The Puppeteers

Chapter 21: Sworn Innocence Must Be Ripped To Shreds

Miku looked at Mafuyu as if she had said the most absurd thing ever.

"Me? Pretending to be Nightcord Miku? Whaaaat?!" She replied. 

"Mafuyu's ideas are...always kind of strange, aren't they? I mean, I get where she's coming from, but, not all of the allegations should be against Miku! We already know she's not here to hurt us." Mizuki said.

"Someone with such a hatred against the person who helped us all..." Tsukasa muttered, looking at the floor. He then looked back up, this time shouting, "That type of person must be the traitor!"

"Ughk." Ena groaned. "Dude. Is it just me or, or like, is there something really wrong here? I can't seem to pinpoint what it is exactly..."

"I feel it too." Rui replied.

Nene thought, after observing the whole debate thus far.

(It seems that Tsukasa, Emu, Mizuki and Kanade show an undying loyalty towards Miku.)

(Anything said against her is immediately met with a 'Miku would never!' or a 'Miku is innocent!' type of response.)

(I wonder why they're like this though? Especially after what Miku did to me...Wait, no, nevermind. I don't want to think about that.)

(Back to the topic at hand,)

She cleared her throat. "Back to what Mafuyu said earlier, you said you think that Nightcord Miku was just Wonderland Miku in disguise?"

"...Yes."

"I agree with what you said, despite not really knowing the Nightcord Miku. I feel like all of the other Vocaloids, ever since I went into the SEKAI earlier than usual that day and talked to Len about the show, have just been Miku in disguise." Nene stated all of her thoughts.

"Why...Why would you think that?" Kanade asked the girl.

"Because nothing adds up. Len telling me that if I keep loving them, I'll save them all is totally out of character for him, and also how some of the Vocaloids knew about the overlap but others did not have a single clue doesn't make sense. We already know the entire layout of this place now, and there's not a single thing that could've caused the memory loss that is present in here."

Nene continued, "I'm sorry if this hurts anyone, but, it really just seems like a lot of this was made up to confuse us even more."

"But why would they want to confuse us?" Emu questioned.

"Probably to keep us in here for longer." Tsukasa supposed. Rui nodded.

"Hey, what was the amount of time MEIKO said that we were in here for? Something like, 27 days or what?" Ena recalled, "So we've all just been here wracking our brains trying to figure things out while we're missing in the real world and people are worried about us..."

Miku nodded, "And that's exactly why you need to find the traitor fast and get out of here!"

"Shut it, you." Ena commented, offended.

Tsukasa crossed his arms, "You three are really starting to get on my nerves. Ena, Rui and Mafuyu. What's with this attitude?!"

(I'm not included?) Nene thought.

"No." Rui opposed, "If you, Emu, Mizuki and Kanade continue acting so small minded we won't be able to get anywhere."

"Good thing I'm not the only one that noticed," Mafuyu agreed with the boy, "It's like they're almost...dogmatic?"

Mizuki couldn't help but laugh awkwardly.

"Miku is doing something to them, but for some reason not to us." Ena claimed with an angry expression. She hit her hands on the table infront of her, "It's always been Miku. This whole time, everything was infront of us this whole time! And yet...and yet..."