"So there you have it." Chiharu Sakai explained to everyone as they sat together around the dinner table. "We have ten years to make lots of friends and turn their frowns upside down."

　　"Couldn't you have bargained for a few more?" Kotone complained. "What am I supposed to do in ten years? After Kotori, I'm having another child, and then another. . ."

　　"Don't look at me." Masanori said. "I've got my hands full just angle mining all day to pay off someone's absurd promise."

　　"Will a telescope that can see the origins of the universe or a supercollider that can find the most elementary particle count towards the Moral Aristocracy's goodness meter?" Aiko asked hopefully.

　　"Not so much. They were just going to scry each city to see if they were properly following orders or not. It wasn't a points system to begin with." Chiharu said.

　　"On that note, why didn't you dream about the Moral Aristocracy ahead of time?" Kotone asked. "I thought you had precognition about stuff like this."

　　"Apparently they weren't a threat to me. My precognition is based around my danger sense, so. . ." Aiko shrugged helplessly.

　　"All I can do is kill dictators. I can't convince people to be good, I'm doing my best just by giving them the opportunity." Isao complained.

　　"If it's angle mining, I can help." Saki offered. "You should concentrate on taking care of your health."

　　"What do you mean?" Masanori asked kindly.

　　"Give me a bar of gold, and I can give you back a mountain of it." Saki beamed. "My magic is growth."

　　"Really?" Kotone asked, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Then, can you double the size of my cake? The baby's really hungry today."

　　"Watch!" Saki said, standing up and away from her chair. "Coi, Capri!" In a haze of sparkles, Dark Knight Saki appeared with a warhammer in her right palm. She set it down to lean against the table and picked up Kotone's plate.

　　"I might make the part I touch dirty so just cut that portion off." Saki advised. Everyone waited with baited breath for the demonstration.

　　"Shining finger!" Saki said, dipping her plate-mailed pointer into the frosting. In a moment Kotone's cake was stretching and climbing dangerously past the limits of the plate, and Saki shut off her magic again.

　　"You could feed the world like this. Imagine if we gave you a bail of hay or something." Aiko smiled.

　　"So I have to feed the cattle?" Saki asked indignantly.

　　"Even if we flooded the market with hay, all it would do is drive real farmers out of business, and increase a population that would then be dangerously reliant on her continuously churning out more. She'd become a haymaker for life." Chiharu vetoed.

　　"But when it comes to gold, we never feel guilty about flooding that market." Kotone grinned. "People who hoard up wealth in shiny metal deserve to have it stolen from them and redistributed into the economy of real things with real value."

　　"Let's make a diamond as big as the moon." Saki suggested. "Give me a blue diamond and I can call it the Capri Crown."

　　"Who could buy a diamond as big as the moon?" Aiko laughed.

　　"The tides from all that extra gravity alone would destroy the world." Chiharu vetoed again.

　　Aiko put on a serious face, "Guys, I just had a daydream, it says that Saki is plotting to --"

　　"I am not!" Saki ran up to Aiko to cover her mouth. "She's lying!" Saki appealed to the rest of team Choice Givers.

　　"Let's just fill up the vault with gold again." Kotone offered as a compromise. "It would be a huge help for Masanori if you could do that, Saki."

　　"Yes! I'll head on down to the vault now." Saki volunteered.

　　"The key password is 50039." Kotone offered. "Thank you for the cake."

　　"Anytime, Capri's Aunt!" Saki waved, clanking out of the living room and down the stairs.

　　"Even though I'm an aunt, I'm only twenty." Kotone pouted. "She could have called me 'young beauty' or something."

　　Everyone was quick to assure Kotone that at eight months and two weeks pregnant, she'd never been prettier.

　　"So, what do we do?" Isao eventually asked, and the crowd went silent looking around at each other.

　　"We're already trying our best, each in our own way." Kotone eventually said. "We've all been trying to make the wyrd's dream of a bright fruitful world true from the beginning. A new deadline doesn't change anything."

