“Come on, we need to move quickly,” Aurelia spoke quietly, rubbing at her temples. The six of them were walking, now, to stay away from any watchful eyes in the sky, but Haru had yet to notice anything amiss at all, save for the sound of a great whirring in the sky, somewhere nearby. The noise was like that of helicopters where she came from but deeper, stronger.

  “We’re coming as fast as we can,” Cecil responded quietly, wiggling his eyebrows, and Aurelia shot him a cold gre, shaking her head.

  “Not the time for jokes, idiot. Come on, before you get us all killed.”

  “Right, right, sorry. Haru, Fox, Alexander, are you holding up okay?”

  “I’m here,” The man with arms like charcoal spoke, nodding and crossing his arms as they hiked. “So where exactly are you taking us? I’m still wondering why exactly we should trust you any more than the people supposedly looking for us- who, by the way, we have yet to see. How do we know, really, that those helicopters aren’t yours? That it’s not all smoke and mirrors?”

  “Because we’re missing four members of our squad,” Cecil spoke back immediately. “If we wanted to coerce you, we would make sure to outnumber you. But we’ve got comrades who might be dead over this- and why would we risk our own necks, possibly die, if we were just trying to trick you?”

  Something about the story didn’t make sense, even now, but Haru couldn’t make sense of it… meh, it made sense well enough, anyway… these people wouldn’t lie to her…

  “I’m also here,” The smaller, slimmer girl who’d been referred to only as Fox, responded helpfully, as if trying to break the awkward silence. “Where exactly are you taking us?” It seemed she’d had no luck with clothing, wearing oversized boots and a massive sweater that fell to her knees, for the moment.

  “We have another safehouse a few miles out, we won’t be walking more than another hour,” Aurelia quietly spoke. “There are vehicles there, we can drive to the border. Once we sneak over that, we’ll be home free and able to rest; then you guys can make whatever choices you want. For now, though, we’re in this together. I can only hope that our others are waiting for us, at the next safehouse.”

  “Yeah. Maybe, they were forced to skip the rendezvous point,” Cecil spoke with obviously forced optimism, and Haru just listened, following along. Her eyes wandered to the person in the cloak and mask; they walked silently, and she could see the handle of a firearm at their waist, along with what seemed to be the pommel of some kind of bde. Wherever she’d been summoned from… she recognized things from this world. Haybales, swords and guns, barns… so, the pce she’d come from couldn’t be all that different, right?

  “Can you expin again why we were summoned?” Haru asked, clearing her throat. “Everything feels foggy right now, sorry, and your expnation before… was it serious? Racism and segregation…?”

  “Yeah.” Aurelia responded, gncing over her shoulder with those mismatched eyes and nodding seriously. “Sorry, Cecil is pretty bad at expining things. This nation is called Starria. They believe that anything not human is a second-css citizen, it’s awful- demons here are persecuted and exiled or hunted down and killed, depending. The lucky ones have witnesses, trials, and are sent away. The unlucky ones… they’re put down in the shadows. You guys were meant to be their champions- superheroes able to mow down hundreds of demons by yourself, in preparation for a war building with Mir.”

  “Mn… so I could… kill a hundred demons? That’s… I don’t know, if I was fourteen I imagine that would sound cool,” Haru yawned into her hands, shaking her head. “Don’t really want to hurt anybody though.”

  “Sure. We don’t know what your powers are exactly, anyway. My people though, we wanted to destabilize Starria’s monarch, that’s the goal. So we made sure that these pinnacles of power he summoned were anything but what he expected- it makes the common people question what they’re seeing, and what they’re being told. Causes problems. Before you ask- yes, we’re from Mir. No, we aren’t going to force you to join us.”

  “Why not just cancel the ritual? Why let us be brought here at all?”

  “The ritual would have failed. The sabotage becomes apparent and they try again, much more carefully. People get dispced from home anyway, so there wasn’t any point in trying that,” Aurelia spoke dismissively, leading them on as ever through a seemingly endless forest. How long had it been, five minutes or two hours…? Haru tried to focus, but she couldn’t seem to form a sense of time at all.

  Wait… so if I thought I was a man called Harutora… and you tweaked the ritual, messed it up… what… what if… what was I thinking…?

  As silence descended, she tried to count, but somewhere around forty she realized that she’d come across the same number four times recently and gave up, sighing. I can’t focus at all, ugh…

  “You okay? Brain fog hitting you hard?” Cecil asked quietly, falling back and gncing down at the white-haired woman. “Seems the others have a bit more mental crity than you- either way it should fade within a few days at the worst, we figure.”

  “Irritating,” Haru muttered, but even as she said it, she couldn’t muster any real feelings of annoyance. She felt oddly and uncomfortably numb, in fact. “I can hardly think.”

