s bed was gone as well.

The detective turned back into the hallway and called to Gura, “Kiara’s gone!”

“No she isn’t.” The shark whispered from down the hallway while pointing into Calliope’s room.

Amelia raised an eyebrow as she glanced into the room and her jaw nearly dropped at seeing two beds put side by by side with Calliope, Kiara, and Ina all sleeping on the double beds.

“Damn, Ina’s surrounded by boing.” Gura whispered upon seeing the priestess stuck in the middle of the two.

Enma tiredly walked up to the two and muttered, “what’s going on-” the manager cut herself off mid sentence as she looked at the three and silently turned around and began walking down the stairs while muttering under her breath, “I’m not even going to ask.”

The detective eventually got the group up as the final supplies in the minecart, along with a few potions that Kiara had helped brew at the last second with their remaining blaze powder, potion ingredients, and nether warts that they had managed to smuggle on their previous visit. Gura and Amelia had gone out earlier the previous day to get the glass necessary for the water bottles, but now they had six potions of swiftness as well as three of strength, which had all been made to supposedly last longer with the inclusion of redstone.

Their crawl into the stronghold was quick as Ina pushed the minecart while following the others, having already been briefed on the current situation, as well as having given her insight on the void in the room.

“I guess it makes sense,” she had begun, “much like how I had to release all of the magic that was attached to me, the ancient ones must have experienced that rubberbanding of energy. Though, since they have control over their magic, it's probably been releasing slowly. All of the magic they used trying to bring me back would be useless now, so they’d need to dispose of it anyways.” The priestess had gone further in depth of what the other implications may have been, but Amelia had tuned her out in the search for the portal room.

Eventually, they found the portal room in question, and after practically stepping on the silverfish that stood in their way, they found that they only needed to place nine eyes of ender in the portal frames since three were already in place. So, Amelia placed the final eye in as the hum of the portal opening rang out and as the starry expanse of the end portal stood below them, the detective turned to the rest of the group and smiled.

“Whatever happens next, whether win or lose, we do it together.” With some reassuring smiles from the others, Amelia turned back around and took a deep breath in as she took a step out and felt gravity give way under her as she plunged into the starry gateway.

Chapter Text

A cold chill ran through the air as the starry sky of the end gazed down at the six women. Across from their floating entry point over the void, Kiara dropped Enma down to the main island. The manager had been her last trip, and with the entire group across the gap and on the mainland, they all prepared for the worst. Overhead, the giant beast of the end finally took to the air as it let out a deafening roar immediately captured the attention of the group.

The dragon most definitely knew that they were there and had begun to circle around, high above the pillars of obsidian around the group.

“Everyone ready?” Amelia called as she received unanimous agreement and the group jumped into action.

Kiara snatched the crossbow from the minecart, loaded in an arrow, and began to ascend into the sky while Ina carefully placed her hands on the cart and prepared herself to move it if necessary. Gura readied her trident and prepared herself to protect Ina and the minecart, while Calliope and Enma waited nearby until the first phase of the plan was completed.

Amelia scanned the ring of obsidian towers and noted two caged towers. The detective took a deep breath in as she grabbed an ender pearl from the minecart and exchanged her sword for the pickaxe.

“Be safe.” Gura whispered as Amelia flashed a small smile.

With as much accuracy as she could, the detective threw the pearl up to the top of the closest cage. Perfectly arcing through the air, the projectile landed on the side of the target cage and Amelia immediately vanished.

On the receiving end, the detective suddenly found herself on the side of the cage as a sharp pain shot through her body from the teleportation. Having appeared somewhat above the top of the pillar, she found herself sliding down and slipping off the side of the tower. Amelia barely managed to grasp onto the ledge, but in the process, dropped the pickaxe to the ground below.

In the distance, an explosion cut through the air as Kiara most likely took out one of the exposed crystals. An enraged roar signaled the ender dragon taking a dive towards the phoenix, who began to try to evade the oncoming beast.

“Ame!” A scream echoed from below as the detective looked down to see Gura running over towards the pillar. The shark turned aside to catch something that Ina tossed towards her. Momentarily glancing at the water bucket, Gura quickly looked up and yelled, “catch!” As the detective lifted herself onto the ledge slightly, she let go with her other arm as the shark powerfully tossed the item towards Amelia. 

The detective’s fingers barely missed the item on the initial reach, but as it passed her reached the apex of its ark, Amelia desperately swung her arm to the side and managed to clasp her hand around the bucket. As she moved to set it along the side of the pillar, she felt a wince of pain and a wave of pure of pure terror coursed through her body as her fingers slipped off of the edge.

With no other option, Amelia’s rush of adrenaline caused her to throw the bucket down as hard as she possibly could. Moments before her landing, a small pool of water appeared on the item’s impact site and spread out a block as she finally landed in the puddle.

After a splash followed by a loud thud, Gura immediately rushed over and pulled the detective out of the spreading puddle.

“A-Ame?” The shark worriedly asked, but there was no response from the detective.

Enma had now also rushed over and pushed Gura aside. “Get back to defending Ina, I’ll check up on her.”

While the shark registered the command, she couldn’t get her legs to move as she stared down at the unmoving detective. Before Enma could repeat herself, something slammed down next to them and it snapped Gura out of her trance for long enough to see Kiara weakly attempting to stand back up.

“Kiara!” Ina and Calliope yelled in unison as the reaper ran over to help the phoenix up.