　　"It's not up to us." Chiharu said. "Choice Givers can only pave the world towards a new future if everyone else follows or emulates us. In the end it's all up to them. We can give advice, or provide working examples, but they have to admire us or it's all useless. If they want to avoid the Moral Aristocracy's solution, they're going to have to start admiring true heroes and reflecting on their actions in comparison a bit more, and soon. The wyrds don't think Mr. Kouno is wrong. They thought his solution was just fine for the likes of us, humans so blind we couldn't even tell good from evil when it slaps us in the face. I'm not even sure why I argued for something as crazy as this. Humans have had ten thousand years to shape up. Why did I think they'd suddenly change given another ten? Because now they'd been warned? They'll forget their warning in an instant."

　　"What else could we do?" Kotone asked. "Love is better than fear, you weren't wrong about that, Chiharu."

　　"Thanks, Kotone. It must have been due to your influence that I even bothered." Chiharu said.

　　"If everyone were like the heroes from anime, this whole problem would go away in an instant." Kotone repined.

　　"Unfortunately human imagination is superior to human instincts." Chiharu said. "I could go for the characters in Changeling, so long as I'm dreaming."

　　"Even if Dead Enders saw those characters, they're too morally primitive to admire them." Aiko said. "If I wanted, I could self publish the book with Kotone's millions I've already been given, but it wouldn't change a thing. Those who liked it would already be bright enough without my help, and those that disliked it wouldn't learn a thing."

　　"Art is created inside the brains of both the authors and the audience. If the public isn't good enough to view it, there's nothing the artist can do to make it better." Chiharu agreed, sympathizing with her little sister.

　　"If Aiko's books can't help and Kotone's anime museum can't help and Masanori's telescope can't help. . ." Isao trailed off, not knowing what was left.

　　"Maybe Saki can grow people's virtue just by touching them." Kotone suggested. "She could call it the 'Hand of God.'"

　　"Somehow I doubt it." Chiharu rolled her eyes. "Saki wanted to grow up, not become a saint."

　　Everyone stared at their dinner plates morosely. Convince people to actually change their ways? Impossible. Chiharu had bargained for the impossible.

　　"On second thought let's just bombard the world and call it a day." Masanori shrugged. Isao laughed, while Kotone shot him a 'you're not being helpful' glare.

　　"Thinking about it won't help. We just have to spread the warmth to whoever's nearby." Kotone decided. "Then they can spread their warmth to whoever's nearby them, and so on. That's always been the solution. It's the only way good has ever worked."

　　"I'll be even nicer to Sayuri and Mizuki," Aiko promised.

　　"And I'll get Rito to watch Clannad with me. It was pointless last time, watching it all by myself." Kotone volunteered.

　　"Who's Rito?" Masanori asked, a little alarmed.

　　"What do you mean who's Rito? He's my brother! How could you forget that!" Kotone asked angrily.

　　"Err, well, he just doesn't seem to have much of a presence. . ." Masanori flinched.

　　"For your information he's ten times as handsome as you and already married at half your age!" Kotone said. "You could learn a thing or two from Rito!"

　　"If that's true, it won't actually raise our counter in our bet with the Moral Aristocracy. . ." Chiharu reported, and Aiko snickered.

　　"I can't believe it! All of you! Rito's an important person to me!" Kotone said.

　　"Sure he is, no one's doubting that." Isao said soothingly.

　　"You shut up! I don't want to hear anything from someone who 'left a note!'" Kotone stabbed her fork towards Isao.

　　"I'm done." Saki reentered the room, completely oblivious of thunderstorm Kotone, walking back to the table to fetch her warhammer. "Can I go over to Eri's place now?" She asked Chiharu.

　　"Sure, it's not like we're making any progress over here." Chiharu smiled.

　　"Don't believe anything Aiko says." Saki warned the table. "I'm off!"

　　"Have a safe trip," Everyone chorused together. Chiharu smiled to watch her sister defold out of her spiky armor back into a white-pink shirt that spread out at the bottom to form a kind of skirt and short blue jeans with flowers on her back pockets. Just her breezing in and out of the room had made everyone happier. With emulators like her, the world could have changed in a flash. For all Chiharu knew she'd already surpassed them all.