  “Just hang in there. There’s a personality behind those pretty eyes, it’s gonna come out soon. I just know it,” He added with a reassuring smile, reaching up and gently patting Haru’s head.

  “Hey… you said you have a wife. Don’t be calling me pretty.”

  “Huh? Oh, I was just- I was just trying to reassure you, sorry, didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Nuhuh, you can’t call me pretty,” Haru huffed, narrowing her eyes.

  “Well, I won’t say it again, I apologize. However, I’d say it in front of my wife, too,” Cecil added, chortling and looking ahead. “Don’t worry too much, I think the helicopters sound quieter now. I doubt they’ll be searching this far into the middle of nowhere.”

  “Hey, my name is Fox,” The dark-haired girl suddenly spoke, tugging on Haru’s arm. She, the white-haired amnesiac, looked down, angling her head; the dark-haired woman before her wasn’t as small as she’d first thought, but damn was she short- and ft as a cutting board, Haru inwardly noticed with amusement.

  “Fox? That’s your name?”

  “I don’t remember my name yet and I have fox ears so I’m a fox so call me Fox, easy.” The girl huffed proudly, nodding. “You’re Haru, right? We should be friends. Can we be friends?”

  “Sure.” Haru nodded, oddly amused, albeit privately. “Friends.”

  “Good. We’re friends now. Hey Alexander, be my friend too?”

  “Let’s see if we live to see the sunrise, then maybe,” The charcoal armed man spoke, pushing a mess of dark curls out of his face. As he did, Haru noticed a pair of small bck horns in his forehead, barely poking out enough to be seen if his hair wasn’t moved, easy to hide. “I get this weird feeling I don’t care much for friends.”

  “Oh, look at you,” Fox retorted, rolling her eyes. “I’m strong, I’m edgy, my arms look like coal and I’m so sexy and tough and I don’t need anybody- get out of here, loser…”

  To his credit, Alexander snorted, chuckling. His voice was warm, good natured.

  “I have a bad headache. I get the feeling I’m not big on friends because I wince every time you guys talk. S’like I hit my head real hard or something when they brought me here.”

  “Ah, sorry, I’ll try to keep my voice down a bit,” Fox replied quietly, rolling her eyes, whispering to Haru after. “I think he’s just trying to be cool. Oh har har, I don’t need anybody, I’m a lone wolf, a true alpha male… awooooo…”

  “Be nice,” Haru snorted, the mock wolf noise at the end making her want to guffaw. Rubbing Fox’s head as Cecil had done to her, Haru took a slow breath. “Aurelia? You seem pretty calm considering half your team is missing. Have you heard anything?”

  “No. I’m just praying that they’re waiting for us up ahead. This was supposed to be a clean job, I don’t know why they didn’t reach the barn,” Aurelia replied, and her voice was stiff, queasy, so Haru fell quiet, not wanting to stir up her emotions further.

  “How much further??” Fox asked, a moment ter, huffing.

  “A few more minutes, if that, we’re almost there.” Aurelia spoke curtly. Once again, Haru’s eyes drifted to the masked stranger, curiosity flitting through her mind… and then, as that curiosity took root, she became aware of something much more curious; her tail was wagging around. She tried to make it stop, and it only wagged faster- the thing felt detached from her body, not really like part of herself.

  The more she focused on trying to stop the thing, the more it thrashed around… ugh, this is ridiculous stop it!!

  She was just about to physically grab and hold the appendage when she tripped and stumbled, catching herself on Fox, who graciously threw an arm around her, supporting the weight easily. They’d stepped into a clearing with a run-down, overgrown gas station. It might have been operable; the lights were flickering still, and there was a small garage built into the side of the building. A sign over the front door on the gas station side read; Trusty Guy’s Tasty Fries.

  “That’s kind of dumb…” Haru muttered as the lot of them walked closer. It was the masked one who pushed open the front door and walked inside first, and then Fox with Haru. It occurred to the white-haired girl at some point that Fox still had an arm around her, but the warmth was oddly nice, and so she dared not compin as they stepped into a normal-looking convenience store and gas station. The shelves were almost empty, though, and Haru noticed that there was nothing perishable- in fact there were only water bottles, toilet paper and canned food anywhere in the store, it seemed at a gnce. Oh, and there, on the back wall… car parts. Oil, and mechanical pieces she didn’t recognize, along with tools she couldn’t even try to name- Oh wait, that one is a SCREWDRIVER! I’m so smart, heh. The smartest ever.

  “Here,” Aurelia called her attention, and when Haru looked up, she realized that it was just herself and Fox standing in the main shop, still. Hurrying forward, she stepped into the garage and blinked rapidly upward- was that right?”

