Memo 03: Caged and awakened

Yuranu’s eyes widened, then she broke into a grin that flashed her fangs. “Brilliant! You nailed it without even knowing! Nateas is a vocal mahouist. Every spell, every technique he uses—it all requires vocal input. His voice is his weapon. Take that away, and he’s nothing more than a pathetic brute.”

Nagisa raises a brow, staring at the gagged Nateas writhing in frustration. “So that’s why he shouts his attacks like he’s… Goku.” “Goku?” Yuranu tilts her head, utterly perplexed. Nagisa waves it off. “Never mind. Just… some old world stuff.”

Nateas thrashed against his restraints, muffled shouts spilling uselessly onti Yuranu’s tail. His muffled rage only made Yuranu smirk wider as she leaned close to him. “You hear that, demon?” she whispered. “You’re powerless. A worm in the dirt.” Nagisa placed her hands on her hips, puffing her cheeks. “Well… guess intuition isn’t useless after all, huh?”

Yuranu chuckled low, almost like a purr. “No. It makes you dangerous.” Nagisa tilted her head, looking over at the bruised and half-conscious people locked up in the row of cages. “So… what do we do with them?”

Yuranu’s golden slit-eyes softened, her tail twitching slowly as if weighing the gravity of her words. “We set them free. All of them. No one deserves to rot in this demonills little dungeon. Let them choose if they want to leave this hell or stay. They go home—” she hesitated, her voice quieter, almost mournful, “—if they even have one left.” The words lingered. Some of the captives had eyes full of hope, others empty, too broken to even react. Nagisa swallowed hard, her reporter instincts tugging at her chest. For once, the scoop didn’t matter. These were lives.

“…Then it’s settled,” Nagisa said, firm for the first time. She tightened her grip on the taser still humming in her hand. “We don’t just stop Nateas. We undo his spell.” Yuranu blinked in surprise again, then smirked faintly. “You’re reckless. But maybe you’re the kind of reckless the world needs.” Yuranu asking reluctantly "what is your name?" Nagisa smiles and announces. "Level 1 reborn reporter Nagisa Raines."

Nagisa.

Camera blinks, eyes flickering back to focus, while Memo groans and clutches his head. Memo: "What's… happening, boss? Last thing I remember—" Camera: "—was you charging straight at that horn dude." 

Nagisa turned, a proud smirk on her lips. "Camera, memo, you're finally awake." “I just took down one of the big bosses. With some help, of course.” She motioned toward Yuranu. In the corner, where Nateas squirms on the ground, muffled curses leaking through the Yuranu’s tail as he thrashes against the bindings. Yuranu smacking him for all the spit he's producing on her tail.

Nagisa: "That creep’s not barking spells anymore. Courtesy of my ‘reporter intuition.’" Camera and Memo both blink, stunned, before glancing to Yuranu. The viperian girl is visibly trembling, her tail stiff with unease strangling Nateas. Yuranu (hissing under her breath): "huh? What's going on?" You—" her gaze flicks between Memo and Camera Yuranu’s eyes widened. Her tongue flicked nervously as her tail curled tight around Nateas tighter. She whispered under her breath, half in disbelief:

“What… are they? They’re nothing I've ever seen, Not beastfolk either. I can feel… something else in them.” "What even is a camooora and a meemo?”

Nagisa smirked, holding up the camera. Click. The flash startled Yuranu, who hissed and coiled back. “Relax, yuranu. It’s just a camera. Watch this—” Nagisa turned the screen toward her, revealing a fresh picture. Yuranu blinked at her own face frozen in time, wide-eyed and mid-hiss. Nagisa leaned in, grinning, “See? You say ‘cheese,’ and boom! Your face is stuck forever.”

Yuranu tilted her head. “Cheese? What… does curdled milk have to do with sorcery?” Nagisa laughed, pulling out her memo device next. She snapped a quick note: Yuranu, bad at smiling. Then spun it around for her to see. “And this one’s a memo. Basically my brain, but portable. I use it to write everything down, no thought will ever be forgotten. Or not written."

Yuranu’s jaw dropped as she stared between the two alien objects. “You carry… tiny magic tomes that capture souls and thoughts?!” "Would that make you a creati mahouist?"

Camera tilted his head, confused. “What’s with the look? Don’t tell me you’re scared of us, snake-lady.” Memo chuckled, his papers orbiting him in lazy spirals. “We’re just Camera and Memo. Partners. Tools. Whatever you wanna call us. Nothing freaky about it. ”But Yuranu stepped back a little, her scales bristling. “Nothing freaky?!” she hissed. “I’ve seen cursed tomes, even familiars stitched from shadow—but you two… you’re alive. You’re artifacts talking like people!”  Nagisa scratched her cheek, awkwardly. “Yeah… I was perplexed too then. I just figured they were my pals..

The rattling of chains and iron hinges filled the chamber as Nagisa and Yuranu moved quickly from cage to cage, unlatching rusted locks and kicking doors open. The air was thick with hesitation—freedom dangled right in front of the captives, but their legs trembled as if stepping past the bars would plunge them into something worse.