* * *

　　Eri Kouno awaited her friend's arrival with some trepidation. She had invited Saki over to witness Eri's historic moment. But what if Saki looked down on her now? What if they weren't really friends anymore? Could two good people disagree about anything and still like each other? Or could you only, in the end, ever like yourself? Eri wasn't going to back down. She would rather die than admit her family had done anything wrong. But she didn't want to lose her only friends she'd gained since she moved here either. Was there a way to have friendship and integrity, or were the two antithetical by definition to each other?

　　"Eri?" Eri heard Saki's voice from inside the house.

　　"I'm out back!" Eri shouted. "Come outside!"

　　"Okay!" Saki shouted back from inside the house. Eri bit her cheek and waited. Saki didn't sound angry, but maybe she was just being polite. How could she really know what Saki thought of her anymore? But what was the point of abandoning what you had out of fear of losing it later? That just meant assuredly losing everything, and sooner. Eri just had to treat her like a best friend and hope for the best. There was no other path to happiness.

　　Saki and Capri, in young girl form, opened the glass sliding door and entered the back yard. Eri stood in front of the pool, next to the enormous rock Saki had grown previously.

　　"Because of you, my parents told me to do some yard work and get rid of this rock." Eri Kouno smiled, overjoyed to finally have her audience.

　　"No way! How can they expect you to move something this huge? It would take a crane!" Saki protested.

　　"Just watch me!" Eri held out her arms to either side and puffed out her chest. "Coi, Sapphire!" Her red ribbon, shirt and skirt folded away in a blaze of sparkles, and in its place gradually appeared the first ever magical Follower. Her armor was brilliant standing in the sun, almost too bright to look at. Every panel, every scale of it was made out of diamonds, a transparent white that captured the rays of the sun and scattered them in every direction. There wasn't an inch of her skin left visible, the diamond mail covered her from head to toe, and her helmet sloped forward with a faceguard in the form of a diving hawk. Over Eri's nose was its piercing beak, and on either side of her eyeholes were its half folded in wings, which spread out into long diamond feathers that provided a winged helmet over each of her ears. Topping everything was Sapphire himself, a dark blue gem shining with magical power, serving as a clasp to Eri's single red ribbon that still gave her an extra half foot of height to the diamond helmet beneath.

　　Eri swung her arm around holding a thin but scintillating diamond blade, the hilt a normal leather grip but the rest a thousand myriad colors and none. "The hardest armor and the sharpest weapon!" Eri bragged happily. "In the end it has to be diamond! Plus it's so lightweight even an eleven year old can wear and wield it. For style, strength, or speed, this is the ultimate combo!"

　　"Oooooh!" Saki clapped, enthralled. Capri smiled happily to see Eri's dream come true.

　　"That's just the start!" Eri said, turning to face the rock and holding her diamond longsword tightly with both hands. "My magic is enhancement! Diamond is hard, but it can still be shattered. Diamond is sharp, but it's still too brittle. For a rock like this, only magic can suffice." Eri bragged happily.

　　"Sapphire, let's do it!" Eri called out happily.

　　"Yes, mistress." Sapphire drawled, starting to pull in blue light from the atmosphere and turning into a furnace at the top of her head.

　　"Strength upppu! Toughness uppu! Sharpness uppu!" Eri cast spell after spell, a blue ghostly glow surrounding her arms and her diamond sword as layer after layer of enchantments sunk into their grooves. "Vertical leap uppu!" Eri cast her final spell, and a cloud of blue light settled around her knees down to her feet.

　　"For a Kouno, a rock like this is nothing!" Eri said. "Secret Technique, swallow sword!" Eri shouted, jumping high above the roof in a single explosive motion, well above the titanic rock she was aiming for. As she fell back towards her target, she swung her diamond blade as hard as she could, until its entire length was cutting down on the boulder as she fell. She didn't bounce off the rock, or get her weapon stuck in the rock. She kept falling like the boulder wasn't there. A hiss was the only sign she was making any contact at all. She cut through the entire boulder all the way back down to the ground. There was an unearthly groan as the boulder checked to see if it were still connected or not, and then a third of the boulder started sliding away, cut so smoothly it looked like a laser beam had melted its way through.