Overhead a crackle of flame shot through the air as the now undefended Ina attempted to push the cart out of the way from an oncoming dragon fireball. Realizing she didn’t have the strength to get it out from the surprise attack, she kicked the minecart with all of the strength she could as the fireball exploded behind her, singing her back with purple flame. As the bath of flame spread, Ina dragged herself out and fell to the ground in an attempt to recover from the pain, as well as the strange secondary feeling she was experiencing.

Calliope escorted Kiara towards the minecart as she kept her head low to avoid the tall endermen that were beginning to show interest in the group. She turned to see Enma and Gura working together to assist Amelia, who seemed to wince with every step. The dragon roared in the distance as it broke away from its pursuit and the reality of the situation was finally setting in for the six.

“I was right, water doesn’t break falls like it normally would.” Amelia coughed as Enma sat her down against a nearby pillar. “And those cages are way too thin to climb like we had planned, Kiara, you’ll have to break into them yourself.”

“I can’t! The dragon’s way too aggressive. The moment I got up high enough to take out the crystals, it began to chase me down like an enraged bull.” The phoenix complained.

“Then something about how this world is being simulated had seriously beefed up the dragon.” Enma noted. “We tend to think of a plan B and fa-“

The manager was cut off as a deafening roar announced the dragon’s next assault on the group. As Gura looked in its direction, she saw the ender dragon charging right at them and realized that it was up to her to protect the group. Winding her trident back in her hand, she waited until the beast was close enough to where she knew she wouldn’t miss. With as much power as she could put into the throw, Gura threw the weapon straight at the dragon.

The sheer power that the trident was thrown with caused multiple of the group members to drop their jaws in awe as the weapon hit the dragon with a huge crash and forced the beast to back off of its approach. Gura had to hunch over and take quick, short breaths to recover from the throw as the trident flew back towards her.

Ina pushed the minecart up towards the group and grabbed a golden apple for herself, hoping to alleviate the strange feeling that was lingering within her from the dragon’s fire. Amelia and Kiara followed suit as each moment could feel the others’ despair at how poorly things were going.

“We need to switch this up, clearly those caged towers are going to be a problem if the dragon’s going to protect them this much.” Enma groaned.

“We need to take out the crystals that we can right now, which means Kiara needs to get back up there.” Amelia said.

Ina had found herself zoning out as she felt the strange feeling within her flowing throughout her body, which is why she nearly jumped when she felt a hand brush her cheek and looked to see Calliope worriedly staring at her.

The reaper’s eyes scanned the priestess’s face as she whispered, “Ina, are you okay? That fire didn’t hurt you too badly, did it?”

“I-I’m fine,” the priestess lied, hoping to not worry the others.

Calliope didn’t seem too convinced by the answer, but nodded slightly as she turned back to Kiara. The phoenix let out a shaky sigh as she extended her wings once more and took to the sky with another arrow loaded in the crossbow. Having just finished perching, the dragon took to the sky again as Kiara took out the nearest crystal and began to take evasive maneuvers once she saw that the beast was angrily chasing her.

Kiara couldn’t outspeed it, but she could take shark turns around the pillars, something the dragon had to do much slower, so she began using its size to her advantage.

On the ground, Gura was standing defensively in front of Amelia, who was leaning against the obsidian pillar as she tried to recover from the stiffness her body was experiencing after the fall. The shark’s tail occasionally wagged side to side as she gripped her trident and watched the others to see what they would do.

Ina tried to keep her gaze towards the sky as she watched the phoenix and dragon dance between the pillars. As she watched, Calliope stood next to her and quietly whispered, “what’s wrong? Like… what’s really wrong? You can tell me the truth.”

The priestess sighed as she shifted her focus to watch Enma, Amelia, and Gura in the distance attempting to mine some end stone. “Something feels off after that fireball hit me, I just… can’t put my finger on what it is.”

“Ina, that isn’t something you should hide.”

Ina shook her head. “I know, but the feeling is slowly going away, so I didn’t want to worry you since it isn’t a big deal.”

Calliope shifted her gaze up towards Kiara, who’s lead over the dragon was beginning to shrink. The reaper then looked into the distance and shouted, “Gura, Kiara’s probably going to fly by with the dragon behind her, get ready.”

The shark nodded as she began waving her arms in the air to get the phoenix’s attention. Seeing the signal, Kiara began to dive down in that direction as Gura prepared to throw her trident at the trailing beast. When the two were getting close, the shark threw her trident past the phoenix as it struck deep into the dragon.

This time, the beast was much less affected by the attack, but still turned off of its course… heading straight towards Calliope and Ina. The dragon was still moving extremely fast and even though the two had prepared for the possibility, Ina found herself frozen in pace at the sight of the gigantic beast charging straight at her. Calliope had already jumped out of the way, but turned back in terror to see Ina rooted in place.

The impact was over with the blink of an eye. Their minecart was sent flying back and spilled its contents as Ina found herself stuck to the wing of the dragon, being lifted further and further into the air. If the impact hadn’t knocked all of the wind out of her lungs, the priestess would have been screaming, but the shortness of breath she found herself with forced her to remain silent.

As the speed of the beast’s wing flaps continued to stop Ina from taking in another breath, the priestess’s vision began to blur. Unaware of her current height and lack of oxygen, Ina could no longer hold on and after the dragon took a sharp turn, she found herself sliding off of the beast’s wing and began to fall.

The others had seen it from a distance as Kiara quickly began to try chasing after the dragon, despite how tiring flying was already becoming for her. As she pursued, she saw the priestess ejected off the side of it and the phoenix quickly changed paths in an attempt to save Ina. Kiara quickly realized, though, that she wouldn’t be able to reach the priestess before she would hit the ground. So, as she helplessly dove towards Ina, something much worse became apparent: she was going to miss the island entirely.

