"I can't believe you found that!" Mi-chan told him.
"Your trust in me is overwhelming," Jasper said sarcastically.
"Like I have any reason to trust you," she retorted.
"Mi-chan! Jasper-san!" Tenshi quieted them, worried they'd upset Neko. She was looking a bit distressed at their fighting. "What did happen back there?"
Jasper stared at the ground. "Amethyst came to me. Her ghost. She was leading me somewhere� to my death, I guess. Or maybe the stone?"
As much as she wouldn't mind watching him squirm�, "It wasn't a ghost," Mi-chan informed him. "It wasn't real, no matter how genuine it all seemed. She wasn't here, Jasper-san. I saw Jian-kun, and he felt absolutely true to life. But he wasn't. It was an illusion."
"I had one too," Tenshi piped in, not bothering to elaborate. Based on hers and Jasper's, Mi-chan could guess what Tenshi's was.
They all looked at Neko. "You're not going to have anymore, are you?" she asked apprehensively. Obviously, she hadn't had one.
"Whatever caused it must be working from our memories of our true loves that we can't actually have right now," Tenshi hypothesized. "Koneko has no memories, or not of anything more than today, so she couldn't be affected."
"The question is," Mi-chan submitted, "what do we do now?" Going back to the cave seemed illogical, though she had no way of knowing for sure that it was the actual source of their hallucinations. And not knowing what caused them, meant they couldn't guard against their return. "If we can't trust what we see or even touch�."
"If Neko-chan's immune, can't she just tell us if she sees us acting strange?" Jasper asked.
"Iie. You guys didn't answer me when I called your names."
"And when I looked around, I didn't see you guys at all, even though I was specifically searching for you, so we can't just ask her if we're not sure. Oh, but Neko-chan, you can pull us out of it!" Mi-chan remembered how she had made Tenshi come to her senses back at the cave's entrance. Though had Neko been there, Tenshi's situation might have met with disastrous results. "Just whack us upside the head or something next time."
Neko frowned. "I don't want to 'whack you upside the head'," she said taking a step back. "You're my friends!"
"It's an expression, silly."
Neko looked puzzled. "What do I do then?"
"Just snap us out of it, 'kay?" Mi-chan answered, exasperated. Honestly, Neko was supposed to be the intelligent one.
Her patience already running thin, she turned to Jasper and ordered him, "Now give me the stone." She wasn't just going to let him hold the fate of her twin in his hands.
His eyes flashed at her. "Iya. It belongs to Neko-chan! I'm not giving it to you."
"Well, I'm not going to let you hang on to it!"
"Stop it!" Neko shrieked at them, covering her ears. She continued backing away from them. "Stop fighting!"
And then she disappeared.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Neko-chan!" "Koneko!"
Mi-chan and Tenshi ran towards the spot Neko had disappeared from, but Tenshi suddenly grabbed a hold of Mi-chan around the waist, stopping her short of the opening Neko must have fallen through.
Mi-chan struggled out of Tenshi's arms. "Neko-chan!" she yelled down into the hole. "Neko!" She flipped open her communicator watch and tried to call Neko. "Dammit, I'm getting nothing but static! Neko-chan!"
Tenshi pulled a mini-flashlight that Haruka had given her a long, long time ago out of her pocket, and shined it into the chasm.
"Where'd you get that?" Mi-chan asked.
"I always have it," Tenshi explained nonchalantly. "Look, it curves. Koneko must have slid down further."
"Into some small space in the mountain?!" Mi-chan's face went from general concern for her sister to utter fear. "No, she'll start freaking out!"
"Can't you sense that if she does?"
"I told you, our link's not as strong anymore. Maybe because she doesn't know me as well, I don't know. The only thing I've gotten from her was when Jasper-san was in trouble. I don't know what she's feeling anymore�," her voice trailed off. Then more forcefully, she said, "I'm going down there! She's got to be terrified!"
"Give her some credit, Michiru-san. She knows we'll come for her," Jasper said, attempting, at least, to calm her.
"She's claustrophobic, baka!" she yelled back at him.
If she was completely truthful, Tenshi knew it was possible that since Neko didn't remember ever being stuck in an enclosed space, she might not have retained her claustrophobia when she lost her memories, but right now, she, like Mi-chan, just wanted to jump down that hole and save Neko. A plan might be better, but this was faster.
She shrugged at Mi-chan and leaped into the opening.
Knowing how the tunnel curved allowed her to slide through it rather smoothly. In another circumstance, it might even have been fun. She hoped Neko had had as smooth a fall.
Suddenly, the incline dropped out from under her, and she found herself falling briefly before hitting horizontal ground. She quickly rolled away from the entrance she predicted Mi-chan to fall through any second.
She wasn't disappointed.
"Shimatta!" Mi-chan swore as she hit the bottom.
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