Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun was rising for a new dawn at Ando Groceries in the Suzuran Shopping District. After a great sleepover with Arle, Amitie, and Maguro, Ringo Ando was refreshed for the next day of her school break.

The four friends were still lounging around Ringo's room. Arle, perched on the edge of the bed, grinned. "That was the best night of Puyo Puyo I've had in a long time! You’re getting really good, Ringo."

Amitie, who was already fully dressed, bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. "It was super fun! And the snacks were the best! I wish we could have sleepovers every day of break."

Maguro, lying flat on the floor and staring at the ceiling, gave a lazy thumb-up. "Yeah, I’m pretty sure I dreamt in Puyo chains. The atmosphere was spot on. Thanks for hosting, Ringo. ★"

"Anytime, guys," Ringo said, bundling up a few blankets. "Just glad we all got to hang out and relax."

Ringo's grandmother Tanjerin Ando entered the room, with a kind smile on her face. "Ringo. You and I are needed downstairs. Gurēpu and Orenji want to talk to us."

"OK, Grandma!" Ringo responded.

Ringo quickly exited her room, pulling her school uniform out of her closet. She grabbed her clothes and ducked into the hallway bathroom. She brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and quickly changed out of her pajamas and into her familiar, smart Suzuran uniform, hoping to look respectable, even on her day off.

Once she's done, she and Tanjerin walk downstairs to the living room to see Gurēpu and Orenji looking a little tense.

"Mom? Dad? Why are you looking at me like that?" Ringo asked.

"Ringo has a point. You never looked this hostile." Tanjerin followed up with Ringo's comment.

"Oh, I don't know," Ringo's mom Gurēpu said with a sickeningly sweet voice, "just... THIS!"

Ringo's dad Orenji turned on the news... and what Ringo and Tanjerin saw, made their blood run cold.

"This just in, half of Suzuran seems to be either destroyed or ruined by graffiti. Various screenshots show that the perpetrator seems to be a witch-like being wearing the face of Suzuran's pre-teen hero, Ringo Ando. The darkness is continuing to spread. If Ms. Ando is watching, please rise up to stop this imposter before utter doom rises among us--" The TV was soon muted.

"Doppelganger, my butt." Orenji fumed, "You had to have caused this, young lady!"

Tanjerin's face began to form a frown. "You're being ridiculous, Orenji! Ringo was in her room with her friends last night! I saw it with my own eyes!"

"That's what you think you seen!"

"What possessed you to do such a thing, Ringo?!" Gurēpu shouted. "I didn't raise you to be a criminal!"

"I didn't, Mom! There--"

"SHUT UP!" Gurēpu interrupted Ringo's plea.

Tenjerin's fists began to ball up. Why would they just jump to conclusions like this?!

Arle, Amitie, and Maguro were eavesdropping on the fiasco from the top of the stairs.

"Ringo's parents really think she caused the mayhem?" Amitie whispered, her voice laced with disbelief.

"They're completely out of line," Arle muttered, her hand gripping the banister.

"What do we do?!" Amitie panicked.

"I don't know. ★" Maguro whispered back.

"Why don't you believe me?" Ringo asked, voice cracking.

"Maybe because of the crime commited!" Gurēpu yelled.

"Ugh! If we knew you where capable of this, we would've named you Kusatta Ando!" Orenji shouted.

Ringo immediately felt her heart be reduced to atoms. Kusatta meant rotten. They called her rotten. Her eyes began to flood with tears.

That was just about enough for Arle. "That's IT!"

"Arle, NO! ★" Maguro tried pulling her back, but her cape slipped his grip.

Arle charged down the stairs, her feet thudding on the wood, and came to a stop directly in front of Gurēpu and Orenji. She drew in a sharp breath. "MAIS QU'EST-CE QUI NE VA PAS CHEZ VOUS?!" she practically screamed, the French words erupting like an unexpected explosion. "VOUS N'ÊTES PAS SES PARENTS! VOUS ÊTES DE VRAIS IMBÉCILES!" She pointed a trembling finger at Orenji. "ELLE EST RENTRÉE À LA MAISON, VOUS L'AVEZ VUE, ET MAINTENANT VOUS CROYEZ LA TÉLÉVISION AU LIEU DE VOTRE PROPRE FILLE?!"

She pivoted to Gurēpu. "ET VOUS L'APPELEZ 'KUSATTA'? APRÈS TOUT CE QU'ELLE A FAIT POUR CETTE VILLE?! VOUS LUI AVEZ MÊME PAS LAISSÉ UNE CHANCE D'EXPLIQUER! SI QUELQU'UN EST 'ROTTEN', C'EST VOUS EN CE MOMENT! VOUS AVEZ DE LA CHANCE QU'ELLE NE SOIT PAS MON ENFANT!"

Tenjerin stepped forward, placing a hand on Arle's shoulder to calm her, though her own eyes were blazing with agreement. "Arle is absolutely right. While your choice of words was inexcusable, and you owe Ringo a tremendous apology, the doppelganger is still out in action."

Gurēpu looked horrified, less by Arle's scolding and more by the raw pain on Ringo's face. Orenji’s face was pale. They looked at each other, a silent realization of their failure washing over them.

Orenji cleared his throat roughly. "Alright. Fine. We... We need to see this for ourselves. We'll drive around town right now. If the doppelganger is present and causing more chaos, then Ringo would be innocent."

"And we'll know we failed her," Gurēpu finished, her voice a defeated whisper. "If no one is found, then... then we'll have to have a longer conversation."

Right as they are about to leave, Orenji glares at Ringo. "This isn't over..." They then leave Ando Groceries, the heavy silence of the house settling in after the door slammed shut.