  “Bad news- the rest of ‘em are missing. They might not be dead, I don’t know. We had to split up.” A woman with shockingly lic hair wiggled her eyebrows, ying on a ceiling beam. “I don’t know that they’re dead, but if they haven’t made it here by now, we can only pray that they diverted toward another safe spot. The humans shot me about eighty times, and my hero was killed… then I took care of the squad myself, after they thought I was dead.” She looked retively unharmed, but… but her arms were gloved in scarlet, dripping slowly to the concrete floor.

  “W-What?” Alexander was the one to speak up, eyes widening. “Are you okay? Injured?”

  “I can’t die!!” The woman had a bck and purple striped cat’s tail to match her ears hanging underneath her, and her grin was just as catty. “Well I can, but humans can’t make it happen. Once they’d shot me enough, I pyed dead and waited for their guards to drop… I’m sorry, the others all split up while I was twitching on the ground. I know our mage friend made a clean escape and headed straight for the border~ and hey, besides my hero, the others could be holed up somewhere else contacting base as we speak.”

  “Gods damnit,” Aurelia sighed, nodding and closing her eyes, burying her face in her hands for a moment. Pushing past Haru and Fox, she walked into the gas station and smmed the door behind her, growling. “They’d better not be dead,” she muttered, and Haru blinked rapidly, ears twitching, acutely aware that she’d heard Aurelia through the closed metal door. “You bastards better not die on us, this was supposed to be surgical, in and out…”

  “Give her uh… give her a minute,” Cecil muttered awkwardly. “Are you okay now, at least, Charlotte?” Haru brought her attention back to the present and looked up at the cat girl in the rafters.

  “I am,” The cat girl spoke manically, grinning wickedly with a mouth that sported four extra canines, unsettling reminiscent of slim fangs. “They can’t hurt ME. It’s too bad about the others though. I wasn’t friends with any of em, at least, but hey, they’d probably rather it was me that died. Besides, they could all be alive and well!! Humans were so focused on me they didn’t have the forces to chase them. Sides. I made absolutely sure that there was nobody to chase them until backup arrived.”

  “Well, I’m gd you’re alive,” Cecil offered with a shaky smile.

  “No, you’re not. That’s okay, though,” Charlotte smiled, sitting up and crossing her legs- like the others, she was dressed in dark, discreet clothing. “That’s why I was sent with you after all wasn’t it? I was the failsafe. If I came, at least one hero gets out- except they shot the guy I was carrying too. So that logic was fwed, wasn’t it? My being hard to kill doesn’t transfer the way we wish it could.”

  “If you want that brutal honesty crap,” Cecil sighed, scowling, as the three summoned victims watched in quiet fascination. “Yeah. I don’t like you at all, you scare me to death. I’m gd you’re okay though. Just because I don’t want to spend time with you doesn’t mean I want you dead. Okay? I don’t wish any harm on you. Let’s just say I’m really, really gd you’re on my side instead of theirs.”

  “Hm…” Charlotte gred down, tail flicking about zily, and nodded. “Sure thing, pretty boy. So, when Aurelia is ready to go, I already gave the cars a once over. We can hit the road anytime. My name is Charlotte, you three, so nice to meet you, don’t bother pretending the opposite is true, I’m a bitch, and I’m sooooo scary, so don’t waste your time~ I’m gonna do my best to ferry you over the border though. Safely, and preferably in one piece, of course, hmhm.”

  “Screw you,” Haru snorted without thinking, and Charlotte’s head snapped around like a snake’s, eyes wide- rather, instead of threatening, she looked shocked, confused.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Haru spoke, swallowing, raising her voice. “Screw you. We got bigger fish to fry than your insecurities right now, don’t we? You don’t get to tell me who I hate, or who I’m gd to meet. It’s nice to meet you Charlotte, whether you like it or not- and maybe you don’t have friends because you’re a bitch.” The snow-and-coal-haired woman gred, and she wasn’t honestly sure what made her react in such a way- but she knew that whatever defense Charlotte was trying to throw up wouldn’t control her so easily. Beyond that though, she felt angry, nostrils fring, hair standing on end, unsure why, precisely.

  “Well, it’s… nice to meet you too,” Charlotte scowled, her grin fading slowly, eyebrows furrowing tightly. “Now let’s get out of here, as soon as our little fairy friend is ready. The cars are ready.”

  Right.

  As the room descended into awkward silence, Haru looked down and remembered the reason that they’d even come here; to travel. There was a pair of off-road vehicles with tarp rooves and rge tires in this garage, rusted but probably in good working order judging by what had been said thus far.

  “Well…” Alexander spoke, then cleared his throat. “Uh. I’m thirsty. I’ll go grab some waters when Aurelia gets back. Unfortunate, about the others. I’m ah, sorry for your loss. Potentially.”

  “Me, too,” Haru agreed quietly.

