[Dawn and Dusk] Day 656 and 1/2: My Ex-Girlfriends, Assemble!

Omagatoki was gone. The exact thing Akatsuki had just warned Osamu about earlier had, unfortunately, just happened. Osamu angrily pinned Rei to the kitchen wall and snapped at her.

"Do you have any idea what you've just done?!" Osamu shouted.

Rei's clueless expression answered his question for him. "How the hell am I responsible for her just up and disappearing?!"

"Listen to me, those girls aren't normal! They have to work together to control time, and you've just separated them!"

"Wait a minute..." Rei muttered. "So, they're the Shoku Twins? Aika is the one who told me all about them."

"Aika? What the hell is your relationship to Aika?" Osamu asked.

"I'm her bandmate." Rei replied.

(Wait, Rei's in Aika's band?" Is that what she meant when she mentioned touring earlier?)

"Does that mean Aika is back in town?" Akatsuki questioned.

"Yeah, she's here too. Though she told me about the twins that supposedly control time, I never could've imagined that you were associated with them as well, Osamu." Rei explained.

Osamu slapped Rei across her face. Though it went against his principles, a slap was well deserved for what she just did. "Damn you! You've doomed us all! If they don't maintain regular physical contact with each other, time and space itself is going to grow unstable!"

As Rei lifted her head back up from the slap, Osamu could see that she was blushing. Her eyes were glistening with lustful longing, and she looked like she wanted to kiss Osamu.

(Did she enjoy that or is she about to cry?)

"That....that felt so good..." Rei mumbled, fidgeting with her fingers.

"Now is not the time to be turned on from abuse!" Osamu lectured. "We've got to find Omagatoki!"

Suddenly, the lock on the front door began to turn, and the blinding light of the sun filled the entrance hall. Isabella rolled inside in her wheelchair, discarding her shoes near the door. Her long, sunny hair was unbound and flowed down to her chest.

"Osa, I'm home! Yoko dropped me off and said she was going to keep exercising." Isabella said aloud.

When she got into the kitchen, Isabella immediately met eyes with Rei. She stopped right in her tracks, frozen by her own surprise. The two hadn't seen each other since their school days, and neither good immediately formulate any words for the other. Isabella was stricken with shock, and Rei was overcome with a delightful urge of vengeance.

"Rei? What are you doing here?" Isabella asked.

"I'm on a mission from god, Izzy.

Rei's smile somehow managed to look dark and sinister. "I'm on a mission from god, Izzy. I'm here to break your heart."

Though that may have sounded cool in Rei's head, Isabella was left perplexed by her statement. "I...what?"

"Don't listen to a word this deluded fiend says." Akatsuki chided. "I've only known her for a few minutes, but she has already defined her existence by her massive blunders."

"I'm sorry, was I supposed to know at a glance that you're the time-controlling twins Aika told me about?!" Rei shouted.

"Did our deathly pallor not seem odd to you?" Akatsuki questioned.

"What on earth is going on? Osamu?" Isabella asked.

"I'll fill you in in just a second, Izzy." Osamu replied. "I gotta call Yoko first."

Osamu stepped outside and called Yoko on the phone once more. She picked up after one ring this time.

"Howdy, Osa." Yoko greeted.

"Yoko, listen..."

"Though I know you didn't mean to, it's rude to call a girl when she's in the bathroom, Osa."

"Oh, you are? Sorry, but this is kind of important right now."

"Oh? Since I'm not in anyone's view, I suppose I can do some naughty things for you over the phone. Or perhaps there's a particular part of me you wanted to see before I got home?" Yoko teased. "Or maybe you'd like me to make you a short video? There's no cameras in the bathroom."

"Would you stop that already! This is serious, Yoko!"

Yoko laughed. "I'm just teasing you, Osa. What is it?"

"Well...quite a few things have just happened. Listen, think back to our high school days."

"Okay?" Yoko said with a confused inflection.

"Did you ever know a girl named Rei?" Osamu asked.

"Rei...Rei..." Yoko muttered, trying to recall. "There were quite a few girls names Rei in the school. Can you be specific? What did she look like? How did she write her name?"

"Small boobs, long black hair, bangs, black nails, baggy eyes? Writes her name with the kanji for 'Zero' even though it's really written as 'Inspire'.

"Oh! I actually do remember her! What about her?" Yoko asked.

"Well, she's here right now, in the house. She said she wants revenge against Isabella for...I don't know...dating me or something. But that's not the biggest problem we have. This is about the Shoku Twins."

"What's going on, Osamu?"

"Well, things sort of happened...and, well...the twins got separated, so now time and space as we know it has turned into a ticking time bomb to the apocalypse."

Yoko was silent for a few moments. "God damn it Osamu. God damn it."

"This isn't my fault!"

"Everything is your fault!" Yoko shot back. "This entire story is predicated on you being a massive screw-up, fixing it, and then evolving as a character!"

"Don't break the fourth wall when the world is about to end!" Osamu scorned.

"Okay, okay. Listen, gather everyone, including Rei, and meet me in the bowling alley in an hour." Yoko commanded.

Osamu peeked his head inside the house, seeing Rei pulling Isabella by her hair while Akatsuki whacked away at Rei's knees with a metal spatula. It seemed absolute pandemonium had broken out in just the few minutes he stepped outside.

"A-all right Yoko! I've got to go! We'll meet you there!" Osamu said in a single breath.

