"Miss Black Swan, are you… all right?"
It took Black Swan a good while to calm down. At last, she lifted her head and looked at Lynelle with an almost painfully complex gaze.
Girl, why didn't you just say your memories were being guarded by an Emanator? I wouldn't have come poking around if I'd known.
And if you've got an Emanator protecting you, why are you still acting so careful? Don't tell me this was all bait meant to reel me in.
Or are Emanators these days all taking the same low-profile route as Acheron?
And since when did the Astral Express have an Emanator standing behind it? Akivili hasn't come back to life. So where did this Nameless Emanator, whose Path she couldn't even see, come from? The wild?
Oh. Wait. No.
There did seem to be one person who fit every part of that description.
Maybe Kiana's blow had knocked her thoughts clear, because Black Swan suddenly remembered something.
Before she'd come looking for Lynelle, a Masked Fool had invited her to be their dance partner. At the time, Black Swan had turned that Fool down, saying she already had a better choice.
And after being rejected, when the Fool named Sparkle heard that Black Swan wanted to find a petite girl with pink hair, she'd worn a very strange look on her face.
In other words, that Masked Fool knew something about Lynelle's strength.
Black Swan's mind began racing.
As everyone knew, Aha had once boarded the Astral Express as one of the Nameless. After Akivili's fall, it was almost impossible for the Astral Express to produce an Emanator walking the Path of Trailblaze.
Add in the fact that the Masked Fools seemed to know about the Emanator tied to Lynelle, and…
Hiss.
Black Swan drew in a cold breath.
She thought she knew which being this "Emanator" around Lynelle was.
The key point was that she couldn't find any way to deny her own guess.
With that one's personality, doing something like this honestly wouldn't be strange at all. And judging by the way Lynelle was staring at her in total confusion while trying to show concern, Lynelle didn't seem to know anything about what was hidden in her own memories. That also fit that one's style far too well.
Oh, Fuli above. This was far too funny.
Black Swan silently gave up on the idea of testing Lynelle any further.
At the same time, she made a firm decision. Once the Penacony incident was over, she'd return to the Garden of Recollection and give that colleague of hers a solid kick.
Looking at Lynelle, who still hadn't caught up at all, Black Swan sighed and forced a faint smile. "Sorry, Lynelle. I must've embarrassed myself just now…"
"…For some reason, my body suddenly felt unwell. I lost control for a moment."
"Are you having trouble adjusting to the high concentration of Memoria?" Lynelle asked with "curiosity."
"Uh…" The corner of Black Swan's mouth twitched, but she still chose to go along with the girl's words.
"More or less… You may not know this, Lynelle, but I'm actually a Memokeeper. Maybe I haven't adjusted to Asdana's local Memoria yet, so my body reacted poorly… Yes, that should be it."
"Oh…" Lynelle at once put on a look of sudden understanding. "That sounds quite serious, then… Miss Black Swan, do you need to go back and rest?"
"It's fine. At the very least, I should be able to finish this meal."
--+--
While Lynelle and Black Swan finally ended their probing and returned to a normal mood, continuing to enjoy their desserts, a petite girl stood on a high-rise not far away.
With a mask tilted across her face and a monocular in hand, she was already laughing so hard she nearly pounded the floor.
That's right. It was our dear Miss Sparkle.
As the mysterious person who'd left behind a warning that roughly meant, "Lynelle, just wait for tonight's surprise," Sparkle had in fact been watching Lynelle ever since she'd entered the dream.
And because she'd once spent time in the Solar System matching wits with Lynelle in a chase that could be summed up as "don't get caught unless you want to be pranked," Sparkle knew Lynelle's usual detection range quite well.
Even after tailing Lynelle the whole way, Lynelle hadn't noticed a trace of her.
After following for a while, Sparkle had just been about to spring the setup she'd prepared in advance and capture this little Lynelle, letting her experience the joy of being hoisted up like bait.
But before Sparkle could act, she found that her prey had been snatched away by the very Memokeeper who'd rejected her.
What made it even better was that Black Swan, who had stolen Sparkle's target in a sense, also planned to use mental means to probe Lynelle's secrets. That caught Sparkle's interest at once.
As everyone knew, for a Pathstrider of Elation like Sparkle, her favorite thing was finding fun, whether the joke was on her or on someone else. And her second favorite thing, of course, was watching other people become the joke.
After all, based on Sparkle's understanding of Memokeepers, they'd never explore Lynelle's mind with the same sense of restraint she had.
They'd only rummage through Lynelle's memories in the roughest way possible.
The difference between the two was simple. In the former case, the being inside Lynelle's body would only treat it as part of their usual playful routine, so they wouldn't step in. But in the latter case…
Judging by Black Swan's freshly plucked look, there was no need to say more.
"Ha, this Memokeeper's way too funny… She only just hit a wall with that hidden 'Galaxy Ranger,' and now she came over to Lynelle and tried the exact same thing again. Does she have some kind of hidden talent for comedy?"
Watching Black Swan leave the stage with regret, Sparkle had already labeled this big sister, whose inner nature and outer appearance didn't match at all, as a "funny woman" in her heart.
"All right, since the dessert before the Elation has already left the stage… it's time to serve today's main course for this night that'll never end."
Humming a little tune from back home, Sparkle confidently pulled out a button and slammed it down.
As an outstanding Masked Fool, being able to win and lose with grace was one of Miss Sparkle's finer qualities. So she'd prepared an interesting trap for Lynelle.
If she won, she'd get to enjoy both the setup and the payoff.
And if she lost…
Well, that wasn't too likely. But even if she really did lose, the worst that could happen was unlocking another "defeat scene" in a new area.
She'd already lost to Lynelle plenty of times and kept coming back for more. As a Fool who put Elation above all else, could the great Sparkle possibly be afraid of that?
Getting thrown around could still count as Elation!
Besides, a certain peacock sister of hers couldn't experience any kind of Elation right now.
No matter how you looked at it, Sparkle was still doing much better than that sister stuck doing cleanup work.
And so, with the firm belief that she couldn't lose either way, the great Sparkle began her operation without a second thought.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL