✧ Chapter 60 ✧

“Are you all seeing this?” asked Cherry before the lights of the cafe suddenly shut off unexpectedly.

Upon glancing over at a table near the window, she could spot letters etched into the middle of a tablecloth that was glowing a bright pink amidst the dark environment.

To everyone else’s dismay, they could not see what she was talking about. Regardless, they already could guess that it was true despite this.

“We can’t see it, but what does it say?” inquired Styra.

Cherry stood up to adjust the zooming feature of her Optillica X2 e-glasses so she could view what it was saying more accurately.

“I look forward to seeing you…”

The moment she repeated exactly what the words said, she zoomed out to reset the view, only to be met with a deadly stare from the corner of her eye.

It looked to be a doppelgänger of Princess Candiere.

This stranger seemed to be holding a yellow plate that held one of the cafe’s teacups atop of it (which also had a matching hue and this peach-colored heart logo decorating the left side).

Taking off the e-glasses as quickly as possible didn’t make her feel any more secure. Especially with the blurry vision amplifying the uncertainty surrounding what was going on.

“Don’t move. Tell us what you see and where it is,” said Princess Candiere.

After telling them what she saw, Styra nearly attempted to approach the impersonator’s location until Peppie ushered her back.

“It’s not what you think. The Candy Room infected Cherry’s eyesight from the prolonged exposure of being in there. If the symptoms are kicking in now, she needs to get out of this cursed world in general. It’s trying to mess with her mind.”

Out of nowhere, Cherry began to hear Ararima’s voice shouting behind a distant door that was floors above them. Hearing the terror in her friend’s voice alerted the moral compass within her soul.

“Ararima? I hear Ararima! Ararima, stay there! I—“

Peppie grabbed Cherry’s hand immediately without hesitation.

“Do not go to the voice! It’s a trap trying to lure you into The Candy Room again.”

“A trap…”

“Yes. I’m sorry Cherry, but Ararima is gone. The Traveller threatened me with the vision, remember? She cannot be saved this way. The room knows how much you loved her. It’s doing this on purpose by using the relationship with your friend as bait.”

Hearing this started to make Cherry moody. Tears gradually dropped out of both the agony and melancholy of feeling helpless. She wanted to save Ararima so badly, but the cafe’s inner workings created too much conflict inside her head. The pounding on the door upstairs got so bad that it just felt plain cruel to know that an entity like The Candy Room was mocking her friend’s death.

An untouched anger finally stirred within Cherry’s heart as she couldn’t stand it anymore. She covered her ears, trying to calm down the noisy chattering racking up her brain.

“Let’s get out of here,” she told the group in a more serious tone.

Respecting her wishes, Styra nodded at Eternika, signaling for them to leave toward a safer planet that was going to be more important to visit.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, a humongous figure outside the window began to loom into the team’s point of view.

The huge statue of Princess Candiere that they saw at the entrance had come to life, with its menacing appearance smirking joyfully at the prospect of this interaction.

Styra, on the other hand, was having none of this.

Teleporting outside of the cafe itself, she leaped into the air before summoning Eternika and throwing the blades at this monstrous abomination. Before long, the duo were running circles around the rocky princess. No matter how many hits they successfully made though, there was a clear sign that whatever held it together wasn’t anything normal.

If she had to make a guess, it was even beyond supernatural levels of power.

“That thing’s not budging Eternika. Got any ideas on what it could be?”

Although the weapon couldn’t necessarily grasp how something like this could happen at first, it picked up on an idea after noticing how many times the statue kept trying to approach Cherry.

“Styra, tell your friend to use her glasses to identify any energy signatures inside this giant. I have a feeling that the culprit is an Eternal Light.”

Agreeing with its observation, Styra contacted Cherry through their earpieces with this request in mind. As it turned out, the statue of Princess Candiere was filled with The Eternal Light Of Life, binding its hideous form together. If they were planning on defeating it, the chances of that happening would depend heavily on determining its weak spot.

Then Styra and Eternika recalled a special battle move from the past against Strage. He had been their largest foe to face, but the useful advantage in this case came from how an Eternal Light functioned. The statue itself wouldn’t be able to form a strong enough bond with a source of chaotic power to keep it going. That meant that this was more based on a physical bond that this Eternal Light created by itself out of lunacy, rather than it being mentally connected.

If they were going to shake this Eternal Light’s physical bond, it would require striking where it would naturally simulate possessing a fake body that it made to be real in its own way.

Flying high outside the atmosphere of Tartropolatté, Styra transformed into Kosmika (a stronger form that could only be activated by being in outer space). Afterwards, Eternika set up its own course behind her in preparation for what was about to happen.

Plunging back down straight through the stratosphere with her iconic diving attack, Kosmika spun faster than the speed of light. This force generated enough damage to crack through the center of the statue’s heads. Heaps of rubble dissipated into harmless dust as Eternika encircled its entire structure with ease. Without a second thought, Styra struck a victory pose; acknowledging the fact that she had won this colossal fight upon descending toward the ground level.

Cherry, Peppie, and Princess Candiere went outside to meet them. They felt pretty relieved seeing that the threat was eliminated.

