“Miss Phoibe?!” Yumi shouted from the chair with panic starting to set into her mind. She wasn’t certain what was happening anymore or even if what she was seeing was real or fake. Within her mind, she wao believe it was fake, but it appeared so real. The woman before her suddenly locked eyes with Yumi drawing attention towards her. “What’s going on?”

  A surprising amount of hesitation surfaced within Phoibe's voice as she replied, “Aernal force is trying to take over the system. I ’t lock down the source…” Her fingers rapidly tapped through the trol parying to wrestle with the unknown intruder. However, the system was never desigo do such a thing. Phoibe reactively altered her powers to adapt to the attad ge the mae, yet even that didn’t seem to be slowing it down. “…damn… It’s faster than I block it off.”

  Left without any recourse, she turned away from the chair and rushed to the anel. Her finger smmed into the rge raised button ag as the cut off switch for the whole system. In moments, everything came to a grinding halt devoid of any light.

  Emergency lights flickered on seds ter returning the room to some sembnce of safety. Though the bright white lights left unease in the air that couldn’t be dispelled so easily.

  Yumi sank into the chair as much as she could with some relief. The pounding in her heart finally started to slow down a bit. Once she felt recovered enough, she turned around to look back at Phoibe. “What was that?”

  “I’m irely sure myself. It happened shortly after I started mapping your mind.” Materializing a semi-transparent sb, it began to light up with data. She ran her fingers over the surface examining the readings of her maes. “If I was to take a guess, it was your mental defense. Given how you’ve all ged I didn’t take into at the vastly different scale at which you sit. The strange aspect is that if I’m theorizing accurately, your mind was trying to take trol of the system. The materialization of that woman seemed to be the first step.”

  She jumped out of the chair out of caution, it might have been shut down, but she still had no clear uanding of how her powers funed. The fact that it did whatever it wanted without her and was frightening. She wasn’t going to risk it doing something even with it powered off. “So it’s a dead end…” Yumi tried not to sound so disheartened after she had hoped to trol her powers, but she was out of options now.

  Phoibe shook her head. “I’m just going to need a little more time to tweak the system. The be of this mae is that it easily adapts to my power. So I just have to make it more powerful and at for the needed security to keep your mental defenses from entering.” She tapped on the wall exposing the walls and floor to the vast mae that she structed.

  Yumi only had a narrow path out of the room. The sight before her made her realize why this was more than needed for her business. It was a plicated work twisted and spun around in ways that she could never hope to uand. She questioned if eventean could uand the mess. ‘…she sounds fident…is there still a ce?’

  “In the meantime, you return to your friends. I’ll summon you all once I’m ready. The pany of your friends should also help to find a stable and safe enviro for you.”

  Chapter 385 – Seized Heart

  Back up ohird floor, Yumi’s return came with the expnation. Once she finished, everyoood still taking it all in before Seiji interjected. “So we’ve still got a ce!” He appeared to be ign the potentially ive aspects that came along with it.

  Saki wao hit him for his blind optimism, but she noticed what he was doing. All she had essimistic view of the situation paratively. “Do you still want to gh with it, Yumi?”

  “I think so. We shut the power off again if it doesn’t work out. The bes outweigh the risks in my mind.”

  Yuki pced a reassuring hand on Yumi’s shoulder. “Miss Phoibe knows what she’s doing. You’ll be fine.” He then looked over to the beds where Yori rested. “We might have a harder time ving him of that though, given what happened.”

  “Then we won’t tell him.”

  “Yumi?!” Saki and Yuki said in unison with equal amounts of shobsp; her of them could believe that she would suggest lying to her own brother. They stared over the table at each other trying to silently discuss things between them.

  However, Yumi stood up interrupting them before they tried to find something to sway her from the course. “This is my power and body. My life, not his. If I want to risk this then it’s not for him to tell me I ’t.”

  “Well…yes, it’s your decision, but are you really wanting to leave your brother in the dark on this?”

  “I’ve made the decision. Speak about none of this to him. All he o know is that this will give me the ce to finally trol my powers. It’s not like I’m going to be risking my life doing this. He doesn’t his holding him back.”