Stuck spiraling through the air, the priestess still retained enough velocity to put her past the edge of the end mainland and Kiara made a split second decision to fold in her wings to maximize the speed at which she was descending. Without having to fear about decelerating before hitting the ground. Kiara braced herself to plunge into the abyss under the island to save Ina.

Calliope’s heart skipped a beat as the priestess disappeared behind the edge of the island in the distance. Kiara quickly followed suit and both disappeared beyond the horizon of the island. The reaper was so entranced with seeing the two women disappear that she didn’t hear the others yelling at her from behind as one of the dragon’s fireballs struck her from behind. The purple flame wanted no time burning into her as she had to drag herself out of the pool of fire to avoid the increasing intensity of pain.

“Calli!” Gura yelled from behind as the shark ran up to the reaper and assisted her in escaping the ring of flame. 

The reaper winced at the feeling of Gura’s hand pressing against her burnt skin and tried to twist away from her touch. Nearby, Enma finally arrived with the rest of the minecart as she let it aside to help the shark pull Calliope away.

“Holy fuck this is bad.” Amelia coughed from nearby. “This is going so fucking badly.”

The detective paused as the dragon roared above. She turned towards Gura with a sad look in her eye as the shark dropped her gaze. “We haven’t gotten enough end stone to get halfway up a single tower, have we?”

“No, we were more concerned about- wait!” Enma’s typically calm demeanor faded to a look of fear. “Has Takanashi returned yet with Ninomae?”

While Calliope laid on the ground looking up towards the sky, the others glanced to the sky and between the legs of nearby endermen to see if they could spot where the two went.

No matter where they looked, the phoenix was nowhere in sight and, as the dragon began to roar again, Gura stepped aside in preparation to protect the group.

Suddenly, Amelia yelled, “there!” 

Pointing past a group of endermen, the detective had located the phoenix and priestess, Kiara was hunched over slightly with Ina in her arms. As Gura fended off the dragon once more, Kiara arrived without saying a word and as Calliope sat up, the phoenix sat Ina down next to the reaper.

Kiara then dropped to her knees as she took deep breaths, barely able to say, “I don’t think I can do any more flying.”

Ina was still out as Amelia looked at the group. Gura was trying to massage her arm, which was growing increasingly sore from each defense against the dragon. Calliope was finally shrugging off the damage from the fire as she stood up to see the others in the group. The look in her eyes was one of despair. Kiara looked helplessly at the others as she continued to catch her breath next to the unconscious priestess.

Enma was the only one that was unharmed so far, but her facial expression wasn’t any better than the others. 

Enderman paced nearby as the dragon began to circle the towers once again and Amelia was the first to break. “It’s… been a great time with you five. You guys really changed my life for the better.”

There was an uneasy silence as no one objected to the meaning of the detective’s statement. Above, a crackle of fire caused the group to disperse from each other in order to avoid an oncoming fireball. Kiara held Ina in her arms as the group reunited aside from the pool of fire.

The priestess’s eyes slowly began to open as she glanced up at the woman holding her and chuckled weakly, “looks like you saved me, I guess that makes up for you trying to end me in the Nether.”

Ina awaited a response from the phoenix but was surprised as a drop of water landed on her cheek. Looking up she saw tears beginning to stream down Kiara’s cheek as she whispered, “it’s over Ina, we’re too beaten to go on.”

Slowly, the priestess’s head turned to see the others in just as low spirits as her own smile began to fade. Ina slowly began to realize the situation and came to a sorrowful realization. As her gaze returned to Kiara, she wrapped her arms around the phoenix’s neck and whispered, “then live the best life that you can, for us.”

“Huh?” Kiara confusedly looked down at Ina to see the priestess softly smiling at her.

Calliope walked closer and placed her hand on the phoenix’s shoulder and sniffled, “through dying, you can make it out while.. we can’t. This may be the end for us, but you’ll be able to go on. I… I know you’ll do great things.”

“No…” Kiara weakly sobbed, “I-I can’t go without you.”

Ina began to wriggle as Kiara set her down and she used her hand to lift the phoenix’s chin and whisper, “then think of this as my final request, to live the rest of your life to the fullest.”

“It’s heading for us!” Gura cut the moment as she threw her trident at the dragon again, just barely hitting it this time. While the dragon immediately began to fly away, the last of the shark’s hope faded when her trident didn’t return. Instead, she had to watch as it crumbled in front of her, finally succumbing to the damage it had taken over time. Gura froze in disbelief as she watched the spot that her trident was once in.

Slowly, a pair of arms wrapped around her back as Amelia whispered, “thanks for buying us as much time as you could. You’ve done your job the best you could.”

Gura quickly turned and finally let her own tears flow as the detective pulled the shark in close and let Gura cry into her chestplate. She looked over towards Enma as she embraced the shark as the manager looked towards the blank faces.

As the dragon landed to perch in the middle of the island she sighed, “well, this definitely isn’t how I had pictured myself going out…” the manager looked down at her armor and continued, “but I can say that you five have been quite the interesting group. I don’t think I would have liked to have anyone else to look after.”

With one final thing in mind, Ina turned to the reaper and gave her the smallest smile she could muster. Calliope simply nodded as she extended an arm for the priestess to take a hold of. Slowly, Ina reached forward to take the reaper’s hand.

Then, as the two’s hands touched, a spark of purple crackled between them as both flinched and pulled back from the touch.

“What the fuck?” Calliope gasped as she worriedly looked at Ina, who had completely frozen in place. “Ina?”

“Oh my god.” The priestess muttered under her breath.

“What happened?” Kiara asked, having witnessed the event.