Ringo just stood there, tears threatening to fall... but never did. Her face was set in a mask of rigid hurt.

"We'll prove your innocence, Ringo. ★" Maguro stated, stepping down the last stair and offering a shaky but determined smile.

Tanjerin put an arm around Ringo's shoulders, pulling her into a gentle side-hug. "He's right, dear. We know you, and we know this isn't you. We'll find that imposter."

Amitie rushed over, her usual boundless energy focused on support. "Yeah! We're your friends! We're a team! We'll catch them!"

Arle just nodded, her jaw tight, still furious. "Let's go. The sooner we find her, the sooner your parents realize how wrong they are."

"Thanks, guys..." Ringo sniffed, finally allowing a small, wobbly smile to appear.

The team—Ringo, Tanjerin, Amitie, Arle, and Maguro—fanned out across the Suzuran Shopping District, following the trails of neon pink graffiti and unnervingly geometric destruction. Ringo moved mechanically, her energy low. Her friends had to practically drag her down the street, pointing out evidence and trying to engage her in their usual banter, but the insult, Kusatta, played on repeat in her mind.

"Look, Ringo, that's definitely not your work," Amitie said, pointing at a giant, wobbling, poorly-drawn Puyo face spray-painted on a bakery. "Yours would be perfectly symmetrical! And probably science-themed!"

"It doesn't matter," Ringo murmured, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. "Even if we stop her, they still said it. They thought I could be rotten."

Meanwhile, Gurēpu and Orenji were driving around the city in the family delivery van, their faces grim. The closer they got to the center of the mayhem, the less Orenji believed his own words.

"Did we... did we really do that?" Gurēpu asked, her voice barely a squeak. "Call her rotten?"

Orenji gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. "She's always been such a good kid. A hero, even! And we didn't give her a second..."

Just then, they rounded a corner and both parents slammed their hands over their mouths. A figure wearing a purple witch cloak and hat, but having the same hairstyle as Ringo, was levitating above the town hall, laughing maniacally as she created a swirling vortex of toxic pink Puyo.

"That's..." Gurēpu whispered. "That's the imposter."

"Ringo... Ringo was right," Orenji stammered, his face a mix of horror and profound guilt. "We were terrible, Gurēpu. We failed her."

Without another word, Orenji slammed the accelerator. Realizing Ringo was innocent (and that they failed as parents), they drove after the doppelganger, determined to make things right.

Both search parties wound up following the doppelganger's trail to an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the city, a hulking, soot-stained structure that seemed perfect for villainy. They converged simultaneously. Ringo and her friends entered from the main loading dock just as Gurēpu and Orenji screeched to a halt outside the back entrance.

Finally, they confronted the Doppelganger. She was perched on a stack of empty crates, twirling a staff that pulsed with a foul, green light. This was Poison Ringo, who didn't just deal in chaos; she poisoned people, then made them pay her to undo it... with more poison. Her very existence was an enigma—a dark shadow of Ringo's potential, born from some stray magical residue.

"Well, well, well," Poison Ringo sneered, her voice a distorted echo of Ringo's own. "If it isn't the real thing. Did you come to clean up my mess?"

"Stop this right now!" Ringo yelled, stepping forward, the anger finally overriding the hurt.

"Why should I?" Poison Ringo giggled. "Your own family thinks I'm you! Your father called you Kusatta! Rotten! And... they were right..."

That word, spoken by the imposter, shattered Ringo's restraint. A climatic duel between Ringo and Poison Ringo began, a torrent of Puyo chains and elemental sparks. Ringo's pure, electric-yellow magic clashed violently with Poison Ringo's sickly, toxic green. Ringo fought with a focus she hadn't felt all day, fueled by the desperate need to prove her worth.

With a final, explosive Permutation, Ringo's chain detonated, overloading Poison Ringo's defenses and sending her staggering backward. She dropped her staff, and the dark aura around her flickered violently.

"This isn't over, 'Hero'!" Poison Ringo spat, her form beginning to blur. She warped away before Ringo could say anything else, vanishing in a flash of black and green smoke.

Ringo stood over the spot where her doppelganger had been, breathing heavily. She was the first to look back, and when she saw her parents standing there, shame etched into their faces, she couldn't look them in the eye, still hurting from their words.

Gurēpu was the first to move. She rushed forward, not to hug Ringo, but to drop to her knees. Orenji quickly joined her.

"Ringo," Gurēpu whispered, her voice choked with tears. "Oh, Ringo. I am so sorry. We saw her. We saw what she did. There is no excuse for what we said. We looked at the evidence and jumped to the most painful conclusion."

"We failed you," Orenji continued, his voice thick with regret. "To call you 'Kusatta'... Ringo, we were the rotten ones. A true parent believes their child, and we didn't. We let you down. Can you ever forgive us?"

The dam finally broke. The tears that had been held back all morning streamed down Ringo's face. She let out an ugly cry, a sound of profound relief and pain, and launched herself into her parents' arms. They hugged her tightly, their family broken and then immediately mended.

"I... I forgive you," Ringo choked out, her voice muffled against her mother's shoulder. "But... but please... don't ever doubt me again."

"Never again, sweetheart," Orenji promised, hugging his daughter close.

The very next day, the citizens of Suzuran held an impromptu celebration. With the doppelganger's mayhem exposed and Ringo's quick action stopping the toxic Puyo vortex, Ringo was publicly celebrated by Suzuran as a hero. Even the news stations were present, though Ringo didn't pay much attention. She was too busy laughing with Arle, Amitie, and Maguro, knowing that her reputation, her town, and most importantly, her family's trust, were safe.