#kurelulu

   But to be fair, Luluka hardly knew who she was anymore either if she wasn’t the other half of Cure Eclair. The once perfect duo, hearts aligned and minds shared, was now out of sync. Something wasn’t right: nothing was right. It was all enveloped in a shroud of overwhelming incorrectness and it made Cure Arcana’s skin crawl.

   However, even without the guidance of the Fairy of Wisdom, the conclusion was inevitable. Cure Eclair, as she was once known, was gone. The diagnosis: amnesia. She was a blank slate of the person she was before, no longer a shining example of what a Star Detective was and the excellency that embodied. The Howa Kurea that Luluka once knew and lived with and loved is gone. The person adjacent to her is a stranger.

   No clue who she was, no clue how she had gotten here: just that she was here and accompanied by a mysterious, blonde spectre who kept her identity obscure. Cure Arcana flattened herself against a tree mere steps beyond the edge of the bridge where Kurea stood, aimless and drifting as she looked into the sunrise for nearly the first time.

   Cure Arcana grit her teeth. This was beyond what she could achieve. Cure Eclair had always been like that: a shooting star. Too powerful for her own good, too kind and soulful for it. The sparkle of intuition inside of her could never be dulled but it could be stolen. 

   And that’s exactly what happened.

   All her power, all her being turned into a unique fragment of the Makoto Jewel of sapphire encrusted upon a turquoise, winged bottle.

   A tragedy in motion as such an important item was stolen right in front of Cure Arcana’s eyes as she stood there. Useless. In awe of the terrible things that she witnessed.

   There was an opportunity for things to go right. Except it didn’t. It was one thing after another. Maestro Usonoir reached forth, Ageseine took the snapshot on her Polaroid camera, Shushutan disappeared into the blitz and glamour, consequently sealed away by the power, and finally the wings of Flying Infinity extended forth. All of Cure Eclair’s power focused on a singular target and as a result, the large and grandiose Makoto Jewel shattered. That could have been right, it could have been where it ended in a hailing glory of blue glitter and butterfly scales under the shining, silver moon which was full and round and mourning.

   Cure Eclair managed to prevent one disaster but she set off a chain reaction and Cure Arcana did not know yet where it ended. She could feel where it began though. In the breakage of her heart as she realised the sacrifice was grave.

   It was more than losing only the lustre of superheroism but her memories, too. She was now Howa Kurea and who exactly was that? An unknown, a broken heart, a lost soul. A girl standing in the last strains of the moonlight, looking onwards to an unknown future which was grey and beyond the forested horizon, into the city, into a world which had changed.

   But she was going to change with it. She had no choice but to. Kurea stepped forward. Her footing uncertain on the cobbled bridge, her hand hesitantly reaching out to the person even more of a ghost than she was.

   “Do I know you?” she asked. “Is that why you asked me that? I can’t tell.”

   This seemed to be her cue to leave, Cure Arcana decided. Mashutan hovered closer. She held onto her sceptre only to brandish it: to force Kurea back.

   “Cease.” Cure Arcana hissed. “Never seek me out, I am nothing to you and you are nothing to I.”

   “S-Surely not.” Kurea faltered but enough was enough.

   There was no point in talking to the dead. Cure Arcana flipped her long, blonde hair and in the wave of the flaxen threads, she disappeared. Kurea could fend for herself. Luluka had faith that even now, dazed and confused, she would remain clever but abandonment was the only option forward.

   The Makoto Jewel within Cure Eclair was herself personified and she was, by far and beyond a sliver of doubt, the strongest Pretty Cure to ever exist. Without it, she was a normal person. Perhaps she would lead a normal life, perhaps she would find her way into the sublime world of Pretty Cure again. Only time would tell and it was up to Luluka to find out of which destiny was preferable for the world at large as so many dark and mysterious forces plagued the era.

   That was her duty as a Star Detective and as a Pretty Cure. She couldn’t allow for the end of the world to come to pass. Civilian safety prioritised above all else.

   That’s why Cure Eclair did it. That’s why she chose the world over her partner. But the human spirit was such a sick and feeble thing. Luluka didn’t get it. The greed, the jealousy, the twisted vices that led people to doing what they did. She didn’t get it until now.

   Until Kurea looked at her like that, like she was no one. No one who was special, no one who was smart, no one who mattered to Howa Kurea in particular. Luluka had never experienced that before. An all-encompassing rejection in just those words: “Who are you?”