“That was crazy! Did you see the way she showed that cluster of rocks? Crumbled it like a chocolate chip cookie!” exclaimed Peppie.

“It looked more like pieces of apple crumb pie to me, but what you said sounds absolutely similar to what we saw as well,” replied Princess Candiere.

Kosmika transformed back into Styra, only to be met with a sudden hug from Cherry. Their soft smiles and sparkling eyes between each other created a deeper bond than they could necessarily describe. Of course, this didn’t last too long when Styra started to question how the statue she fought even came to life to begin with. Was it just The Traveller pulling strings, or did Princess Candiere have a part in that as well? There was no telling why Princess Candiere would do that after trying to help Cherry through her Candy Room dilemma.

From all of the adventures she experienced so far, this was the hardest mystery to solve. She was going to need more than a look to determine the truth. Any other reason behind why the moving statue had an Eternal Light inside of it would have meant that someone else convinced this powerful source of energy to come after them.

Voltaze seemed like the likeliest choice. The problem was, if he did, it felt as if he would have surely taken the aggressive approach by now. Either that, or he was further manipulating things in the background…

It was becoming a chore to untangle.

No matter how they were going to go about this, the next step still awaited them. Cherry’s sanity would drop if she stayed any longer inside Tartropolatté so they needed to get to Niantom as soon as possible.

However, something hindered that idea.

“Your Highness, I am curious about if you and Peppie will join us and help our team stop Voltaze?”

A pause of uncertainty came from the two of them.

“I mean, we’d like to. It would be helpful if you could fix the damages done to this town first. Anyways, here’s the real issue. Peppie and I serve customers of this world on a daily basis and we cannot leave these helpless yet civil creatures without anything left. If we were to do so, The Traveller would cause chaos to anyone who dares to mess with his order. An example? Ararima died simply due to us crossing this boundary. I’m sorry Styra, but I cannot risk taking that offer at the expense of so many lives which could be affected by it. We can try something else but it will have to be kept secret,”suggested Princess Candiere.

While Styra did feel a bit disappointed at hearing this news, she was now convinced that the princess wasn’t lying about anything anymore. What made it more impactful to listen to was what it reminded her of.

“I see now that I was wrong about you and I’m sorry if it came off that way. Y’know, I remember when I went to this planet called Madara. It had a greedy princess who barely cared about her people. But Tartropolatté? It has you to depend on. You actually value their livelihoods. I start to wonder if I could have done better when I was there. It’s just that, I’ve never felt ready to do anything like that before. To be responsible for that many people especially. I already have Perenorbius, the world that adopted me. It went through an asteroid crisis that I tried to stop. To accept more than I’ve already known now is really hard to do.”

Eternika could fairly see what she was saying as the depth of that situation still affected her ability to handle a promise she made. The confidence to maintain it, despite the challenges that could inevitably supersede this intention was daunting.

That very promise involved what she told Chelbie and every single other friend of hers that was in Wisteliah because of her own actions.

Understanding this perspective, Princess Candiere gave generous advice from a place where she knew well enough how much Styra’s regrets were similar to the way she felt back when things were different.

Pulling out a special magical purse from out of the blue, she dug inside of its hammerspace to retrieve what looked to be a more larger and colorful Heart Badge Gemstone of hers. Tossing it slightly into the air caused the jewel to show a flashback of her past life as she narrated it.

“Madara was indeed once my home. Being brought into a new life that I was unfamiliar with by that wretched monster, it took a lot of time too. Still, to be who you are after you’ve grown a heart for those that truly loved you, is nothing short of simple. Where I came from, people used to ask me why I still cared about anything after how long our village was mistreated. I told them that, with how cruel everything is, there is also that much good waiting on us. All you need is the effort within you.”

Waves of sweet aromas forming from the gemstone itself calmed Styra down. Noticing what it showed her about the princess’s past began to shape how she thought about Madara for sure. Although, there was a stronger sense of discernment for what she wondered about every other opposing force that they had encountered so far too.

The Traveller, Cat Nakahara, Sapphirion, and Voltaze. There had to be a good side to them that would help relieve all of the problems being created.

“Thank you Princess Candiere. I suppose Cherry, Eternika, and I will be heading towards our next location now. The only thing I can ask is, if it’s possible, can you help find Ararima for us while we are away? My friend has been depressed about it for so long now and I’m sure she has a family that misses her. Please?”

Breathing in a gentle sigh, The Candy Princess nodded her head in acceptance.

As the team of three were ready to leave, Peppie tapped Styra on the shoulder. She pointed her toward the direction of Princess Candiere who walked up with the purse and grabbed a familiar glowing crystal that quite literally shocked Cherry and Eternika as well.

The Shard Of Surreality.

“He who oversees this world gave it to me. Now you must take it somewhere safe just in case. It is of great use.”

Gripping tightly onto the shard, Styra used its power to fix the damages done to the cafe.

Pleased with the renovations, Princess Candiere hugged her out of appreciation before finally waving goodbye to them upon their departure.

Silent reflections of what had just occurred made tears drop from the princess’s eyes out of both sadness and joy.

“Farewell sweeties. I look forward to seeing you again.”