Osamu ran back inside and pulled Rei off of Isabella, stopping her from landing any more punches. Isabella groaned and pain and held her hand over her bleeding nose, her blood dripping onto her black and white striped shirt.

"Izzy, are you okay?" Osamu asked.

"I'm fine." Isabella moaned. "It's just a bloody nose. I've gotten worse"

"Who the hell beats up a girl in a wheelchair?!" Osamu shouted at Rei.

"Oh piss off! Stop pretending you can't walk!" Rei hissed.

"It's not an act!" Isabella replied. "I keep telling you I can't walk anymore!"

Seeing someone hurt Isabella made Osamu's blood boil hot in his veins. However, he remembered Yoko's orders to meet in the bowling alley. He needed to gather Isabella, Rei, and Akatsuki, even if the tensions between everyone were high.

"I'll hold off on reprimanding you only because the current situation is much more dire than whatever feud you two have going on." Osamu said, balling his right hand into a fist. "Rei, you've started the apocalypse. The only way to stop it is to find Omagatoki and reunite her with Akatsuki. If you find Omagatoki...I'll fulfill your wish. Just please...stop hurting Isabella."

"Fine. I can accept that compromise. It's not like I meant to end the world." Rei said.

(And so, we all headed over to the bowling alley. Isabella was uncomfortably silent during the walk. She had her head down the whole time as I pushed her wheelchair. Maybe at this point, she began to feel like a burden. A feud with a classmate somehow found its way to our doorstep and initiated a horrible event. Still unable to walk, she wouldn't be able to actively help us fight it.)

Somehow, some way, Osamu managed to get everyone assembled in the bowling alley without anyone trying to kill each other. They stepped into the dilapidated building, the afternoon sun pouring through the row of stained glass windows to the far left wall of the dozen bowling lanes.

The sunlight bounced off the wooden floor and painted it with the colors and patterns of the stained glass, making the entire alley shine with a warm, holy light. Upon entering , Osamu and the others were surprised to find Yoko, Izanami, Aika, and Tsukiakari all waiting for them under the light of the stained glass.

Osamu had initially glanced over that detail, but he did a double take to confirm that the smiling girl with shoulder length, chestnut colored hair was indeed Aika. The last time he had seen her, he was making a death march towards Tsukiakari. He almost felt foolish for being so surprised to see her, as he did recall Rei mentioning that she was in a band with her.

Osamu's own shock and rushed heartbeat upon seeing Aika told him everything he already knew. It had been almost two years since Aika's crisis, and yet, his feelings for her hadn't faded.

(Everyone is here?!)

"Aika? You're here too?" Akatsuki asked.

"Hey there Akatsuki! I heard you lost your sister, so I came to help." Aika said.

Isabella was overcome with joy for the same reason Osamu was. For the very first time in a long time, everybody was together again, including Aika. Isabella laughed as she wiped elated tears from her eyes.

"You okay?" Osamu asked, rubbing Isabella's shoulders.

Isabella nodded. "Yeah, just really glad."

"Hey, Rei. So you're in this too?" Aika asked. "Maybe we can end up telling the story of how our band saved the world!"

Yoko cleared her throat, garnering everyone's attention. "Yes, well, now that everyone is here, can we please move on? We're wasting precious time. Akatsuki, please inform us as to what will happen and how much time we have."

"Right. To make it short, since me and Omagatoki have been separated, time and space will now rapidly fall out of balance." Akatsuki said. "We will begin to notice the differences day by day. I can't be sure as to what exactly will happen first, but I do know the signs will be big. Time, space, and the environment around us will start behaving vastly differently than reality normally suggests. These occurrences will continue until the world itself falls apart. I believe we can safely traverse the earth for a maximum of seven days before time and space are so out of order that we wouldn't even be able to survive it."

"In other words, 'Congratulations, Rei. You've killed us all'." Yoko mocked. "I took the liberty of calling Izanami home early, and she in turn called Tsukiakari to come help us."

Osamu noticed that Tsukiakari wasn't wearing her usual, tradition attire. She was instead wearing a very normal, human outfit consisting of blue jeans, a leather belt with a gold buckle, and a denim jacket over her black shirt. As happy as he was to see her, now wasn't the time for sentimentality.

"Since we're on a limited time schedule, we'll have to move around quickly in order to find her." Tsukiakari said. "This is going to be difficult since not even a god can detect the presence of spirits like the Shoku Twins."

"Akatsuki, when you were linked to Omagatoki, could you also see where she intended to send Rei?" Izanami asked.

Akatsuki took a moment to think. "I don't know exactly where. I did see a mental image of it as she raised her hand. It was a place completely covered in ice. There weren't any buildings or mountains I could see. Well, there were mountains, but they were made of ice too. Oh, and there were penguins! They looked like Emperor penguins!"

"She was going to send me to such an awful place?" Rei shivered.

"It would be well deserved." Osamu teased. "Sounds like Antarctica to me. Emperor penguins are endemic to the region."

"I can take us all there, but...isn't Antarctica a big place? We'd be looking endlessly for her." Izanami fretted.

"It's either that or we let the world end. Even if there's a small chance we'll find her in time, we have to take it." Osamu assured.

Yoko suddenly stood atop one of the seats as though it were a pedestal. It seemed the thought of going to the South Pole fired her up. "Everyone all right with doing this? Gather whatever you need, because we're going to Antarctica!"