   In that instance, in the mature cadence of what was once Cure Eclair’s voice, Luluka understood exactly why people take. Why they take pretty objects and why they take lives. She could have smashed a rock over Kurea’s head then and there, like Cain unto Abel. Because no, this wasn’t right. She should remember. What kind of price was this to pay? Who in the world is Kurea if she didn’t know who Luluka was, if she didn’t love Luluka, and who was Luluka if she was not loved by Kurea?

   So Luluka did the next best thing. She rejected Kurea in turn. She concealed her face, the extent of her power, all that she could to give Kurea’s afterlife a good shot of normalcy and as for herself. She made herself scarce, disappeared into the wind with Mashutan and they ended up where they always did.

   That place which was once a home but now a ghost town.

   All kinds of theories raced in Luluka’s mind. Mashutan did a reading for her so could know which of her theories could be dismissed outright and which might require a little stock at the very least. There was plenty of time in the day to think and plan and move. So, Luluka got started right away with erasing this past life of hers and Kurea, no matter how painful.

   Because she saw Kurea everywhere. Luluka saw her reflected in the glass on the windows. She smelt her in the air and tasted her in what was cleared out from the kitchen’s pantry. Kurea was what made the Curetto Detective Agency a home for Luluka. Something she didn’t have previously, not even with her family and her parents. 

   It was difficult. Luluka could move something, place it into a garbage bag or can and it would bring back too much. She remained stalwart however as she reminded herself. This was for the best, for the world. Even if her own feelings drifted elsewhere as she went through the motions required next of her.

   Everything was wrong. Turned upside down and inside out. It was terrible but it had to be done. Luluka’s mind was cluttered with fragmented thoughts in between her actions. Her eyes welled up with tears as she tried to discard not just the physical items but the shattered memories of her time with Kurea. 

   Important, precious memories that she cherished more than life itself. The memories of eating ice-cream by the lakeside, the thrill of solving cases alongside one another, visiting the churches of London alongside the main detective office, and, of course, the memories of planting the Top of Lilies in the garden. It all meant so much to Luluka and here she was. Throwing it all away for someone who didn’t know who she was anymore.

   Their days had been halcyon. It would be wrong to say they were without a care: they were prodigies, after all, in the fine art of logic and detection. They had had their brushes with death, with feats that were gruesome and greedy, from thieves to murderers but with grace and deduction, they saw and solved what the conventional police force could not. 

   They were two of a kind and without Cure Eclair, Luluka’s world was spinning off-kilter. Without her, Luluka was surely the last of her kind.

   She had grown up so lonely. With big, unblinking eyes, with a keen intellect that defied the strata of age and assumed milestones. She had been unsettling to her peers, made an outcast for being the tallest flower in the garden as she gravitated naturally to an adult world which was often morbid and dangerous. It was where she belonged but even there, she was infantilised.

   A curiosity. A marvel. Something untouchable.

   But not to Kurea.

   Kurea saw past that icy facade, she melted Luluka’s heart. She met Luluka with an open mind, she laughed at her mistakes and wished her well when she was sick, she saw that Luluka was human and with that. A need to be touched and loved and ravished and Kurea gave it all to Luluka: all the love that she had in her heart but in the end, it wasn’t enough, not when the world as they knew it was at stake but before then.

   Luluka had been Kurea’s nearest and dearest, her precious partner.

   Kurea knew all Luluka’s angst well, having a similar background of a child prodigy in the peculiarity which was detective work but at least she was gifted socially in ways that Luluka was not. She charmed so easily with that florid, charismatic smile and the sweetness in which she spoke. Her elegance was profound and Luluka was drawn into that aura more so than the average person because again.

  They had been two of a kind, twin flames that burned like stars, but without the prowess of that sparkle which made Kurea Cure Eclair, Luluka had no reason to stay by her side. The rejection hurt. The world mattered more to Kurea than Luluka. Understandable but still. Luluka’s heart, detached from the mind of logic and reasoning, found that cruel and unfathomable.

   The better the move out was over and done with, the better, Luluka decided. She shut the windows tight. She drew the curtains closed. She purged the rooms of personal belongings. The cold efficiency of it all scared even Mashutan who aided as she could but Luluka was fully utilitarian. Her actions were entirely robotic as she contended with all the memories that were imbued in the wooden walls and floors of the Curetto Detective Agency building.

   It’s the same as if she had died. It’s the same as if she had never existed. The building is quiet as Luluka and Mashutan tidy up what remained of their past. This residence was no longer necessary. It was cleaned out in record time. From morning to dusk they worked and by the cool of twilight, they were finished. Luluka needed little more than the clothes off her back but even so.

