[Voice/Written]

[jadethenecromancer]

[Voice | Public]

I regret to say Aida Mana and her friends have all disappeared. Hopefully, they are safely back in their homeworld. It seems my crew continues have bad luck when it comes to keeping people around...

Of course, this leaves me with no choice but to succeed Mana's position as the captain of The Friend Ship. [A small sigh.] I should have known suggesting that name would come back to haunt me.

[Written | Private to the Friend Ship crew]

Mana left behind a message for all of us. I will copy it here.


Hello everyone. If Jade-san is showing you this, it means I've been sent home. I'm somewhat unsure of what to write here, considering I don't know the circumstances of what may happen if I depart. But since many have disappeared without warning, I wanted to make sure I had this prepared just in case.

I don't know quite what to say exactly, because I don't know the exact circumstances of my being gone. You can't really know the future, can you? So this may be a bit imperfect as well.

Before I came to this world, I was a student council president, a Precure, and... an ordinary girl. I'd never been the captain of a vessel, and when I found myself one, I found it was very different from any of those other things. And I'm not sure how I adjusted to the challenges that I faced in being a captain. I faced something I never thought I would before, in someone who twisted the love I always believed in into something wrong and violent.

But I also got the chance to know all of you. I got to make friends I never would have met by coming here; friends who supported us when Rikka, Alice, and I found ourselves struggling with what happened. We also had adventures, we fought side by side... and I hope, on one level, I will never forget that.

I'm not sure what else to say, but... I have a great deal of love for all of you. If this is goodbye, I hope you all never lose your heart thumping excitement!

[ooc: message was written by Razorsaw.]

Comments

[curries]

[Stealing your bed, little brother.]

[Asbel, having finally gotten through the entire message, closes his journal and flops down on an unoccupied corner of the bed, looking up at the ceiling.]

...Yeah.

[Asbel prefers it when there's lots of people around. Then it feels more like a big group of friends all traveling together. He can forget about how much work it is to keep the ship going or how uncertain the idea of "home" seems right now. Losing friends just reminds him he really has no idea what he's up against. Besides, how're they supposed to know that Mana and the other girls got home okay?]

[omnomnomurice]

[Silence fills the air, punctuated only by the wooden creaking of the ship, the occasional cry of seagulls in the distance, and the hushed crashing of the ocean waves. Yet even the tiniest noises seem more pronounced now, in the wake of suddenly losing a chunk of the ship's crew. Hubert wishes he could think of a way to make things right, to patch the holes in their social fabric with well-woven words, but nothing comes to mind and he feels so small and helpless for it.

His eyes settle on Asbel lying on his bed. Not for the first time does Hubert contemplate what he would do if Asbel disappeared as abruptly as the Precures just did -- as Piers and the other members of the Alcyone (save for Jade) did months ago. The thought of it is enough to make his jaw tighten with fear and desperation; he's not sure he could manage, especially if Jade also goes away. (He doesn't count that awful week in the witch's dungeon as "managing.") And how could he know where Asbel really went after disappearing, anyway? What if it was to an even worse place than this world they were sailing in? What if...what if...

Taking a deep breath, Hubert softly closes his journal and sets it aside. Why did it never seem to get easier to lose people, no matter how little he knew them? Is there something wrong with him? Is he just being a big crybaby? Does he just need to grow up and get over it?]