"What kind of Fool do you think you are, trying to ruin my fun?"
Kallen's right hand clamped down over Sunday's face, her fingers tightening as she forced the entire body into the café booth.
The fluffy back cushion let out a muffled groan. A few feathers burst from the seams and drifted into the air.
"Sunday" didn't resist.
Or rather, the instant Kallen pinned him, his body seemed to lose all strength, collapsing limply into the sofa without even the will to struggle.
Kallen looked down at him.
At that moment, the expression on that borrowed face began to change in a faintly peculiar way.
"You big brute, let go of Lady Sparkle already!"
That wasn't Sunday's voice.
It was a shriller, more playful female voice instead, the kind of tone that sounded like a bad actress trying to bluff her way through a missed line.
But Kallen had caught her red-handed. There was no way she was letting her off easily.
She pressed down harder, shoving the thing wearing Sunday's skin even deeper into the sofa.
"I'll count to three," Kallen said calmly. "One."
"Do you even know who I am?!"
"Two."
"Waitwaitwait! I was wrong! I was wrong, okay?!"
The expression on that face finally fell apart.
Sunday's features twisted like crumpled paper, then, after a brief distortion, resolved into an entirely different face.
Black twin tails. Pink-violet eyes. A sheepish grin that hadn't quite faded in time.
Kallen recognized her in less than a third of a second.
A Masked Fool. Sparkle.
"My, my, Lady Kallen really is strong," Sparkle said, sprawled across the sofa in a thoroughly undignified position, yet still speaking in that glib, flippant tone. "Does this count as harassment, I wonder? Should I start screaming for help?"
Kallen had caught her in the act and she still dared to mouth off?
Without another word, Kallen grabbed the back of Sparkle's collar with her free hand and lifted her like a cat by the scruff.
"H-Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?!"
Smack.
The crisp sound echoed through the café.
Kallen's palm landed squarely on Sparkle's rear. It wasn't all that hard, but it was loud.
Sparkle went rigid.
Her pretty little face cycled from shock, to disbelief, to a kind of vivid humiliation so dramatic it could have passed for stage acting.
"Y-you actually—"
Smack.
Another one. Kallen's expression didn't change at all.
"What is wrong with you?!" Sparkle cried, rubbing her reddened backside, her voice now edged with real annoyance. "I was just making a joke! Was that really necessary?!"
Kallen didn't answer. She seemed entirely absorbed in her spanking.
At last Sparkle broke.
"Help! Help! There's a bully here! A pervert bullying a little girl!"
Her voice rang sharply through the café, shrill enough to rattle the ceiling.
Kallen could feel her wriggling wildly in her grip now, legs kicking in the air like a cat caught by the neck.
And yet no one turned around.
No one looked their way.
The other customers kept chatting quietly. The barista behind the counter continued making coffee. Even the two girls by the window were still giggling over their selfies.
Not a single person noticed a thing.
Naturally, that was Kallen's doing.
With half the dream's authority already in her hands, something like this was effortless.
"What did you do?!" Sparkle bit her lip, tears already gathering at the corners of her eyes.
Not because it hurt.
Because it was humiliating.
She was the great Lady Sparkle, a proud follower of Aha, and yet here she was, draped over someone's knee and getting spanked?!
If this got out, how was she supposed to face the other Masked Fools?
"Just now," Kallen said, finally pausing, "you called this a joke?"
Well, Sparkle had climbed all the way onto her face. There was no way Kallen was letting that slide.
"Y-Yeah!" Sparkle lifted her chin stubbornly, trying to preserve the last tatters of her dignity. "I just wanted to see what kind of expression you'd make if I scared you. That's all! Isn't that fun?"
"Fun?"
"Of course it's fun!" Sparkle lit right back up the moment she sensed an opening, apparently forgetting she was still being held down. "Think about it! A mighty Emanator of Preservation getting toyed with by a Masked Fool in a café. That script writes itself!"
The more she talked, the more animated she got.
"My original plan was to disguise myself as Sunday and test you, then later turn into Robin and see your reaction, and after that—"
"And after that?" Kallen asked.
