Mi-chan cleared her throat. "Jasper-san's in town anyway. How Eryx is getting along without their star hydrologist, who knows?" she said sarcastically. "But he came to help you, so maybe there's hope for him yet."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A tall blue-haired guy lay across the bed in his hotel room. He didn't feel like getting up today. He didn't feel like getting up ever again.
Jasper had spent the whole day miserable in his hotel room. He had come all the way from Eryx for one purpose, and he had failed. He had failed Amethyst two months ago, and now he had failed his princess too. He was beginning to wonder what the good of his healing ability was if he couldn't even save the people who were important to him.
Hearing a knock at the door, Jasper decided he might as well see who it was so he could tell them to go away. He was dismayed to find Mi-chan there. He instantly backed up. "L- Look, I came back to help. Don't take it out on me that I couldn't save everyone. I tried! That's all I could do. But I really did want-"
"Shut up, Jasper! I'm not alone."
Tenshi and Neko peeked around the door into the room. Jasper let out a gasp of surprise and joy. "Neko-sama! You're alive!" She had been so sick when he had come to their house yesterday. But he had already used much of his life-force to heal Ami and Mi-chan. He didn't have enough to save her too, especially as her affliction was something his healing couldn't touch - an incurable disease of the soul, rather than the body. But today she looked� perfect.
Neko seemed taken aback by the formal honorific he had given her name. Since he had come from beyond the solar system and didn't know about honorifics, he hadn't used one at all when he was on Earth before. But since moving to Eryx, he adopted it like everyone else there. He wondered if he was the first person she'd met after they'd been there.
"Jasper-san," Mi-chan got his attention back on her. "Neko-chan's alive, but she's still sick."
He looked skeptically at her. Neko seemed fine to him.
"Koneko was cleansed of the infection, but her memories were also cleansed. We need a fourth to come with us to get her memories back," Tenshi explained patiently.
"It's a dangerous quest, so feel free to say no!" Mi-chan challenged him. "You'd have to want to give up your life for her!"
"For Neko-sama?" Jasper reiterated. He glanced at his princess. She was staring at him with a curious look that possessed much of the same trust she had given him when she had refused to kill him to save herself. At the time, she had signed over to him the rights to the life he had given her. He didn't want to lose that faith she had bestowed upon him.
"I will come," he said valiantly. Now it was Mi-chan's turn to look skeptical. "She trusted me when she should have killed me where I stood. She gave me a life when I had nothing. Don't you believe I would risk all that to make sure she lives?! I would do anything for the princess of Eryx."
"That's me, right?" Neko quietly checked with Tenshi, who nodded. "He seems sincere."
"I am," he insisted. "Onegai, I want to help you."
Neko looked at Mi-chan. She was obviously relying on her twin's instincts today. Jasper figured he didn't have a chance.
"Fine, we'll take him with us to see Tenshi-kun's sage. Let her reject him."
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