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The Eve: Helba contacts everyone and asks them to come to where the wind gate lies. Tsukasa’s still looking pretty catatonic, as he sits by the bed, which now looks blackened as if its been through a fire. Helba summons him to come to the gate to join the others. Sora and Mimiru are the first to arrive and they exchange their typical, unfriendly words. Everyone seems to have their own reasons for why they are going. After some discussion, BT joins Bear. Subaru and Kurim discuss Subaru’s current state. She’s been leveling up so that she can protect Tsukasa. Bear and BT meet up with Mimiru and Sora before Sora pk’s her. Kurim stayed behind to wait for Tsukasa, and when he finally shows up, Kurim gives him a pep talk. Kurim tells Tsukasa about Subaru’s personality and how she plays the game all day despite her limitations. She doesn’t play to escape reality or relieve stress like so many others. She has the ability to take responsibility, and because of that, she won’t run away. Only once did she talk about her body and that was to mention that she wasn’t feeling well. Kurim asks Tsukasa not to run away. To take that responsibility. To transform his insecurities into anger and take control of them. Subaru is waiting for him. There is a flash back to an upside down scene with two people sitting in chairs. A man comes in and hits one of them. A bra and a thermometer fall to the floor. Sora has decided not to go with the group into Helba’s Gate. He reenters the upside down girl’s realm again and contemplates using the Key of the Twilight. The group now consists of Bear, Mimiru, Kurim, Subaru, BT, and Kinkan. As they wait for Tsukasa to appear, Helba’s Gate appears. Kurim mentions Nashar and that they need to be brave. Mimiru asks what that means. Kurim explains that it’s a phrase from a novel he likes. Kinkan contributes that he read the novel in high school and that nashar took a big step forward in silence. If you want to know the truth, you have to be strong and accept it. One by one, they teleport through Helba’s Gate. Tsukasa sits alone in the shrine. He doesn’t want to go and starts to cry. Everyone teleports but Subaru, who has decided to wait for Tsukasa. Net Slum: The group finds itself in a strange world where multi-colored replications of Tsukasa are floating in space. Kurim confronts one of them, but to no avail. These dupes of Tsukasa are just leftover data. On the other side of Helba’s Gate, Tsukasa has decided to come and is greeted by a relieved Subaru. Subaru and Tsukasa teleport in. When Tsukasa sees the floating replicates of himself, he’s really confused. Helba descends and welcomes them to Net Slum, the place where data that was erased and bugs that escaped detection now exist. This place was regenerated from them and created through their wills. Helba has created a program that backs up erased data. The data here was from right before the time Tsukasa couldn’t log out. Someone tried to reformat Tsukasa’s data in a short period of time to create the dark version. Subaru asks why it happened to Tsukasa. Helba answers that the answer lies within Tsukasa. Tsukasa didn’t want to hear that runs away. Subaru goes after Tsukasa and tries to comfort him. He thinks his memories have all been made up and is positive that he is a girl in the real world. He asks if she would still want to meet him knowing that. She says yes. Helba explains that in their current state, the enemies are currently undefeatable. Their goal must be to return Aura to normal, not defeat the monsters. Aura and Tsukasa are linked by thought. When Tsukasa thinks positively, it grows the way it wants, but when he thinks negatively, it’s growth is distorted. They ask if the birth of dark Aura is the enemy’s goal. Helba responds that it isn’t. The enemy has no desire to give birth to Aura. Bear hypothesizes that things may be the opposite of what they thought before. That if Tsukasa logs out, Aura will awaken. If that happens, the Key of the Twilight will show itself. Sora enters dark Aura’s realm. The Voice asks him if he knows where Tsukasa and the others went. The Voice tries to negotiate with Sora, offering him a guardian like Tsukasa’s. Unimpressed, he teleports away. Mimiru asks Kinkan about himself. He’s 23 and a freelancer working at a video shop. He laughs and says it’s been a while since he heard such useless conversation. Mimiru says that’s because of the way he talks. It makes him sound old. The group thinks that the enemy’s next move will be to attack Subaru since Tsukasa spends so much time with her. Unfortunately, they cannot persuade Subaru to log out for her own safety. Not long after, Maho appears to Tsukasa in Net Slum and calls a monster similar to Tsukasa’s guardian to attack Subaru. They tell Tsukasa to take Subaru and run. The guardian monster follows. Tsukasa tells her to log out, but again she refuses. Tsukasa’s guardian fights it and the two kill each other. They ask Tsukasa how he feels… how he wants to feel. He admits that he wants to log out. He wants to see the real world. When Maho informs the Voice of this, she gets really angry. |