　　"Eri, look out!" Saki called, as the segment collapsed towards her.

　　Eri held up one blue-wreathed arm and caught the entire falling weight effortlessly, smiling at Saki as she gently lowered the rock to the ground. She hadn't even looked up in fear of the falling rock. "Didn't I tell you? My magic is enhancement! The goal: Perfection!"

　　"But you surprised me," Saki said, the three gathering together around cupcakes Mrs. Kouno had made for them. Eri hadn't come back inside until the boulder was cut into hundreds of manageable chunks and carted away in a wheelbarrow to the trash take out bin. Saki and Capri couldn't help much, since their magic could only make the stone bigger, so they had swum in the pool instead and shouted encouraging words. In the end they were all tired out and eager for a meal.

　　"When did Sapphire give in?" Saki asked, thrilled for her best friend.

　　"It was after you two left. Sapphire suddenly said he was okay with a contract now, and gave me the code words. I asked him why, and he said it was because I believed in my father to the end. I should have realized it sooner! Sapphire has a crush on Father! Father was his first love, you see? But Tangerine cruelly stole Father away with his orange-colored wiles, and Sapphire was left with nothing even though Father had been promised to him. So if I showed I was going to always be like Father no matter what, then Sapphire would get to bond with a Father mark II for life. He knew I wouldn't randomly go my own way and betray what he loved about Father once I got older. He wasn't really testing whether I'd make my bed or not, it was all to see if I were loyal. If I were loyal to the same person he was, heart and soul, then he could be loyal to me, heart and soul, for life. This is how a Follower wins a wyrd over. Simple, really." Eri flashed an overjoyed smile. It hadn't been simple at all, all those weeks of failures and doubts. All the time wondering whether Saki would leave her behind and forget about her, because she couldn't measure up. Wondering if she really could inherit the legacy of her parents and do their family name honor instead of disgrace. She had been the only child, so it had been all on her. All the pressure of her parents' accomplishments could only be carried on through her. It hadn't been easy, carrying that weight. But now look where she was. A diamond knight, the best of her kind, and the third Kouno with a wyrd -- just as high a population as the Sakais. Because she'd won over Sapphire, her parents could stand proudly and announce they were just as good as anyone, even a certain family of tea-sipping cloud-dreaming meddlers. It hadn't been easy. But the reward was worth it.

　　"How many other sword techniques do you have?" Saki asked.

　　"Let's see. There's eagle strike, that's when I throw my sword." Eri held up four fingers, trying to remember. "Then there's egret strike, that's when I run bent forward and try to cut people's legs off." Eri reduced her fingers down from four to two. "And then there's hawk strike, in honor of Capri's scrying. That's when I hold my sword backhand behind my back and slash as quickly as I can across my body."

　　"Like an iai strike from a drawn katana?" Saki asked.

　　"Like that. The fastest, strongest cut! With my enchantments, if someone gets within a three meter radius of me, they'll be dead before they notice I moved! Secret technique, Hawk Strike, the end!" Eri pantomimed with her arms above the table.

　　"Ugh, she got me!" Capri cried, holding her heart and slumping over.

　　"Noooo, Capriiii! Don't leave meeee!" Saki wailed.

　　"Tell my mother. . . in the heavens. . .I have no regrets. It was a beautiful strike. . .like a hawk carrying lightning. . ." Capri held out one arm, which Saki grabbed and squeezed tight to her bosom, then died.

　　"Children!" Mrs. Kouno's voice came from upstairs. "Don't play with your food!"

　　"Yes Mother!" Eri said in a penitent voice. But all three giggled together without a hint of remorse. Did Saki or Capri look down on her deep in their hearts? The answer was an unequivocal no.

* * *

　　"Who are you? What have you done to me?" Awesome blinked angrily.

　　"Not again, Awesome," Shiori sighed. "Is there any way to tape up the mouth of a wyrd gem?"

　　"Wait, what on Earth, you're a Choice Giver?" Awesome flashed in even greater surprise. "How did you make a contract with me without my knowledge? Why am I even here?"

