When the World Sings

<Largo>

Rabbid held his violin. Sharp, his guitar.

"Not exactly a well-balanced string duet," I said with a bit of girlish sarcasm to calm my nerves.

"I’ll make sure you won’t be able to run your mouth so easily next time," the enemy snarled, raising their own violin.

Damn it. We were so close. Just three short pieces left to play! Is this the end?

Wait—something’s off. Even though Sharp and Rabbid are desperately plucking their strings, no sound is coming out.

None of us should’ve played anything with magical effects in this room, apart from Pull and Fetch.

"You did it, Tenuto. You played 4'33"," said Lala.

“?!”

4'33". A piece of avant-garde silence. Total stillness. It's said to create a soundless vacuum barrier. Rabbid can still talk probably because there’s air above his face.

This piece demands standing in perfect stillness with your instrument for 4 minutes and 33 seconds—down to the second. It’s more a battle of inner clocks than music. I’ve heard military camps use it for training. I bet Tenuto has done it before too.

Now that I think of it, Tenuto was crouched with her fingers resting over the keyboard even while chatting with Lala. I’d thought it strange.

Rabbid and Sharp start running toward us. Maybe the closer they get, the thicker the air gets.

"Now’s our chance!"

As Lala moves in front of the speaker, Tenuto and I fall into formation.

"Let’s play the Commit track."

Tenuto conducts with her fingers. I chant in sync with her cues. The diodes light up.

"Now the Push track!"

After the incantation, Lala wipes her brow.

"I was worried about a conflict error, but we’re good. Everything’s running smooth."

"Save the commentary—just hurry!"

"Right. Deploy track coming up."

The rhythm of our three souls aligns, and a harmony resounds. But nothing happens.

“Did it work?”

"Not sure. There’s probably a delay before release completes. It has to pass every single CI tool test."

"What if it fails one?"

"Then we’ll just have to accept our fate."

Rabbid plays a strange violin melody. I’ve never heard that magic before. What does it do?

“Uwahhhhh!!”

A rift opens—and Tenuto is sucked into another dimension, screaming.

Guess we’ll have to go rescue her again.

“Relax. I just booted her out of MPN and sent her back to school. Now that she’s alone, I’ll slowly cook her down.”

Relief floods me. My body glows faintly, then slowly dims, reverting back to my school uniform.

"I see. My mission was to disable the Cobalt Princess. I’ve been ordered to kill the two of you girls. First step—neutralization complete."

Rabbid and Sharp, even alone, aren’t a match for Tenuto. And now I have to face both at once?

My job now is to stall for time. I have to protect the Star Voice Notary until the deployment is finished.

I play Basic Fire on my saxophone. A small fireball flies toward the two of them.

“Pathetic!”

Sharp deflects it with an icy power chord.

At the same time, Rabbid plays the Prelude of Death. Even with Tenuto, that’d be a tough one to resist. If it hits, I’m toast.

My body grows heavy. I can’t move—this is it.

We made it so far… but I guess this is where our desperate struggle ends.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The violin and guitar sounds cut out. A cold electronic tone rings through the air. It’s a Magic Phone.

Sharp suddenly collapses, and I rush to catch her.

"You okay?"

No answer, but she’s breathing. A nasty wound on her shoulder.

Lala casts a harp spell to ease her mental stress. I use a feminine-voice healing spell on her physical injuries.

Sharp… you pushed yourself too far.

“Moff! Moff-moff!”

Rabbid mutters a soft shout spell, and a phone floats out of his pocket, pressed to his long ears. His ears and whiskers twitch.

“…What? I see. I get it. So EdgeShadow Corp has finally fallen.”

He quickly ends the call in Moffian.

“Seems like you win. I don’t know what you did to the Star Voice Notary, but the Karma App’s gone haywire. It maxed out karma points and concluded, ‘Launch a coup d'état.’”

“Concluded? Past tense?”

Rabbid ignores the question and continues.

“Who knows what’ll happen to the organization now. But the new leader gave me a fresh order—‘Eliminate Shadow III.’ My contract is with the organization, not the individual. When the leadership changes, so do the orders.”

He then plays a phrase from Air on the G String on his violin.

"A simple charm. Sharp should wake up soon. Consider it my farewell gift. I was only ever hunting you as part of my job."

With that, Rabbid drops to all fours, dashes across the room with long-legged grace, and disappears.

My strength drains. Drowsiness washes over me. Jetlag from our travels, I guess. I try to stay alert, knowing the danger’s not entirely passed… but I can’t help but feel relief.

We survived another storm.