First meetings

Chapter 8: An evening & sun colored star

Why am I doing this again?

Yuta had been asking himself this for a little over an hour now. Fumbling with the strangely placed buttons and abundance of accessories he had to put on in the next 10 minutes. He had been woken up by Shinobu shaking him roughly saying they were late for a meeting of some sort. He doesn't remember hearing about this. Maybe he zoned out?? I wonder how Aniki's doing..

"Has anyone seen my brother??!!"

Meanwhile, Hinata was panicking like the meme where the mom is looking for her son, Jimmy. 2wink was supposed to have a practice session an hour ago but Yuta hadn't shown up. Currently he was running around ES asking anyone he bumped into if they had seen Yuta but instead, getting questions back asking if he had seen Shinobu, Natsume & Sora, Eichi, Leo & Tsukasa and many others.

He felt his phone vibrate and the sound of a hold-hands notification.

Keito: All idols, please meet in the Rhythm link meeting room. Thank you. - Hasumi Keito

Did he really just sign his text?..

Hinata looked around and noticed that many idols were missing from the room, there seemed to be a few new faces that he didn't recognize. 4 of them stood by Rinne and Niki from Crazy:B (their two other members weren't present) and 2 were standing near Ryuseitai (Only Shinobu was missing here). He also noticed the remaining Alkaloid idol, Tatsumi, giving them strange glances. Hinata was going to go and talk to the strangers but Keito started talking.

"Hello everyone, it seems that many idols have gone missing today."

Loud murmurs are heard from the groups with 2 or more idols left.

"We don't know the reason yet on why this is happening but we have some of these 'kidnappings' caught on camera." He presses a button and the Tv turns on showing what Hinata recognizes as a hallway in the starmony dorms. The sweets club we're walking in the hallways chatting when the room starts filling up with fog. Confusion and panic is evident in the group's faces and actions until the fog gets so heavy, nothing but white can be seen for a few seconds before it dissipates and the hallway, now empty, can be seen again. Hinata's eyes widened.

"We were able to find a few more but these ones are more unexplainable than this."

He shows a video of the NewDi practice room hallway where Leo and Madara seemingly disappear into the floor. Another video is seen where Hajime and Ibara are sitting at a cafe, the camera glitches out and they simply disappear. Hinata looks over to where Nazuna and Mitsuru (Tomoya's missing too?) were standing. Nazuna looked like he was about to explode right on the spot and run over to shake Keito aggressively, demanding search parties to be sent out for Hajime and Tomoya if it weren't for Mitsuru who was holding him back. He saw that many other idols were upset, including himself.

The new people seemed to have noticed each other, the shortest one running to hug one of the others tightly. They start chatting about something. Hinata swears he hears something about magic and sorcery but shakes it off. Maybe he was hearing things or they were a few of Natsume's friends.

After a bit, everyone has calmed down a little, Keito starts speaking again.

"None of the cameras were hacked, so we can't blame this on a prank. We also can't be sure if it was sorcery or magic as our resident magician has disappeared as well."

At this, one of the strangers raise his hand. Everyone finally notices the strange group and the room goes silent.

"Hello, I think we know where they could have gone." Says the one wearing something that looks like a robe(?) waving.

"And who are you?" Nazuna says, looking quite mad at how only now these strangers start making their presence known.

"I am Solomon, a well renowned sorcerer in our world." He says bowing.

"We sort of had the same thing happen to us in our world and we woke up here." Said the one wearing a headband with what looked like sheep ears and horns on it.

"...Are you saying that you 'think' they were all sent to your 'world'?" Kanata asks.

"Yes, that's exactly what we're thinking." Answers Solomon.

A bunch of people started shouting questions towards them.

"Oi! Is my lil bro and our kid safe?" "Kohaku isn't our kid Rinne-kun.."

"Where is your 'world'?"

"I hope it isn't dangerous..."

Solomon clears his throat to get everyone's attention.

"We came from the Devildom. It's sorta like hell.

"We have to hope that our friends were able to meet or find your friends for them to be safe as it's very likely that anyone else that would meet them would attempt to kill them." Emphasizing kill.

At hearing the emphasized word, all the idols freeze.

"Unless they're very intimidating." Interrupts the dark skinned man that gave off vibes of a literal angel. Hinata could definitely imagine his brother giving him the cold shoulder and it had always terrified him. So it's likely he's safe, right?

"Yeah, that's true!" Pipes up the other white haired one of the two. "Mc was pretty terrifyin' too when they first met us! Still is!" The one with sheep horns nods.

"Yeah, the prince's butler should sense their presence once they enter the Devildom, he'll find them and bring them to safety." Mc reassures them. The rest of the people introduce themselves as Mammon, Asmodeus ("But you can call me Asmo!~"), Simeon, and Luke. When all the names are given he sees Tatsumi noticeably stills at a few of the names with a mixture of awe and extreme confusion on his face. He also seemed to be tightly clenching onto something in his pocket.