“I know why I was feeling strange after the fireball hit me!” A sudden burst of energy was lanced into the priestess’s words. “It felt strange because there was so little of it that I actually absorbed, but that fire contains the smallest amount of magic in it! Calli did you get hit by one too?”

“Y-yeah,” the reaper stuttered as Ina, “but I didn’t feel anything.”

The priestess paused for a moment before gasping, “of course! You didn’t feel it because you aren’t meant to feel magic like I can. The ancient ones might not be connected with me right now, but they still left an impression on me that can’t be removed that simply.” Ina then grabbed the strands of her hair that had once been tentacles to show off the ends that were still orange. “I can still store magic within myself, even if I can’t directly use it!”

“So what-“ Amelia was cut off as the dragon began to flap its wings and take off from its center perch, “what does that mean?”

Ina rubbed her forehead for a moment as he began, “hear me out here, since this is extremely hypothetical. The original point where I lost connection with the ancient ones was because they didn’t have the magic to pull me back alone, and I had none to help them. So… I could theoretically syphon enough of the magic from the dragon’s fire to attempt to establish that pull once again.” The priestess then turned to Kiara, “as a Kiara saw, the ancient ones are still dealing with the aftermath of that severance, which means that if I can get enough magic on this side, I might be able to overpower them and bring them here instead.”

“H-holy shit,” Calliope stammered under her breath. “Are you sure that any of that would work?”

“No clue, but this is our last resort, right?”

“You’re, right; it is.” Amelia stepped forward. “Well, I see no harm in giving it a try, seeing that we’re all expecting to die anyways.”

“I… I don’t want to lose you guys, so we have to.” Gura sniffled while holding onto Amelia’s side.

Enma suddenly spoke up, “Wait. You said that you got barely any magic from that hit you took? How are you supposed to get enough to pull the ancient ones through?”

Ina paused as she looked towards Calliope. “Well, given how much more I just absorbed from Calli, and hers was… was hers a direct hit?” The reaper nodded. “Then, I’ll need your help. It seems that I can siphon some of the magic that would enter you guys’ bodies after getting hit so… I need each of you to take a direct blast for me.”

“Of course.” Kiara immediately agreed.

Calliope shrugged, “fine with me.”

The other three hesitantly agreed too as they turned their attention towards the now circling dragon. As the beast roared, it began to swoop down towards the group, causing endermen to clear out of the way.

"Well, here goes nothing." The reaper said as she drew her sword.

Chapter Text

If Amelia had been told that she’d be facing a blocky dragon in a sandbox game where she and the rest of the EN group were betting their lives on a single plan, she would have believed such a suggestion could only come from someone insane, such as Haachama. But here she was, staring down the giant beast as she, and the others were riding the winds of one last hope.

While it had worked at first, trying to fend off the dragon with a sword was becoming more and more difficult. This notion was finally cemented when Calliope barely missed her strike and was thrown back against the nearest pillar. While Kiara rushed to assist the reaper, the others turned to the sound of a crackle booming through the air.

Enma was the first to react and nodded to the others as she leapt forward. Turning around, the manager was hit in the back by the fireball and fell to her knees as Ina immediately ran in to assist her. Amelia watched from a distance as purple energy passed from the Enma to the priestess and turned to face Gura.

“I’ll go next and get my first hit over with.” She sighed as the shark looked at her nervously.

After a slight nod, Gura whispered, “are we sure that Ina can do this? We are going to be hit a lot for this to work.”

“We have to trust her, so… yeah.”

Nearby, Calliope and Kiara joined the group once again and stood near the minecart. The reaper was taking deep breaths as she approached, but kept up her posture. Amelia smiled at the others while they watched Ina and Enma arrive. Above, the dragon was circling for its next attack, causing the group to begin preparing for it.

Ina was glancing around as she nervously warned, “each of you will probably have to be hit three times to get the minimum amount of magic I need.”

“Minimum?” Enma groaned.

“Well, there’s no saying how much I will really need. I am attempting to bridge two separate dimensions, which isn’t exactly easy to do!”

Calliope sighed as she looked off into the distance, there was a momentary silence before the reaper yelled, “oh fuck!”

In a split second, Calliope had swung her blade straightforward, barely forcing away an enderman that teleported in front of her. The monster took a step back and disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke. The group could only watch as it suddenly appeared behind the reaper. It was about to strike a harsh blow when there was a blur of movement and, in the blink of an eye, the monster combusted into flame and began to flee while teleporting randomly while the flames burnt it.

All attention was focused on Enma, who was lowering a glowing diamond blade.

“Holy shit,” Kiara said in awe as the manager straightened her stance.

Enma cracked a small smile at that, barely noticeable to the others. “I know my way with a blade, I’m not just a manger for show.” She then turned to Calliope, “Mori, you gotta watch out.”

The reaper nodded, but the entire group’s attention was drawn to another roar of the dragon as it began to circle them above. It’s movement was beginning to change, in a way that they hadn’t seen so far. Beginning to swoop down at them, it was coming in at a speed that was slower than normal as everyone prepared for an easy dodge.

Little did they know, the dragon was getting fed up with their continued evasion. So, as it was about to swoop past, it extended its feet and landed on the ground, coming to a sliding stop. Ina immediately moved behind Calliope and Kiara, who moved to defensively guard the priestess. Amelia and Gura began to flee since they had no weapons and Enma drew her sword.

The beast glanced around as it growled, it’s towering figure looming over the others. With great strength, the dragon spun around and swung its tail at Enma, who tried to evade, but found herself just barely getting clipped by the attack. Now staring down directly at Calliope, Kiara, and Ina, it let out a deafening roar that paralyzed Ina behind the cover of the other two women.

