Masumi shook her head, “I don’t think so but…”

   “You knew one of them?” Ray asked.

   “Yes.” Masumi replied. “I knew Yuzu.”

   “Ah, the Standard girl, the En Flowers card holder…” Ray murmured and she pulled her hand to her chest, her fingers curled into a fist. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

   Masumi bit her tongue.

   Was it a loss if she had never existed at all?

   Except it was. The ache in her chest, the way she bristled over how unfair it was, that was very, very real. No one could deny that.

   Ray’s maroon eyes saddened, turned a jewel tone, “You weren’t one of the Lancers, one of my brother’s recruits, were you?” Ray asked.

   The word ‘brother’ felt clunky in her mouth. For her life up until now, she had been an only child. Now she was the eldest of three.

   “No, I was carded.” Masumi shrugged. 

   Ray nodded her head and mumbled sympathetically, “I’m sorry.” She apologised on her father’s behest. It was all her fault, in a way, but not at all in many others.

   “Don’t be.” Masumi spat and she was fast losing interest in this.

   “Well, um, I better be going. I still have more to do so I can get a foothold in, um, what’s going on.” Ray said.

   “Yeah, seems like a lot of people want a piece of you.” Masumi said.

   “Yeah…” Ray agreed.

   “I’ll see you around.” Masumi said and she walked off, a thorn in her side.

   Ray sighed.

   She knew she was going to have a lot of interactions like that. Especially as people drew in from beyond the immediate sphere of action, taken by her Father, Academia, her brother, the Lancers, and more.

   Masumi was just the first.

   She was going to be last.

   That’s what Ray decided because Masumi kept coming back.

   She had to. She wanted her friend back. She wanted her rival back. She wanted her first love back.

   Masumi held onto things tightly, strongly, firmly. Especially if they were grudges. She had an analytic mind and an insatiable need to be right. She also had an insatiable need to be challenged, also. It was unjust and plainly, not fun either, to be elite by virtue of domineering over everyone. It had to be an even playing field.

   That’s why she latched onto Yuzu. She had seen that shine of potential and it just needed some polishing then it would turn into a full of lustre that Masumi would be dazzled by, she was sure but Yuzu didn’t exist anymore. She never had.

   Yuzu had been a trick of the light. A blessed seal on a dragon. She had just been a portion - a quarter - of a different person. 

   Masumi didn’t really get it and despite how she hounded Akaba Reiji, his lips were sealed. 

   The rest of the Lancers were in shambles, too, so she wasn’t going to get anything out of them either. Yuya no longer existed either and because of that, Gongenzaka was in a deep, manly mourning. Sora and Dennis were horror stricken by how the Professor had gotten what he wanted so their work as child soldiers were validated. Kurosaki was robbed of his younger sister, the one he had been fighting for and his comrade, too, his best friend was gone. They were a part of Zarc much the same way Yuzu and Ruri were a part of Ray.

   So it was clear to Masumi that the only way she would get an answer was by going straight to the top. To the girl that Yuzu had been a part of. But that girl - that woman - didn’t want to be a part of Yuzu like everyone around her wanted her to be.

   She was her own, real person, after all.

   “Did you treat Yuzu this way, too?” Ray asked, sick of being pursued by Masumi.

   For answers, for duels, for affection, for anything.

   Masumi harrumphed and folded her arms, “Maybe.”

   “You’re a cute girl, Masumi,” Ray chuckled and Masumi felt her heart flutter, “and I have something for you.”

   Masumi postured. Her schoolgirl crush was as plain on her face as her nose, her eyes widened and she pushed her shoulders back. There was even a scant trace of a burgundy blush in her cheeks as she had hassled Ray out of her seat just by appearing before her.

   Being an Akaba meant she had to do Akaba things like enjoy the facilities of LDS. That’s where Masumi was often able to make her path cross with Ray given that she was still an LDS student.

   “I had actually been hoping to run into you here,” Ray said, “I had been waiting for the right time to give this to you and I think it should be now.”

   The sensation of her blush and her crush now even burned in the tips of Masumi’s ears as she watched Ray. Everything she did had a mature grace to it. She knew who she was. Even if no one else did. Her titles and accolades had been destroyed in the merging and splitting of worlds but Ray still embodied them.

   She stood up and bent around to her far side to where Masumi couldn’t see. Try as she might, though. She tried to follow, bending at the hip so she could see what Ray’s body obscured, what she had been sitting with in this nook which belonged to the in-between of this floor’s library and kiosk which provided refreshments.

   “Here you go.” Ray said.

   She presented Masumi with a bouquet. The verdant green stems were wrapped in shiny, pink plastic. The ends of them still dripped with water whilst turning a faded green. Then, from the carefully wrapped folds, emerged the flowers. They were beautiful and abundant. The petals were large and came in pairs of two at the bulb; a brilliant and warm pink on the outside but a soft white on the inside.

   Masumi’s interests lay in crystals, gemstones, and minerals. Not flowers so she didn’t immediately recognise them - but she could say the same thing about the ethereal gems once inlaid in Yuzu’s bracelet. It, too, gone and vanished with her…

   Recognising that Masumi didn’t know what to say nor how to identify them, Ray spoke up.

   “They’re sweetpeas,” she said, “and they symbolise farewells.”

   “Pardon?” Masumi’s voice sounded hostile, her eyebrows furrowed and her shoulders rose, ready to become hackles. She didn’t want to jump to a conclusion but she already had.

   “I’m saying goodbye, Masumi.” Ray said. “We don’t know each other and I see no reason for us to know each other. Just because I remind you of a girl that I…”

   “That you killed.” Masumi said.

   “I didn’t kill her,” Ray murmured, “I am her restored.”

   “But that doesn’t make you her.” Masumi said.

   “Exactly.” Ray agreed with a smile. “Now, let’s depart on good terms. Besides, I’m way too old for you.”

   Masumi pouted. Not exactly beating that allegation there. She, for one, thought she was plenty mature.

   “Our paths were never meant to cross, either. We are from different worlds, literally, timelines, even.” Ray continued to lecture her but her voice was steeped in a tone of apology. “So, let this be goodbye. I have plenty of tethers as is but I need to go my own way…”

   “This is so unfair.” Masumi said, her voice cracked as her eyes began to turn wet with tears. She blinked them back hard, however. “You don’t get to say goodbye to me.”

   Masumi began to crinkle with the sob that she was holding back - and the furor that was keeping her dry within the typhoon of her feelings as her heartbroke. Her shoulders quivered, her arms tensed.

   “I didn’t get to say goodbye to Yuzu.” Masumi snivelled. “So you don’t get to say it for her.”

   “Please, Masumi, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.” Ray begged as she offered the bouquet to Masumi. “You’ll understand one day. Just trust me, okay?”

   Reluctantly Masumi accepted the bouquet but because of the plastic shielding them, they didn’t feel real to her. Nor did they feel like love or apology. Just a token to placate her. Even so, she squeezed her arms around them in a hug, thinking about Yuzu’s bony shoulders and her thin frame and the fizzy perfume of the sweetpeas, too. A scent which mimicked Yuzu, who was citric-smelling, just enough to make Masumi cry, releasing a tear from her eye that dribbled down the side of her cheek.

   “Thank you, Masumi,” Ray said, “and goodbye, sweetpea.”