Chrono X Angel Book 1: Prelude to Chaos

Chapter 3

"Now then, we're here," stated Lydia as the party entered the same cat-themed office Nonami had been in the night before. For some reason however, the lights had been turned out and the blinds behind the desk were wide open.

"Come have a seat," said a hunched figure at the back desk, "I've been waiting for you, Ms. Usoko Tachibana."

Nervously, Usoko did as she was told and sat across from the mysterious figure. The light from outside was reflecting off their orange-tinted glasses and they had their hands folded across their mouth.

"I'm sorry, I think I stepped into the wrong manga for a second, Commander Ikari," blurted Usoko as she rushed to get out of there, "If you'll excuse me, I'll just be-"

A loud slap came from behind Usoko as the lights came back on. Rather than the infamous father-of-the-year seated at the desk, Usoko saw another woman who looked a lot like Lydia. The main difference was that she had long green hair in pigtails much like Claire's and, the pinkette noted with just a hint of jealousy, a much larger chest.

"Owwww Lydiaaaaaa..." She whined, the glasses now inexplicably cracked, "That wasn't very nice..."

"Neither is scaring our guest, Cessily," replied Lydia, rolling her eyes, "I'm sorry Usoko, my older sister can be a bit... dense sometimes."

"It's um... fine," Replied Usoko, just grateful that she wasn't going to be told to get into the robot. Hopefully. "Why... am I here again?"

"Two reasons," stated Cessily in a serious tone, holding up three fingers.

"1: to tell you what you can expect, now that you've come into possession of a Yokai Crystal.

B: to possibly discover why you became what you did, rather than what you should have.

...Carrot: to assure your safety."

"I see..." Said Usoko with a sweat drop. Though she could understand what this woman was saying, the pinkette found herself desperately trying to figure out how someone like this made it into such a seemingly-important position. For some reason the word "nepotism" kept coming to mind.

"Is this ok with you?" Asked Lydia, "If you'd rather not go any deeper into this, I can understand."

"I... I'm not sure..." Said Usoko, tightening her fists. It was true that she had been the one to ask Rei for the crystal, but only because she did not want to die!

"If... if I choose not to, what happens?"

"It's still possible to de-bond you with your Yokai Crystal," replied Lydia, "but you'll lose all memories associated with it. We'll return you to your home and post a guard nearby for a week or two. At least until things can calm down at any rate. This sort of thing happens more often than you might think, so we're pretty lenient when it comes to life-or-death situations."

Usoko closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For a moment Rei and Nonami, especially Rei, seemed concerned that Usoko would not keep her crystal.

"If I choose to stay... will you promise to do everything you can for my friend Emiko? She may have attacked me, but we've known each other forever and I know she would never hurt me unless she had been forced to! Or... or something...!"

"We're already doing everything we can for Ms. Ayame," replied Lydia, "But we can't find anything that might have influenced her to go berserk the way she did. It's possible we missed something, but it'd have to be small."

Usoko nodded slowly, "Then... I suppose you could use my help, couldn't you?"

At that, Nonami smiled warmly and Rei rushed over to her new friend and gave her a huge bear hug, lifting her off the ground.