“I thought it wasn’t supposed to do this!” Calliope yelled to the phoenix.

“It’s not…” Kiara gulped.

The dragon then began to rear its head back, and before the group could fully realize what was going on, the beast opened its mouth and bathed the group in a stream of dragon breath.

Ina immediately felt the effects; the feeling like she was melting from the inside out. She couldn’t tell if her skin was being burnt off or not, but the power she was beginning to feel flow throughout her was making her head spin.

Having managed to withstand the fire, Calliope used all of her strength to leap forward and swing a powerful blow at the beast, causing it to reel back. That window of peace was short lived though as it swung around and tried to do another tail swipe.

While Ina and the reaper were out of the way, it hit Kiara and knocked her backward, right into the nearest pillar. Ina gasped as placed her hand over her mouth at the height that the phoenix had gotten. Kiara had been launched over halfway up one of the pillars and there was nothing that could be done as her body fell downwards and collided with the ground.

“Guys! We made shelter!” Gura could be heard yelling nearby.

The dragon turned to the sound of the shark’s voice, but was met with Enma slashing at its feet. It took the bait and the manager was able to buy Calliope enough time to pick up Kiara and escort Ina to where Gura had called them from.

Gura quickly ushered them into a small bunker that they had mined under one of the pillars. Amelia was finishing up mining a few blocks with her pickaxe when they stepped inside. A few moments later, Enma dove in and Gura sealed up the hole, leaving the group in total darkness.

The enclosed space was filled with exhausted huffs as everyone tried to catch their breath. Calliope felt Kiara shift slightly, so she sat the phoenix down.

“Ina, how close are you to being able to do this?” The reaper worriedly asked.

“I-“ the priestess groaned as she held her head. “I-I don’t know.”

“A good amount of Kiara’s skin was burnt off there.” Calliope reported as she set the phoenix down.

“What about you?” Amelia inquired.

Calliope nodded in the darkness, “It seems I’m fine. Ina, what about you?”

“I… I’m fine.” Ina hesitated.

The others could tell that something was wrong, “Ina, you alright?”

The priestess considered brushing it off, but with her worsening headache, she whimpered, “I... don’t think I was meant to... hold this much magic on my own.”

“Then you probably want me to hold off for now.” Calliope sighed.

“No.” Ina objected. “I need to finish this. Pass over whatever you have.”

After some silence in the dark, there was a crackle of purple light that illuminated two faces. Mere inches away from each other, the reaper and priestess glowed under the small light. It was simply a temporary flash, and in a moment, the room was dark again… for a whole five seconds more.

A crackle and appearance of orange light caused the group to turn to Kiara, who was lying on the ground next to a small fire.

“I thought… that we could use some light in here,” she groaned as she tried to get up, but quickly collapsed.

Ina immediately moved over to the phoenix and worriedly asked, “are you okay?”

“N-no,” Kiara whimpered as she remained frozen. “I can barely move anything.”

Nodding slightly, the priestess wiped a gloved finger along the phoenix’s cheek. Ina sat down next to the fire and sighed, “we should-“ the priestess paused for a moment to wince as she placed her hand on her forehead, “rest for a little bit.”

The others worriedly exchanged looks, but slowly sat down by the small fire. Enma slowly inspected her glowing blade while Amelia and Gura leaned up against each other. Hesitantly, Calliope sat down next to Kiara, who rolled slightly to lay her head on the reaper’s lap.

Gura looked around at the others. “Do you think the dragon will find us in here?”

“This is a safe space for now, the dragon is behaving differently, so it probably won’t be able to pass into here.” Kiara tried to lessen the shark’s worries.

“That is more of a problem, no?” Enma asked. “This is different behavior from what Kiara researched, and I even read some of the page with her. This should not be happening, so what does that mean?”

“Well… this isn’t the only thing that has changed in this world. We have however our armor works… and mobs behave a little differently at times.” Amelia winced upon reciting the last sentence, causing the shark to tense up as well at the memory of their diamond captive.

“Well, this world seems to like some challenges, so let’s challenge it back.” Calliope stated as she felt Ina press up against her.

The room went silent as only the crackle of the fire made any sound. Amelia glanced back and forth between the others and stopped on the priestess as she watched Ina holding her head more.

“Ina, are you sure you can hold enough energy to do this? I don’t want to state the obvious, but you’re clearly doing poorly right now,” the detective cautioned.

“I… I don’t know.” Ina confessed as she dropped her gaze.

“We know you’ll be able to do it!” Kiara reassured the priestess as she turned around and extended a hand towards the other woman.

Moving to cup Ina’s cheek, a purple bolt of energy connected between the two as the phoenix’s hand made contact. Immediately, the priestess shot up and reeled back, beginning to hyperventilate.

“Oh shit, I had power from the dragon as well!” Kiara yelped as she tried to get up, but quickly found her legs giving out under her.

Calliope pushed Kiara out of the way as she made her way over to the priestess. Ina’s entire body was shaking as the reaper made eye contact and immediately noticed the ocean-blue tint of the priestess’s eyes had been stained a light purple. Crying out in pain, Ina threw herself back against the nearest wall and let herself slide down it.

“Ina, breath! Calm yourself!” Calliope instructed as she could hear the shuffling of the others in the back. “Wait!” She put her hand out to Amelia as she approached, “give Ina some room.” As the reaper turned back towards Ina, she whispered, “I need you to calm down for me, okay?” The priestess nodded slightly, but did nothing to slow her breaths, so Calliope slowly wrapped her arms around Ina. “Deep breaths, that’s all you need. Focus on the sound of my voice.”