  Stepping away from the table, Seiji isoted himself from the group. His arms came up crossed against his chest. “I don’t like it, but I uand how you’re feeling…” He became a little distant as something recalled to him.

  Yuki ran his hand through his hair roughing it up a little as he seemed to be struggling with it. A sigh eventually came from his lips with a resolution. “Fine…you’re right it’s not a huge risk since we just turn off the power.” He turo face the door already in motion. “I’m going to see if she needs some assistanbsp; Plus, I doubt he’s going to be thrilled to hear this pn ing from me.”

  Sensing something was a little off with the way Yuki moved, she turo go after him. “Won’t your powers iss Phoibe due to your strength?”

  “Miss Phoibe is quite skilled. As long as I don’t go full power it’ll be fine.”

  He seemed set on helping out Phoibe. There wasn’t going to be anything that she could do to vince him away from it. ‘I’d go with him if it actually meant something, but I’d just be in the way…’ She would have to let him go on his own. “Just make sure to stay oh,” she warned, remembering hoibe told her about the underground.

  He gave her a fused nod before he disappeared from the room. They were left waiting for both Yori and Phoibe. None of them had a clue how long it would take for Phoibe to finish even if Yuki helped. Their powers could make anything happen. So it could be fast. Which meant that they were mostly waiting for Yori to wake.

  Awaiting Yori left things fairly empty. Hiroshi paid a visit which ran smoothly thanks to the absence of Yuki to mount the tension. Saki and him discussed matters in private before he left once more. Yumi hadn’t really been brought up to speed ohing happening as she realized from watg them. Something was clearly going oweehat she missed from being out. She only picked up that they had to be making pns of some sort.

  However, bad ideas came up while waiting and bored. Bad ideas that were ignorant and stumbled upon. Yumi looked over at Saki in all of the things that she still didn’t know about. In all the personal dilemmas she had fotten something very important. “Saki, this might not be a good time to ask, but what happeo Katsumi and Kaede?” She was so caught up in her own things that she couldn’t believe she fot about her friends. They were so important to her a she just fot about them.

  Uedly to Yumi, the room suddenly chilled rapidly. The subject that they knew would be ing up eventually had finally beeed. They had no good answers for her. Not saying anything to her wasn’t the same thing as lying, that was what they vihemselves. Yet, they couldn’t ig any longer.

  Saki slowly stood up in silenbsp; She wasn’t about to be able to tell her. Even when she looked around at Seiji and Nerihey turned away. They had no more answers for her than she did. It was about what she expected. No one wahe undesirable task. When she finally mao say something, Saki remaierse. “Follow me.”

  ‘So they’re alive!’ It was an awkward reply, ohat Yumi looked to be ign. She just wao see her friends once more and free from Takako’s trol now. ‘I wonder if they remember the fight. Have they not e to see me because they feel bad about attag me?’

  The real reason unfortunately was far worse than Yumi could have dreamed up in any tless number of sarios. She could only cry streams of tears uo rea any other on seeing her best friend in such pain. Kaede held on to Yumi in a feeble effort to provide empty fort that she couldn’t offer. Her friend was hollowed by the whole experieogether; they seemed to be sharing the futility of their lives. She just didn’t have the ce or strength to do what she felt was the right choice.

  “We should probably go Yumi…” offered Saki as an out. She could tell it wasn’t something that Yumi could deal with now. It was why they hesitated telling her immediately. This wasn’t the sort of thing that could be easily shown in any situation, but Yumi was still emotionally weakened by everything. But they decided to leave it up to Yumi to ask them and they would just face the sequences. It wasn’t the sort of lie that could hold or should be.

  Yumi couldn’t eve to Saki. She didn’t even hear what she said to her. Her mind barely aowledged that something was said. Beyond that, there was nothing inside Yumi. She couldn’t think or feel. It had all just poured out of her. No further rea could e out.

  Time held no meaning for her with such a state. She didn’t even know what happeo her after a while. It wasn’t until she snapped back to reality suddenly that she uood how much time had passed. ‘I’m ba the room…’ Yumi could hear voiearby her. They still had a slightly distant sound to them that slowly came into crity.