　　"Awesome, look, it's me." Rei said, waving to get his attention. "Your mistress is a good girl, so don't worry about it, okay? You're under a curse that's making you forget her, but it'll be lifted any time now. Just be sure to give her magic when she needs it so you can be lifted from the curse."

　　"I guess that could explain it. . ." Awesome mulled it over. "Well if Rei says it's okay. . ."

　　"Moooh." Shiori sighed in exasperation, getting up the bed where she'd been hugging one of Rei's stuffed animals from home to her chest. Rei had stowed away quite a few from their shared bedroom when she moved out. It was wonderful getting to see them again. Mr. Penguin, Mr. Giraffe, Mr. Alligator and that one deformed squid-like thing that she had apparently once thought was cute.

　　Shiori Oono took out a notebook and ripped out a sheet of paper. Then she got out a giant black sharpie and a piece of tape, sticking the paper on the wall.

　　"Awesome, I'm a good girl, and your mistress, and I order you to keep quiet and do as I say. You're the worst! -- Signed, Shiori Oono."

　　"There." Shiori looked at the wall with satisfaction. "Now whenever he pipes up again, I can just point."

　　Rei Rin smiled. Shiori forgave everyone else for forgetting her, but apparently she had no intention of forgiving Awesome. They were that sort of team. Rei Rin stared intently at the photobook they'd spread out on the bed to look at together. She put her small hand over the picture of everyone in their yukatas. Shiori was wearing. . .what design? Sunflowers? Rei lifted her hand from the picture and checked. Grapes and Chrysanthemums. Rei Rin gulped as Shiori joined her back on the bed.

　　"Oh look! It's the summer festival! Kotone was so cute!" Shiori beamed, laying down on her belly side by side with her sister, her knees bent back to float her feet over her thighs.

　　Rei stared at the next picture, with her and Kotone holding out their goldfish in bags strapped to their wrists. "I don't look any different." Rei sighed.

　　"You're a foot taller at least." Shiori encouraged.

　　"I guess. Oh, look! It's our high school cultural festival. Your hair was short, so they made you play Romeo." Rei laughed, looking at her dressed like a buccaneer.

　　"Don't remind me." Shiori groaned. "Oh, look, here's you acting like a fortune teller with your hair in front of your face."

　　"Better a witch than a boy!" Rei pinched her sister.

　　"Ooh, what's this? Here's us at the athletics festival. Looks like I got first in the 100 meter dash, whereas you got. . .?" Shiori searched the photos for clues.

　　"So you can run fast! I can fly you know." Rei complained.

　　"Rei, look." Shiori said in a quieter voice. It was their parent's picture of the two of them holding hands for the last dance around the cultural festival's square log fire. Rei was in the inner side because she was shorter, and was looking up at Shiori with an incredibly happy smile, who was looking down contentedly in her own happy way.

　　"I remember that." Rei breathed, staring at the picture. "We didn't have any dates, so I asked if you'd dance with me for the last dance, and you said yes. I was so happy."

　　"Me too. My younger sister cared about me this much. I kept thinking what a miracle it was to have a sibling." Shiori said, staring at the picture.

　　"So just any sibling would do?" Rei pouted.

　　"No. Not just any." Shiori corrected quietly. She turned the page to see Rei's celebration of her 16th birthday party. Kotone and Chiharu were hugging her from either side as she cut the cake for them, still short and tiny like an elementary schooler attacked by crazy high school girls. But suddenly the picture was clouded up by a teardrop, and then another.

　　"I'm forgetting, Shiori. Bit by bit. I'd forgotten that dance. It just wasn't in my head until I saw the picture. It's all going away." Rei cried.

　　"It's okay, Rei." Shiori said.

　　"It's not okay! Once I'm gone, you'll be all alone! No one will remember you in the whole world! And you can't meet anyone else ever again! It's not okay! I have to remember you. I have to. . . I won't leave you alone. . .after all. . .you didn't leave me alone!" Rei sobbed, her shaking tremoring into Shiori's side. "I have to study. . .I have to concentrate. . .why do I keep forgetting you when you're right here in front of my eyes?"