The priestess began to slow her breathing as she was eventually able to calm herself for long enough to whisper, “we don’t have time.”

“Don’t have time for what?” Calliope worriedly asked.

“I… I’m over my limit on how much magic I-“ Ina paused as her entire body cringed, “I have. I… I don’t have any way to get rid of it, and I don’t have enough to… to…” the priestess pressed both hands to her forehead as she whimpered in pain, “use it on connecting to ao-chan. I need to get this out now, or I’ll be torn apart by the magic!”

“Wh-what do we do then?” Amelia trembled from behind.

“I… I’ll need some sort of-“ another shot of pain passed through the priestess, “magic catalyst; something to assist in using magic.”

“We don’t have anything like that, do we?” Gura inquired as she began digging through the minecart.

“We can find something in the end, right? We’ll just need to distract the dragon for long enough to find something!” Kiara naively tried to suggest.

“No, there’s just endermen here. We need to at least take out those crystals if we are to do anything. You can survive until then, right Ina?” The reaper carefully watched the priestess’s face.

Ina slowly thought over what was said as she suddenly stood up, “that’s it!”

“What?” The others asked unanimously.

“The crystals! They assist the dragon by strengthening it to-“ Ina’s legs almost buckled under her after another wave of pain, “to help it recover. Since I absorbed the dragon’s own magic, I might be able to draw assistance from the crystals.”

“That is quite the gamble, are you sure?” Enma cautioned.

“Well, I’m dead if it doesn’t work, so I have to try.” The priestess said as she began digging into the minecart’s loot pile. Taking out a speed position, a strength potion, and a golden apple, Ina walked over to Kiara and handed her the items.

“We have to move fast, so you four will have to distract the dragon while Kiara takes me up to the top of the nearest pillar to test my theory.” Ina explained as she headed to the wall of the room with the pickaxe.

The others stood in silence as they were baffled by the priestess suddenly taking command. As they gave each other looks asking if this was real, Kiara walked past them, colored particles swirling off of her.

“You heard the lady,” Kiara winked as she nodded towards Ina.

It had taken a bit to get the dragon’s attention on the others, but as Enma and Calliope began to assault the beats with their swords, Kiara sneakily began flying up the back of the nearest pillar. Once she reached the top, she set Ina down and the two stared at the hovering crystal.

Slowly, the priestess approached the strange object and reached her hand out. As she ignored another wave of pain through her body, this one being much worse than any of the others, she began to let the dragon’s magic flow through her.

It wouldn’t be enough to use it in any way, but it seemed to be just enough to where the crystal reacted and connected a small beam of energy towards Ina’s hand. Grinning at her success, the priestess turned back towards Kiara as she nodded, “it will work, but just one won’t cut it.”

Kiara raised her eyebrow as she asked, “then what do you need to do?”

Considering it for a moment, the priestess replied, “I’ll need you to fly me above the center of the island, where I’ll be able to connect with all of the remaining crystals at once.”

“The center? Are you crazy?” Kiara gasped, “the dragon will immediately come for us if we do that!”

“Which is why I'll ask you to throw me up further right before I go through with the process.”

“Throw you up?”

Ina slowly moved in close to the phoenix, “that’s right. Straight up into the air as you five downwards and get out of there.”

“I… I guess I can.” Kiara sighed as she watched Ina’s face get extremely close.

“I trust you, Kiara. You just have to trust me as well. You know I wouldn’t want you to worry about me because of how much I love you” Ina whispered as she smiled warmly.

The phoenix then realized just how close Ina’s face had gotten. She could clearly see every facial feature and detail of Ina, as a sudden urge took over her.

To say that her first true kiss with the priestess would be under the starlight of another dimension, high above the ground below, was what she had expected would be a complete and utter lie. But, there was some sort of beauty to the moment as she could taste that of the other woman’s lips. Kiara wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but she could almost feel some of the energy that Ina was carrying pass into her in those unforgettable moments.

As the phoenix slowly pulled away, she whispered, “that was…”

“Magical?” Ina giggled as she finished the sentence for the other woman.

“Y-yeah, that.”

Enma was slammed down into the ground and let out a worrying cry of pain as Amelia and Gura retreated further behind Calliope, who was still trying to hold her own against the dragon, despite it doing little to the beast. Just when it seemed like it was about to move in for a devastating strike, it turned to look into the sky above and, without warning, began to flap its wings to get airborne.

“What’s it doing?” Gura yelped as the wind from the massive wings blew past them.

The best began to ascend and just when Amelia noticed Kiara diving back right past the dragon, all of the currently surviving end crystals began to beam up towards a central point in the sky. It was a completely surreal experience at the sight.

The dragon continued to climb up towards the point of convergence as Kiara continued to free fall. The space itself around the central point was beginning to warp as more and more light began to shine.

When it looked like the dragon was about to reach its target, an intense explosion of purple light emanated from the point of convergence, which forced the entire group to look away to avoid blinding themselves. Once the light faded, a small figure could be seen falling from the sky, with the dragon flying in the opposite direction.

Kiara finally landed next to them as the figure in the sky became clearer. Ina was quickly falling to the ground… head first.

“We need to help her!” Gura said as she began running towards the center of the island.

“No, Ina has this!” Kiara called to the shark.

“Hm?” Gura asked as she turned to watch the falling priestess.

Ina was moments away from reaching the ground when multiple, long tentacles extended from her back and began to slow her fall. She still hit the ground with some force, but she seemed to walk it off immediately. A few more tentacles extended out of her back as she was held above the ground. Ina’s eyes were glowing white as the book of the ancient ones appeared and began floating next to her.