  The reason for the noise was because Yori had woken up. She lifted herself out of the bed to look over at her brother, who stared off in an absent dire with no sense of spabsp; It immediately called to her what he had given up just to rescue her from her mind. Those that took her from everyone demanded a terrible pribsp; Even irauma-filled fear that rested just below the surface of what she fought, it couldn’t hold anything over her guilt for what she did to him.

  Seiji noticed Yumi awake off the side and poked his head up announg it to the room. “Hey you’re back, Yumi!”

  “..yes…”

  “Babsp; What’s going on?” Yori asked immediately, pig out the differen tohat Seiji used. His defenses immediately went up.

  Everyoruggled to say anything about what happened out of fear of putting Yumi into a repse. They didn’t want to remind her of what she saw. She only just recovered. Yet Yumi stepped forward to do it herself. “I saw Katsumi…”

  “…I’m sorry…”

  “It’s not your fault…”

  Suddenly snapping the atmosphere in half, Yuki burst through the door shouting to everyone. “It’s finished! We’re ready tain!” He couldn’t see the mood with it being disguised in part around them gathered around Yori. “Oh hey, you’re awake! We’ve got a new pn ready to help Yumi.”

  “Help Yumi? What’s wrong with her?”

  Yuki paused for a moment reizing that defeone ing out of his voibsp; He was hardly surprised by it. “You didn’t tell him?” An eye darted over to Yumi, who stared at him to keep the secret. He swallowed roughly, not really looking forward to when this lie blew up in their faces, as he expected it would at some point even if it wasn’t today. “It’s nothing to worry about. Seiji, help him to his feet. We’ll fill you in as we make it downstairs.”

  Turning away the help, Yori walked away from the bed initially looking like he could see. “I walk myself.” However, that only sted as far as him tripping into the table. His sight hadn’t returned after the rest. Seiji quickly caught up behind him and directed him out of the room despite his pride in wanting to do it alone.

  “Hell! This is insane!” shouted Seiji while everyone else had trouble eveing a sound of their mouths.

  Smiling and nodding to him, Yuki agreed wholeheartedly with Seiji. “Isn’t it?!”

  Saki turned her head around to take the whole thing in before spotting Yuki's pride-filled fabsp; She could tell that he was happy about the whole thing and none of it mattered to him if he made it or not. She would never know how much he helped, but she reized the look in his eyes. The look that says he was living out a dream. “A little overkill?”

  Only Yumi had seen it before the ge could really rea how different it appeared. The room had ballooned in size, no longer being a small and cozy space that suited one or two people. It was now nearly bigger thaire building that Miss Phoibe owned above ground. No longer in the ter, she moved the chair to the wall and multiple more joihem, enough to at for all of them. Even beyond that, the twists and turns of the mae that packed the walls crawled on in the distail there was too mu the way. It felt like it went on forever. ‘Just how much extra did she have to build to at for my ge?’

  “This is the pce that will help Yumi trol her power?” Yori asked, uo see anything and only feel out the sense of the room from everyone else’s reas. He hung nearby to the door, the only firmed surface he had to map the room so far.

  Phoibe stepped forward with ste in hand to trol the devibsp; “That’s right. I’ve made signifit upgrades to it to ha just Yumi’s potential, but everyone involved. Sihis is going to be a virtual space it’s going to o project everyone’s minds into the realm and I had to make ges to adapt to that differenbsp; The i is to project Yumi’s mindscape in virtual space so that you uand the personalities. Though everything that you will see is digital and fake, it will feel real. I ’t answer what you’ll find inside, but you will be Yumi’s anchor to remain in trol while she is fronting the other personalities buried inside. Remember your roles.”

  “I’m ready!” Yori decred with nard to the fact that he just woke up and probably could do with some more rest. But everyone else was not going to stop him and they followed suit with him.

  “Very well then, take your pces in the chairs. Once you’re ready I’ll start the simution.” Phoibe began running the final checks on the chairs awaiting the activation. All systems held green and she looked over at Yuki in silent agreement. “Simution start! Good luck!”