The Puppeteers

Chapter 12: Discussion, Planning and Improvisation

"Tsukasa?!" Kanade shouted, confused.

"Eh?" The boy looked around, "How did I get here?"

"You're in Nene's Fragment SEKAI, like me." She replied, "I've been searching for a while, but I can't seem to find her."

"Wait, what?" Tsukasa's face turned from surprise to worry in an instant, "How come you can't find her?"

Kanade shook her head sadly, "Sorry. I don't know where she could've went."

"Let's keep searching. She has to be here somewhere, doesn't she?" Tsukasa ran out of the changing rooms and ran outside towards the other shops.

(I've already look at those shops. If she didn't go to another spot while I wasn't looking, then that means she isn't here at all.)

Kanade thought in silence.

(...Miku really doesn't want us to reach her at all, huh?)

(Or maybe, we ourselves aren't connected to her feelings, which is why we can't reach her.)

(All of this is starting to give me a headache. I don't get it at all.)

Kanade held her head as it ached.

(Maybe I'm not supposed to get how these SEKAI's work. I wonder if the others understand all of this.)

(Even for someone like me, who works to help people's feelings, can't understand how all of this works.)

(I feel bad. I need to do something so we can get out of here, but we're running out of ideas, and I can't think of anything either.)

"Where did Nene even go?" She mumbled to herself, watching the blonde boy frantically search around.

. . .

"There's..." The boy came back, struggling to find words to fit his sentence, "There isn't anyone here, besides us."

Kanade looked disappointed, but knew she had to accept this was what was most likely. "I had a feeling..."

Tsukasa knitted his eyebrows. "So now what? Are you just going to sit there and frown?"

The girl left a slight gap between her mouth out of surprise.

"Get yourself together, Kanade!" He put his hands on her shoulders, "If you don't try, nothing will ever happen!"

"Yeah. You're right." She nodded, "But what can we even do?"

"Hmm..." The blonde put his hand on his chin, keeping his other arm on his hip.

"I think we need to re-process everything that has happened to us so far. Every one of us must be very confused about everything, but we won't get anywhere if we try to make a plan without recollecting all of our thoughts first."

He retained his soft looks, "Kanade, could you tell me everything that happened before and after you got here?"

"Oh, yeah, I suppose I can..." Kanade paused for a few seconds to recollect her thoughts, and then turned back to Tsukasa.

"A little before we came here, Mafuyu called us for a group meeting and explained a new phenomenon she had learned."

"Phenomenon?"

"Yeah. It was something called...Dimension-Jumping, I think."

"I see." Tsukasa nodded, "And then what?"

"She started saying some really strange things like how she was suspicious of Miku. She said this phenomenon was definetly related to the SEKAI's."

"Suspicious of Miku?" Tsukasa questioned, "We also got a bit weirded out by our Miku before we got here."

"Really?" Kanade asked, "If both sides had found something strange about Miku before getting here, it must really be related to her somehow."

"That's what I was thinking too." He agreed, "It definetly is related to her, but I just can't quite put my finger on what it actually is."

"Then, our current information still isn't enough to reach a conclusion." The girl sulked.

"Let's not give up just yet." He stopped her, "We still have a lot of more information to go off of."

"We do?" 

"Ofcourse. We still have to go over what happened after we got here aswell." He added, "Can you explain everything that happened to you after you woke up in the Overlapped SEKAI?"

"Okay..." She replied, "We first woke up in the Wonderland SEKAI, which wasn't ours, but yours."

Kanade continued, "Then we talked a bit, and saw you, your troupe and a strange Miku come out of a door that seemed to be from the Empty SEKAI."

"Miku was the one who made that door." Tsukasa answered.

"But nobody else is here is able to make doors pop out of thin air like that, right?" She proposed, "Does this mean she has more power than us in some way?"

"Could be. She always tells us to focus on our feelings to find answers, but I feel like the thing she means has more depth than just being a part of our feelings."

"Why do you think that?" Kanade asked.

"Haven't you noticed?" He said, "Everything here seems to be based off of certain rules and dynamics that we can't comprehend. And because we can't do that, Miku has to come up with the simplest answer to clear our minds."

Tsukasa rubbed his chin, "What I mean to say is: If we can access a different world through our phones, if that world has living beings inside of it, if that world is really similar to real life, if that world can overlap with other worlds and become a completely different world and if that same world can trap people inside it with the help of a traitor...Shouldn't there be a set of rules that's keeping all of this together?"

"Woah. I understand." Kanade's eyes sparkled, "So, if we really want to escape, would we need to find out how the rules here work first?"

"Precisely." He nodded, "It's only a matter of how to find them out now."

"So...SEKAI's are places that can be accessed through our phones by clicking a song, and inside SEKAI's there are Vocaloids that have different outfits and personality depending on which SEKAI you're in."

"Wait, pause right there." Tsukasa stopped her, "Does your SEKAI normally have more Vocaloids than just Miku?"

"Hm?" She tilted her head, "Yes, why?"

"Same with us. But we haven't seen any Vocaloid besides Miku after the Overlap."

"Miku really is in control of everything then. Is it possible that the other Vocaloids don't know what's going on here, or...?"

The boy nodded, "That's what I was thinking. The only Vocaloid's we can see here are the two Miku's who are glitching and changing forms from another constantly."

"That's very similar to what happens in computer games. If two devices enter a game from the same account, one of them gets kicked out."

"Hm," Tsukasa listened carefully, "If what you're saying is true, wouldn't that mean these two Miku's are seperate people?"

"Ohh...Everything is starting to make so much sense now!"

"See, I told you!" Tsukasa smiled cheerfully, "It's always good to think about everything that has happened before taking the next step."

"But we still aren't doing anything good. We still don't know the rules of the SEKAI. And Nene is still..." Kanade frowned again.

"Yeah...We're making progress, but it's going really slowly." Tsukasa sulked seeing her expression, "I wish Miku could just come here and tell us the answers already..."

"You called?" A cute voice said. All of the "advertisements" on top of the buildings turned white, showcasing a young blue haired girl, smiling.

"Miku?!"

Authors Note: Okay im definetly continuing this. There will probably be like maximum 20 chapters so we still have a long way to go until the finale. I'm trying to slowly build up to the climax and we're gonna have big lore time soon so get your glasses ready and try to decode mysteries with a bunch of pixels because we're cool like that