“WHO DARES TAKE OUR PRIESTESS FROM US?” A voice boomed from the distance.

A mass of tentacles began to rapidly move the priestess towards the group as they realized that Ina was not in control. Ina stopped right in front of them as Amelia leapt in front of the group and yelled, “that dragon is what was keeping Ina here. We need you to help us defeat it.”

“Very well, mortal.” The booming voice said. “We will take care of this.”

“Let Ina take control, she knows what to do.” Calliope moved to the front of the group.

“Why would we do that? She was clearly in danger, and we will ensure that our priestess is safely removed from this situation.” The ancient ones stated.

“Ina was the one that brought you back, she can handle herself.” The reaper retorted.

“We do not need your opinion.” The voice growled as Ina’s body began to turn around.

“Take out those crystals, the dragon can’t be hurt until then.” Enma pointed towards the towers above and commanded Ina's empty body.

“Is that so? Fine, that shall be taken care of.” The ancient ones said as Ina began to move to the closest pillar and ascend it with blinding speed.

At the top, one of the tentacles shot out and collided with the crystal, causing it to explode. It was then that Ina froze at the top and slowly turned around. Her tentacles began to retract as the priestess began to fall from the pillar, causing Kiara to jump into action.

The phoenix quickly swooped up the priestess and carefully set her down on the ground. After a few moments of no reaction, Ina opened her eyes again to reveal their normal, blue colored irises.

“Ina, are you okay?” Kiara asked as she set the priestess down.

“Yeah, I finally managed to suppress ao-chan’s control over me.” She weakly sighed as she stood up.

Ina nodded to the others as Gura pushed the minecart closer.

“Well, we have a chance now. Ina, take out those towers and we’ll distract the dragon. Calli and Enma will have to deal damage while Gura protects the cart.”

“Oh come on, how come I have to play ‘escort the payload?’” The shark complained.

“Because you have no better job now.” Amelia chuckled.

“Well, shall we?” Enma groaned, “we don’t have all day.”

The other five all exchanged glances as they nodded. It was now or never for them.

Ina extended a few tentacles as the dragon began to roar in the distance, finally coming back after the massive explosion. Grabbing out a crossbow, a few arrows, and the pickaxe, Ina held the items with her tentacles as she began to climb the nearest caged tower.

As the dragon came back into a close distance, one of the crystals began to heal it, which meant it had sustained damage from the explosion. It had just connected to the caged crystal when Ina broke through with a swift moment and used her tentacle to fire an arrow at it. The crystal exploded, chasing the dragon to roar with pain as its healing beam faded. The beast began to descend towards the group as they prepared to fight it. 

This time, the dragon was truly not messing around. It’s first attack was flapping its wings upon landing to create a huge gust of wind that forced Enma and Calliope to brace for it. With the two being temporarily stuck in place, the dragon used the opportunity to breathe fire down on the two. While Enma managed to roll backwards, Calliope was showered in another bath of dragon breath.

In the distance, Ina was leaping between towers in record time. While the ancient ones were already buzzing in her head with activity, she had to admit that she missed having this type of power. There was something stopping her now from laying waste to the crystals as she loded arrow after arrow into the crossbow to hit close up shots at each tower. It wasn’t long before she reached the last one, a caged tower that she wanted no time in singing the diamond pickaxe and shooting an arrow through the exposed crack. With the final crystal finally gone, she turned to see the fight going on below and had an idea of a way to help.

Enma was pinned back against a wall as the dragon finally caught her off guard and crushed her between the pillar and its tail. An audible crunch was heard as the manger collapsed and dropped her sword.

Amelia realized the opportunity that was before her and as Calliope began to swing her blade more at the beast's legs, the detective snuck behind the beats and pulled both Enma and the blade out. At first, she thought that the manger had simply been knocked out, but a further look at her caused Amelia’s stomach to drop at the sight of what could only be a broken arm bone.

“Damn it.” She groaned to herself. “Gura did jinx her.”

“Is she okay?” The shark whimpered. “We don’t have any more apples to heal if she’s not.”

“Yeah, she’s fine, but her arm is definitely broken. We need-“

Their conversation was cut off as Calliope went flying last then and they turned to see the dragon charging at them. Amelia stood in front of Gura with her sword drawn when something struck the beast from above. High up, on the nearest pillar, Ina stood and was chucking itemized obsidian blocks at the beast, which seems to be hurting it slightly.

The dragon roared out in anger as it prepared its wings to take off. Amelia saw this and made a split second decision to leap onto the dragon’s side and climb up onto its back. With the damage it had received, she knew it was weak, but the detective also knew that they couldn’t keep up the fight for much longer.

So, she held onto the beast’s back as it began to fly. When it leveled out and began preparing to circle back towards Ina, she began taking swipes as the dragon’s back. Raising out in pain, the beast began to fly erratically to shake her off, but she dug the blade in and held on as tight as she could.

The dragon suddenly crashed into the nearest tower and began to fall towards the ground, with Amelia on it. Since it managed to glide, the impact wasn’t too bad for the detective, but she was still stunned monetarily on landing. Trying her best to pick herself up, she climbed further up onto the top of the dragon and, as it was getting up, plunged the sword into the beast’s head.

Immediately, the dragon threw its head back and landed Amelia off of it as it spun around and let out a shower of dragon’s breath upon her. She felt it singeing her skin as she backed away from the beast. The fire hurt a lot, but she tried to shrug off the pain.

“Ame!” She heard from above her and looked to see an item coming her way. In front of her, a crossbow dropped and she knew immediately what Ina was telling her to do.

