Chapter 4.3

Fujiko was shocked, of course, to see Lisa Everest appear again among the living, sipping tea with her Egregore peers as if nothing had happened.

That surprise, however, faded quickly.

She didn’t want to admit it, but Fujiko recalled Miyuki raising the possibility when they were still in the van. Now, she found the witch’s reappearance frustratingly easy to believe.

The real shock to her was Miyuki, whose eyes quivered, narrowing and widening ever so slightly in an unsettling cycle.

“So that’s who he learned it from…” she muttered.

She saw it coming, Fujiko thought. What’s all the fear and anger about?

“You don’t seem too surprised to see Lisa Everest again, Miss Kazama,” Director Arataki said. “Miss Kobayashi, though…”

Miyuki gave Director Arataki no further thought. She tapped her heel on the ground, vanished, and crossed the field to stand beneath the glass tea party.

The witches regarded Miyuki with the bemused curiosity one would bestow a passing cat. Only Lisa Everest shifted her profile to fully face her.

“This one comes to us with a question, ladies,” Lisa said.

“You were the one who taught the Brideskiller how to commit Taboo.”

“That wasn’t a question, sweetie,” the witch smiled.

“If so, then you must have taught him ten years ago, before the killings began,” Miyuki continued, “which means you must have already chosen your ascension candidate back then too, and planned the futures of everyone else necessary for your version of reality to materialize, including myself, which means…”

Miyuki’s eyes flared in realization.

“This is why I said this is a dangerous game,” Fang Fang sighed. “You’ve intervened too far this time, Lisa.”

“It’s no fun if characters can’t figure out they’re part of the Story,” Lisa pouted. “By the way, I’m still waiting on your question, Miss Kobayashi.”

“You must have written in my injury to get me to pursue magic–”

“Your question,” Lisa Everest smiled. “Please.”

“...Which one of us do you intend to ascend,” Miyuki asked, “if at all?”

“That face,” Lisa said. “It tells me you already know.”

“I want to hear it from you,” Miyuki replied.

Lisa shrugged.

“Miss Kazama.” she called.

An inescapable pull wrenched Fujiko to Miyuki’s side.

“Fujiko Kazama,” Lisa said. “How would you like to be the eighth Egregore?”

“Kobayashi, what’s going on?” Fujiko whispered. “What’s she talking about?”

“Do you remember what I said,” Miyuki replied, “about her ability?”

“Her Storytelling?”

“Lisa Everest has been writing a Story,” Miyuki explained, “and we’ve been its characters for years. She intervened in the sequential logic of the present, planned our destinies, including her own death, so that we would all intersect at this moment, when the characters she wrote would be given a choice to ascend as Egregore."

Miyuki answered just as she was supposed to.

Fujiko, on the other hand, asked the questions likely on people’s minds.

“How could she have done that, and why? Better yet, how is Lisa still alive?”

See? See how easy it is to force your characters to do what they want? See how easy it is to lurk in plain sight?

Lisa laughed.

“Why? Why not? Stories are meant to be grand. Nothing is more disappointing than a work without ambition and to test the limits of an Egregore’s ascension has been my own personal project.”

“As for how I’m still alive,” she smirked. “Well, I’ve realized you can learn things from the characters in your stories. I watched the captain try to raise Natsuko Ichinose from the grave. A failure, of course, but a failure that I learned from.”

“How did you imitate Natsuko’s voice?” Fujiko glowered.

“I did nothing of the sort. Everyone heard what they needed to hear,” Lisa smiled. “Why do you think Khali heard nothing but nonsense? Did Miss Kobayashi hear the same voice? Of course not, she’s never met Natsuko Ichinose before. You only heard Natsuko, Fujiko Kazama, because that’s what the Story needed to bring you here to me.”

“You two should be honored,” Director Arataki approached from the rear before Fujiko could ask for clarity. “After our last failure, for ten years, Japan has carefully been planning the ascension of its own Egregore.”

“But we aren’t really candidates,” Miyuki replied, “are we, Miss Everest?”

“Oh?” Lisa raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Neither of us have accomplished anything deserving of ascension,” Miyuki said. “Neither of us know anything about its specifics, and yet, here we are, about to ostensibly perform one.”

“Sweetie,” Lisa chuckled. “There are six veterans here to assist you for your first time.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“What do you mean?” the witch’s smile disappeared.

“I think you’ve spoiled your own story, Miss Everest,” Miyuki said.

Lisa’s eye twitched.

“You said you wanted to test the limits of ascension,” Miyuki continued. “Walking Kazama or I through a normal ritual, if it can be called normal, would hardly count as a test. We would simply fail or succeed like all of our other predecessors.”

“Maybe I wanted to try ascending two Egregore at the same time,” Lisa shrugged. “Why else would I bring the two of you here?”

“Even if you ignore that both you and Director Arataki have implied only one of us is chosen, this seems unlikely,” Miyuki answered. “The two of us might not even produce imaginarium larger than Baba Yaga’s Question. I think you’ve brought us here because you want to test something far more terrifying.”

“And that is?”

Miyuki shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I’m not sure we’re going to like it.”

“You asked earlier if I’d like to be the eighth Egregore,” Fujiko said. “If you’re writing this story, or whatever, do I even have a choice?”

It was at this moment that Miyuki noticed that the other Egregore had vanished from the glass table, their tea cups empty and spent.

Her eyes darted left, right, and behind. Only when she gazed up did she see them again. Fang Fang, Gentiane, Baba Yaga, Dahlia, and Khali were perched expressionless atop separate battlements on the wall that ringed around the central tower of Castle Gramarye.

Lisa Everest lifted her hands. She, too, began to rise.

“Choice is the only reason you’re here,” she said. “Characters have a say in their own stories, a choice to face adversity. They can even do what humans cannot and rend the wheels of fate against their masters. What they don't have a say in are the adversities themselves. That choice, and when to summon them, is left to the storyteller. To me.”

Lisa Everest thrust a defiant finger towards the sky.

“Incantation,” she chanted.

“I offer this body,
Tarnished blood for feasts and feats,
My death, their trial,
My rebirth, their triumph,
For what remains,
Let Fate not guide their hands,
May they thwart its malicious designs,
And Ascend!”

The Eye of Castle Gramarye opened.

Behind its closed stone eyelids stirred a frozen clock. Its hands spun in opposite directions. Each pass on each register on the dial echoed with a rumbling clack.

Imaginarium poured from the unsealed oculus like uncontrollable tears. A net of glistening iridescence flowed over the plains in the shape of a dome.

“Come, imaginarium!” Lisa declared. “Watch me ascend an Egregore against your will! I dare you to intervene and reveal the Answer to Lady Baba Yaga’s Question, that imaginarium is the tyrant that governs this world by force!”

The Egregore, like a chorus, echoed behind Lisa Everest.

“All shall bear witness this moment,” they chanted.

“Feast your eyes on the moment when Seven becomes Eight.”