  “S’fine,” Cecil waved dismissively, looking away. “We all know there are risks when we go to the Capitol city of our enemies. Just… please. Don’t talk about it for now, okay?”

  Haru stepped forward, though, to the back wall of the room, where the masked agent was glowering in silence as usual.

  “Are you okay?”

  For a moment, she was sure that there would be no answer, and then there was the sound of a throat being cleared.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Well, I can’t tell if that’s a man or a woman, but hey, cool. They talked.

  Before she could comment any further, the door behind her swung open, and Aurelia stepped in, wiping her eyes.

  “I’m good, let’s get going before any more time goes by. No use w-waiting around. Those idiots better be waiting for us at home base, telling us we took way too long.”

  “Aurelia,” Haru began, but Fox cut her off.

  “Don’t bottle it up, we’re in this together, okay?!”

  “Let’s just get going,” Aurelia huffed, ignoring them and hopping into one of the driver’s seats, tugging her hood up again. “We’re going to need to keep moving, we don’t have hoods for all of you. We’ve got rooves, but I’m worried about traffic cameras seeing through the windows. Lottie, drive the other one for me, will you?”

  “On it boss,” The cat girl saluted and turned sideways and fell, somehow nding neatly in the other driver seat, curling her body in as she fell. “Come on everybody, choose a car and get on in!! We got a nation to flee, woot, war criminal buddies!!”

  “Aurelia,” Haru started, but was cut off.

  “Just get in Hina. All of us know the risks; besides, they might be alive. We can’t wait around based on what ifs- and besides…” Aurelia drew a slow breath, let it out even more slowly. “We’ve got seven people here to keep alive. Let’s focus on that, and make sure that this mission isn’t a failure. It’s possible that there’s only one death so far, but let’s make sure that no matter how many, it’s not for nothing.

  “You… you got it,” Haru nodded, climbing into the back seat of Aurelia’s car with Fox still clinging to her arm.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Cecil muttered as he climbed in on Haru’s other side. “Those people, if they even died, they got what they wanted.”

  “What do you mean, by that?”

  “Well, I can’t speak for the people who got summoned. Us, though, me and Aurelia… we’re a special breed. Lottie, too. At our rank, there’s only people who want their lives to mean something, no matter what that means. It’s in the oath we swear; Now, enough with the heavy talk… want to hear a knock-knock joke?”

  -

  “So a priest and a CA agent walk into a bar, right? And the bartender says what can I get you tonight,” Cecil ughed, sprawled out across half the back seat. Haru didn’t mind being cramped to one side, but one more and she thought she might cw his face off.

  “The priest, he says; I’ll take a shot of whiskey on the rocks. Give me the good old aged devil. The CA agent says oh shit, my bad- bartender is bleeding on the ground. And, and the priest goes, no, you idiot, I said devil like the whiskey!!!”

  “Ha…” Haru shook her head, angling her head. “What is CA?”

  “Oh right, you wouldn’t know. CA are a police force that exists in most nations of the world, they’re supposed to be kind of a police force, you know? Uh, I mean, like a symbol of coexistence and all that. It’s angels, demons and humans altogether running that shitshow.”

  “Angels? Demons?” Fox spoke up, curious, and Haru rexed, somewhat zoning out, watching trees pass by out the window and breathing slowly, listening to Cecil. It was becoming more and more apparent, she thought with a tired smile, that he did indeed love to ramble.

  “Well yeah, they’re basically the same thing. See you got a soul in your body, and when you die, you can just fizzle out into nothing. Believe you’re a nobody, and boom, you’re out like a light. After all, why should a nobody cling to life?”

  “So they just like evaporate?!” Fox shouted in indignant shock, eyes widening, and Haru winced at the noise in her ear, blinking, eyelids heavy.

  “Yeah. But then, the soul’s belief in who you are, and what… it can vary, right? That’s where it gets weird. What happens when you die depends on how you truly view yourself.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That’s why angels and demons are the same thing- and you can’t really say that one is better or worse than the other. If a man kills a thousand others, but he believed in some twisted way that he was in the right, his soul might fire up and say; no! I will not die, for I am righteous, and have more to do!! Then we’ve got a winged halo-toting guy running around committing war crimes. So it gets complicated.”

  “Hm. So what about us? Are we technically demons?” Fox asked, and Haru closed her eyes, sighing. Once again, she felt so tired...

  “Maybe? Who knows since you’re from another world. You could have died and your souls formed a new body based off your inner views, but it could also have been something in the runes that formed your bodies. Hard to say- maybe you were something else before you came here. Haru thought she was a man.”

  “Mhm…” The young woman affirmed as sleep threatened to consume her mind. Cecil and Fox continued their chatter, but she drifted off in another moment, breathing deeply. This ride is pretty smooth… wonder where we’ll be when I wake… what if this is all a dream…?

  Tunabun