The detective looked up to the sky and prepared to shoot, knowing that she’d need to have a few more arrows ready soon after. As she watched the beast fly, she tracked its movements. Once the opportunity arose, she took a deep breath and let the crossbow fire.

Amelia had always trusted her sharpshooting skills with handheld weapons, such as her pistol, but she hadn’t been expecting to land the arrow right between the creature’s eyes mid-flight. That so happened to be the outcome of the situation and, as the projectile found its mark, the beast let out a deafening roar as crackles began to ring out across the landscape.

White light began to crack through the dragon’s body as it flew back towards the center of the island. There, it began to ascent into the sky as more and more of it began to disappear to the light.

It was over. None of them believed it at first and they all sat in shock at the revelation. Kiara was the first to react as she collapsed into the ground out of exhaustion and let out a sigh of relief. Gura began to scream with delight as she ran up and tackled Amelia to the ground, hugging the detective tightly.

“You did it!” The shark exclaimed as she warmly embraced Amelia.

“What do you mean I did it? I just finished the damn thing off. Everyone else were the ones that did the most.” The detective laughed.

“Seriously.” Calliope groaned, “I think Ina was responsible for most of the damage from the explosion, and how quickly she was able to handle the situation.”

By now, the priestess had made her way down and, as she retracted her tentacles, joined the group. “It’s over…”

Calliope and Ina began to slightly chat, leaving Gura and Amelia to state at each other with the realization that it was all finally over. They had won. It was time to go home. They were free.

The shark kept her gaze low to avoid endermen, but looked around as slight drops began to run down her cheek. Looking over, Gura saw tears of joy forming in Amelia’s eyes as well.

“Someone should probably get Enma, she’ll need medical attention right away.” Amelia finally looked away.

Ina examined the facial expressions of the others before announcing, “I… guess I’ll go back through first and bring Enma with me.”

Carefully, the priestess extended some tentacles and lifted up the unconscious manager before heading towards the center of the island. The other four also followed her as she stood near the ender of the now open gateway. 

The starry abyss that it revealed awaited its members as Ina nodded to the others, “see you on the other side.”

With that, the priestess fell backwards into the portal and faded from the blocky world, leaving the four others.

“Do you two want to go next?” Kiara asked Amelia and Gura.

“Actually. I’d like a moment to talk to Gura… alone.” The detective admitted.

“Then I’ll respect that.” Calliope nodded as Sherwood Kiara’s hand. “Shall we?”

“Yes please, absolutely hate it here.” Kiara groaned.

The two women stepped into the abyss together, leaving just the original two arrivals.

Amelia turned to the shark pulled Gura in for another hug. The shark’s tail swung rapidly as she hugged back as tight as possible.

“Do you think we’ll even remember what normal life is like?” The detective laughed.

Gura joked back, “I don’t even know if I’ll remember any of my passwords.”

“Well, I think we should take some time off of streaming to adjust back to normal life… just you and I.”

“I’d love that.” Gura smiled as she looked up at the detective.

“Well then bozo, is it time?” The detective chucked.

“One last thing.” Gura whispered.

“And what is that?”

Gura chose not to say what, rather show by flipping off both her helmet and the detective’s. She immediately moved in and let their lips meet as she could feel the detective kiss back with no hesitation. When it was time for both to get a breath of air they beamed at each other and Amelia suddenly felt the shark’s arms grab her and lift her.

Now being held by Gura, Amelia smiled, “you ready?”

“Yeah,” Gura showed a toothy smile.

And with that, Gura jumped into the portal with Amalia in her arms. As the starry abyss around them began to become less and less pixelated, their armor began to fade, leaving what was left of both of their clothing. Together they prepared to see the real world once more, knowing that whatever happened next, they’d do it together.

Chapter Text

Well, it has been quite a while, huh?

Glitched unexpectedly blew up while I was posting it, and ended up reaching a level of support I was never expecting. It is still completely unfathomable to me, but you guys helped make history with this fanfic. (Unless I am completely forgetting something so huge) Glitched was the most kudosed story in the VTuber section of ao3 and was even the first in this same category to reach 1000 kudos, so I really have to thank all of you for your support. Your comments, encouragement, and everything kept me going and helped encourage me to do a few things I wouldn't have done without this. I know you won't know about any of that, but I seriously am grateful.

This story has always been special to me, and I thought that it was time to go back and show that. I wrote this while I was still somewhat getting into writing, so many of the earlier chapters were not written very well. My writing improved as I wrote this story, which you can probably see comparing chapter 1 to chapter 28. That being said, my writing has greatly improved since then and I feel like I could go back and do things a little better... which is what I plan to do.

I am going to be releasing another version of Glitched titled "Glitched (Definitive Edition)". This version of Glitched will have improved writing, more fluff and emotion throughout the story, new chapters that the original didn't have, and smoother story moments and fixes that I felt like it should have, all while hitting the same story beats of the original.

I wanted to add this final chapter to let all of you know in the case you want to go back down the path of reading this story as the chapters come out to see what a revised/improved version would look like. I'll be releasing the first chapter right after I post this, so check my works for it to appear (hopefully soon after this updates or right alongside it). I will be posting updates at a minimum of once a week until this revised version is finished, so if you feel like it, please stop by and comment what you think of them.

And to those of you who are just finding this: welcome to this old fanfic of mine. I don't know if you will or have just read the 28 chapters of this work, but I highly suggest waiting for the chapters of the revised version to release.

Anyways this is simply a heads up of this new version I'm releasing for if you'd like to check it out. This story was a serious passion project of mine and this revised version only feels right as my thank you for all of your support. I hope to see you there.