　　"It's not your fault. It's the magic." Shiori wrapped an arm around her younger twin sister.

　　"Loneliness is a special kind of hell. You just don't know. It's not okay at all! Only the lonely can understand the pain you're about to feel. That was her curse, to make you as lonely as she was! The curse is loneliness! It's being left all alone in the world, where no one can save you, ever again! I know what she did so well!" Rei said. "It's not of this world. It's pain, but it's not the kind of pain anyone is ever supposed to feel. It's not like, oh, I stubbed my toe. It's not even like getting dumped or fired. It's not of this world. There's no description at all for the people who haven't felt it yet!"

　　"It's okay, Rei. I won't be alone. You're all still in my heart. She didn't take away my memories. So it's okay. We'll never separate. I'll never forget you." Shiori said, squeezing Rei close.

　　"Shiori?" Rei said, sounding frightened.

　　"I'm right here, Rei." Shiori said.

　　"I'm sorry. I. . .I've fought so hard. . .I woke up every night and read about you in my diary, every hour, I set the alarm clock so I wouldn't stop thinking about you for over an hour. . .but I just. . .it's like holding on to an eel. . ." Rei said, holding on to her sister's arms frantically.

　　"It's okay Rei." Shiori said, but this time she didn't mean it. Her eyes were welling up with tears from the realization that this time it really was all over. All of it. Her entire life up until now had finally been erased.

　　"I love you." Rei said once more.

　　"I love you too." Shiori said. And then it was over. Rei's arms had relaxed and she sat up with a frightened look.

　　"Who are you? Why are you in my bed?" Rei asked, her eyes strangely wet with tears.

　　"Don't mind me. I was just passing through." Shiori sat up, wiping her eyes. I have to be strong. I have to be strong now. From here on it's just me versus Miss Sad Face. I have to be strong and win. I have to overcome this or I'll never escape it for the rest of my life.

　　"Onyx?" Rei asked, scooting back to the wall away from Shiori.

　　"Strangely enough, she's a Choice Giver, so. . ." Onyx reassured Rei, floating up from his spot in the corner.

　　"Bye, Rei. I'll see you again soon." Shiori waved. She gathered up her blue backpack full of her spare clothes and left her last home on Earth.

* * *

　　A chime rang in Yume's left ear as she deftly lifted a strip of beef to her mouth with chopsticks. She could arrange her five fingers any way she pleased. Eating with chopsticks was a ridiculously guilty pleasure. It felt as good as playing the piano. But she had to drop the meat back into the hotpot from surprise.

　　"It's done." Yume reported to Shadow.

　　"Finally. Stubborn girl. What kind of friends did she have? The whole thing was only supposed to take three days." Shadow let out a gray ring of relief.

　　"She has to be broken now. She won't offer any resistance. She'll probably beg us to kill her." Yume Minami predicted. "No one can survive pain like mine."

　　"You say that, but when I scry her, she's still a Choice Giver." Shadow said doubtfully. "A strong one, too."

　　"Don't worry Shadow. That probably just means she has the right abstract beliefs. It won't translate to anything in reality. Her psyche's smashed. Of course that wouldn't change any of her previous positions on life. But it's smashed." Yume said. No one could survive being forgotten by everyone. No one could survive being left entirely alone. She knew this from experience. It was hell. She'd sent that girl to hell. An infinite, eternal torture. No one could withstand Yume's pain.

　　"Very well then. If we waited any longer, Masanori would recover anyway. We should strike now while their strongest player is still down. It's six on four. Only that traitor Onyx, Black, Cyan, and Tangerine have any combat capacity. This time, we outnumber them. Once we smash the Japan Group, we'll kill off the Moral Aristocracy, and everyone else who's free floating around. Our string of defeats ends here." Shadow said.

　　Yume Minami quickly grabbed the strip of well cooked meat from the hotpot with her chopsticks and stuffed it into her mouth. "At least let me finish dinner." She pleaded.

　　"As you command, mistress." Shadow blinked from his grafted spot at the bottom of her neck. It was good to be in charge.