   In the end, seeing the pile of discarded belongings shocked Mashutan. Luluka’s clothes, Kurea’s bric-a-brac, their combined miscellany. Years worth of personal affects reduced to meaningless stuff. It was all mixed up into garbage bags sorted for donations, recycling, and yes: to burn. Tomorrow, they would be collected from the kerbside by the city council and dealt with. 

   Now, only the bare bones of the building remained and that smell, too. The sweet fragrance that emanated from the garden where the Top of Lilies bloomed. A peaceful sanctuary best enjoyed with a cup of tea and a loved one but in the last strains of sunset, in the shadows which reached long and far, there was no love left.

   Mashutan looked around. She was skittish but did her best to tamp down on this. She knew Luluka needed a sound companion at this time but Luluka disagreed. She needed to get to work and she had. All that was left was to say goodbye.

   But even that wasn’t necessary. Luluka turned her back on it, she returned inside the building, did a final sweep to ensure that little more than what couldn’t be carried out by a sixteen year old girl remained, and then ended up in the garden. Mashutan hovered along. They paused together. Luluka stared blank ahead.

   The only thing they hadn’t touched was the garden.

   Luluka had been tempted to rip it up and tear out the flowers down to their roots but she hadn’t. It had been Kurea’s pride and joy. Perhaps there were still things still considered sacred. There was a slight breeze. The urge remained. The plants, once widely abundant and verdant, had curled up for the winter. The leaves dulled, nibbled by frost in the morning. Luluka wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Nature would likely take its course if the Top of Lilies were not cared for properly.

   “It’s time to see Maestro Usonoir.” Luluka announced.

   “Are you sure?” Mashutan asked. “It would be okay if you aren’t ready to face him again.”

   “Mashutan.” Luluka scolded her. “We’re not going to face him.”

   “Mashu?!” Mashutan squeaked.

   “We’re going to ally with him.” Luluka said. “In order to get Cure Eclair’s Makoto Jewel back, and who knows. Other reconnaissance might be in order.”

   “This is quite a bold strategy, is it truly the wisest action without consulting my fortune telling first?” Mashutan asked.

   “I am certain.” Luluka replied coldly. She reached up and her fingers curled around the pendant that she wore. Its unusual shape bore into her skin and flesh, hard and angular until an imprint was left. She held it tightly, until her fist trembled. “I am following my sparkling truth.” She didn’t need any further reason than that even with so many destinies hanging in the balance of her actions.

   Mashutan bowed her head. She understood, her eyes closed and she confessed ever so dearly towards Luluka, “And in kind, I will follow you anywhere, into the labyrinth, into that unholy place.”

   Luluka let go of her pendant but it spun. It reacted to the innate magic within herself that resonated with Mashutan’s fairyhood. She transformed into her other self as a Pretty Cure. A new self consecrated in the crucible of heartbreak and misery.

   And there was nothing pretty about it.

   When she looked down at herself she could hardly recognise herself. The stark white uniform, with beige accents, had sullied from the purity that they once symbolised. Her clothes had dyed black and purple in the aftermath of all the magic that cloaked her, the stars that rained upon her, and that unknown, tiled parlour bequeathed with endless staircases. It made sense. Much like Cure Eclair, she was no longer the same as she was before either.  

   With such an epiphany, Luluka found herself with a new epithet upon herself: she was Cure Arcana Shadow, enveloping all in secrets and mysteries.

   Fitting enough with this change of heart.

   “Are you ready?” Cure Arcana Shadow asked, mumbling. She held her rod contemptuously as though toying with it.

   “O-Of course.” Mashutan obliged her, a little surprised by how fast things were moving but she, of all God’s creatures, should know best that the future didn’t wait for anyone. It was always coming, second by second, and with such dire straits ahead of them, it was only natural that Cure Arcana Shadow would be swift in her pursuit of her truth.

   “Then let’s go.” Cure Arcana Shadow said. A little louder than before.

   She took a deep breath and then exhaled as she prepared her ability to teleport. Her breath became mist beyond her lips and she turned her back on the pure, white lilies all around her and yet somehow, as she stepped onwards into the dusk, she was the only Phantom Thief without stars in her eyes or worse yet, a flower motif.

   It would be a cold day in Hell if she were to ever acknowledge the Top of Lilies existence ever again. As the winter evening set upon them, the lilies curled into their cocoon-shaped blooms, to never open again – or so she could only hope.

   With the flowers’ retraction, the sweet fragrance which once lingered dissipated. The sun sank over the horizon of the cityscape beyond the walled garden and Luluka thoughts swelled with the most comforting lie of all: she was never in love with Cure Eclair because Cure Eclair is no more, therefore it would be impossible for her to harbour such untoward feelings.