A few of the stronger-willed prisoners stumbled out immediately, shielding their eyes from the torchlight and clutching their frail bodies. Others, however, clung to the bars even with the doors open, eyes wide, breathing sharp and shallow like cornered animals. Nagisa, wiping sweat from her brow, knelt in front of one girl who refused to budge. “It’s okay. No one’s going to hurt you now,” she whispered, though her own voice cracked with uncertainty. Yuranu’s tail twitched as she watched the hesitant captives. “Some of them… have been here so long the cages feel safer than freedom,” she muttered. Her golden eyes narrowed, flicking to the ones who did step out—half limping, half crawling, yet determined. “They’ll have to choose. All we can do is open the way.”

Nagisa bit her lip. She wanted to scream at them to run, to live, but seeing the hollow looks in their eyes, she realized Yuranu was right.

Behind them, Camera and Memo—still groggy—watched the scene, silent for once. Even their bizarre forms seemed dimmed by the sight of broken people unsure if they could even walk into freedom. The iron doors creaked one by one, falling open until the chamber that had been a prison now stood wide and waiting.

Nagisa snapped a photo, the flash briefly illuminating the dim chamber. The sight of cages creaking open, of broken chains and blinking eyes adjusting to freedom, etched itself into her lens—and into her heart. This is proof, she thought. Proof that even in the darkest corners, victories can be carved out.

She lowered her camera and let a small smile creep across her face. “Another step forward,” she whispered to herself. “Just another step to bigger wins.” Turning on her heel, she approached Nateas. He writhed against his bonds, muffled grunts pushing past the gag, eyes burning holes into her. She crouched in front of him, resting her elbows casually on her knees.

“You’re not gonna talk,” she said softly, almost as if she were explaining it to herself. “I know your type. Dogs like you don’t know the whole operation—you just bark and bite where your masters point you.”

Nateas growled low, straining at the ropes. Nagisa tilted her head, almost pitying him, then raised her camera again. Click. The shutter caught his furious glare. “That’s all I need from you,” she said, straightening up. “A face to pin to this mess. Your benefactors can stay in the shadows for now…but every shadow eventually gets dragged into the light.” Yuranu shifted nervously behind her, watching Nagisa with wide, surprised eyes.

Nagisa flipped open her memo pad, the familiar scratch of her pen filling the silence left in the wake of chaos. Her hands moved fast, almost on instinct—like she was back in the old world, scribbling down crime scenes and survivor testimonies. Only now, the survivors stared out at freedom with hollow eyes.

"When individuals are in a state of fear," she wrote, "they do not move. Even with the door wide open, the cage is stronger in their minds than in iron. Fear eclipses bravery. It steals momentum, paralyzes the spirit. It doesn’t matter how sharp the lockpick or how wide the gate—if they believe the wolf is still outside, they will stay put." She stopped, clicking her pen against the page. Her eyes drifted toward Nateas, his jaw tightly bound by Yuranu’s tail.

His eyes darted wildly when the sound of footsteps scraped across the stone floor.

A small figure emerged from the shadows—bare feet, matted hair, a trembling hand clutching a jagged shard of glass. Her eyes burned with a fury far too heavy for someone so young. Without a word, she lunged. The glass arced down toward Nateas’s chest.“Wait—!” Nagisa’s body moved faster than her thoughts. She threw herself between them. The shard bit into her arm, hot pain flaring as blood splattered across Nateas’s gagged face. Nagisa gasped, clutching her wound, but didn’t move aside.

The little girl froze, her chest heaving, tears streaking down her dirt-smeared cheeks. “Why?!” she screamed, her voice cracking under the weight of years of hurt. “Why are you protecting him? He’s looked at us like cattle! He’s chastised us—just for being born!”Her small hands shook, still holding the shard. “Why protect this blight on the earth?!”

The cavern went still. Even Yuranu, so quick with venom and sharp words, faltered. Her golden eyes flickered between Nagisa’s bleeding arm and the child’s desperate rage. Nagisa’s breath trembled. She pressed her hand against the girl’s wrist, steady but gentle, her voice soft but unwavering

Nagisa, clutching her wound, forces herself to stand tall, her eyes burning with that sharp reporter’s conviction:

Nagisa: “He’s evil. His kind isn’t evil because of his race. He was bred to be this way—I can tell. Evil proliferates, it never ends. But all it took was a little affection to tame him. If we kill him, it’ll be an easy out—for him, and for the lives he wanted to have power over. But while he’s alive… we have power over him.” She looks over at the crying girl, then back at Nateas, blood running down her arm. Nagisa: “…And I just thought of something.” Yuranu frowns, confused but listening intently.

Nagisa (pointing at Nateas): “What if we don’t kill the story? What if we flip it? This guy wanted to write everyone else’s ending in blood and chains. But now—he’s a living record. Proof. His own existence becomes evidence. Every word he speaks, every sneer, every weakness… it all builds the case against what he stood for. That’s way worse than burying him in the dirt. That’s justice that lingers.” The little girl grips her shard of glass tighter, still trembling.

Nagisa grips the girl’s trembling hand, gently prying the shard of glass away. “Easy now…” she whispers, blood dripping down her arm. Then, without hesitation, she seizes Nateas by his hair and forces his head low. Her eyes gleam with something dangerous.

“I just thought of something,” she says with a smirk. “Something you’d hate even more than dying.”

The room goes quiet. Nateas growls but finds himself held down under her stare.

“You’re going to be my slave,” 

she announces coldly. “Welcome to servitude. I always needed a tough bodyguard.”

Her words hang in the air like chains tightening around him. The little girl stares, wide-eyed. Yuranu looks horrified, unsure if this is justice or another form of cruelty.