The Puppeteers

Chapter 17: Outside of our reach

As Miku teleported all of them down to the deeper levels of the SEKAI, a thought flashed through Kanade's mind: (Will exploring the deeper parts of SEKAI really help us find the traitor?)

But she didn't want to tell this to the others as this could've been one of the last options they had for things to do here.

"Feeling a little unsure, Kanade?" Miku asked her softly. 

The girl looked around the snowy mountain, and so did the others.

"Where are we?" Rui asked.

"This part of the Overlapped SEKAI is made from Nene and Mafuyu's feelings. Every puppet and puppeteer duo has their own part like this."

"Puppet and puppeteer...?" Emu said slowly, tilting her head. Miku nodded and continued explaining: "It's a part of your feelings and your heart. These duos were decided way before the overlap even happened."

"It's...cold in here." Tsukasa commented while staring at the others, "Are none of you freezing?"

"I'm used to it." Replied Mafuyu.

"I'm kind of cold too...Can we go somewhere else?" Ena agreed with the boy and inquired to Miku. 

"Wait!" The vocaloid stopped them before they tried going anywhere; "I have something to give you guys before you explore the other places."

Nene tilted her head, "What is it?" She questioned.

"A digital map of the SEKAI! With this, you'll be able to see your location, and also see other locations to teleport to. That way, I won't need to manually move all of you whenever it's needed."

"Huh, interesting. Did you make this?" Rui stared at the map closely. 

It showed their current location as "Snow Peak", and there were other places like people's Fragment SEKAIs and Wonderland/Empty SEKAI parts on the surface aswell.

"Yes. I thought it would make your researches better and faster."

"Aww, thanks Miku." Emu appreciated the help. This gave Nene slight goosebumps, but she continued to act normal like nothing happened.

"Well then, I guess I'll be leaving you all to yourselves!" The vocaloid said cheerfully. She waved them goodbye and disappeared in thin air.

"She got bored of teleporting us everywhere, huh?" Ena commented jokingly. The others giggled.

Mafuyu stared around for a bit before making sure that Miku wasn't around.

"It's better this way." She replied to Ena, "I have a lot of things to say, but I can't do that infront of her."

"Oo, go ahead, I'm listening." Nene spoke after the girl curiously.

"I think I might've mentioned it before, but I've been seeing somebody outside of the SEKAI."

"Whaaat?! How?!" Mizuki blurted out in surprise, "Who is it!?"

"I think she did mention it before, after we did the show Alice in Wonderland in the stage here." Emu recalled her memories, "While talking to tsu...ACHOO!"

"It's too cold here. Let's go somewhere warmer and talk there instead." Kanade proposed. The others agreed with a "Yeah" and they teleported somewhere else using the digital map.

---

"Oh, it's finally warm!" Emu cheered, "But wait, is this...?"

"Kamiyama?! Are we back in the real world?!" Mizuki shouted while looking around.