"Obviously I was going to record it," Sparkle said as if it were only natural. "Material this precious has to be shared with everybody—"
Before she could finish, Kallen flipped her over.
Now Kallen loomed above her, one hand still holding the back of her neck, thumb resting lightly over her carotid artery.
"You're Sparkle, right?" Kallen asked.
"W-what of it?" Sparkle's voice was already starting to shake.
"What kind of person do you think I am?"
Sparkle blinked, suddenly unsure.
She had investigated Kallen for quite some time, yes, but this was still their first real face-to-face encounter.
Still, based on all of Sparkle's vast life experience, Kallen should have been the sort who was actually pretty easygoing.
...Probably?
After a pause, Sparkle ventured, "Someone really impressive?"
"And?"
"And... um... you look scary, but you're probably actually a pretty nice person?"
"Pretty nice." Kallen repeated the words with a faint smile. "Then tell me. When a pretty nice person realizes she's been made a fool of, what does she do?"
Sparkle's face changed instantly.
"You forgive me?"
"Wrong." Kallen bent down until her lips were nearly brushing Sparkle's ear. "A pretty nice person ties the Masked Fool up and hangs her upside down from the tallest clocktower in the Golden Hour, so everyone can see what happens when you mess with an Emanator of Preservation."
Sparkle's eyes went round.
"I'm sorry, Lady Kallen! Sparkle was wrong, completely wrong! Lady Kallen, you're so generous and magnanimous, please forgive little Sparkle this once!"
The apology came fast and very sincerely.
With tears still glittering at the corners of her eyes, and her twin tails all messy from being shoved into the sofa, she really did look soft and pitiful.
Kallen gazed down at her in silence.
Sparkle dared to lift her head a little. Seeing Kallen remain expressionless, she hurriedly piled on more.
"Sparkle was just curious! A major figure like Lady Kallen suddenly showing up in Penacony? Of course I couldn't help wanting to make you laugh a little!"
"Make me laugh?"
"Yeah!" Seeing an opening, Sparkle perked up instantly. "To tell you the truth, I've always had a deep reverence for Preservation. Meeting a real Emanator of Preservation in person? Naturally I got a little overexcited and wanted to get closer!"
"Sparkle is a professional, you know. I guarantee I can make you laugh!"
She got so into her sales pitch that she even tried wriggling free to demonstrate.
"I can do magic tricks! Tell jokes! I can even—"
Smack.
Another hit.
Sparkle's eyes reddened at once. "Why did you hit me again?!"
"Because you still haven't told the truth," Kallen said evenly.
"I am telling the truth!"
"Are you?" Kallen finally released the back of her neck and sat down across from her, crossing one leg over the other.
Kallen remembered Sparkle's role in the original story perfectly well.
"So. Who sent you?"
Sparkle's eyes darted around. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again.
"Oh? Not talking? Fine. Just wait."
This time Kallen stopped wasting words and used the power of Nihility directly.
A black-violet aura instantly surged up, wrapping itself around Sparkle from all sides.
Sparkle's face changed at once.
She recognized that aura the moment she saw it.
Wasn't this woman supposed to be an Emanator of Preservation? Since when was she dual-wielding Nihility too?!
Worse still, Sparkle could clearly feel a contagious quality in that aura.
If she really got stained by this Nihility, she'd turn into one of those depressed, joyless Self-Annihilators.
Lady Sparkle turned into a humorless lump of Nihility?
Absolutely not.
"I'm sorry, Lady Kallen, I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! It was the Stellaron Hunters! They gave me your information and told me to test you!"
"The Stellaron Hunters?"
Kallen's movement paused. The black-violet aura stopped just short of Sparkle's nose.
Sparkle froze, barely daring to breathe.
"Y-yeah! The Stellaron Hunters!"
"There's this one called Silver Wolf. She gave me a file on you and said you were a variable that shouldn't exist in Penacony, someone who might affect the Stellaron Hunters' plan, so she told me to come test you!"
"Oh? Silver Wolf. The hacker?" Kallen arched a brow.
Sparkle nodded frantically. "Y-yes, yes, that hacker Silver Wolf!"
"She also said Sam had already infiltrated Penacony, and I was supposed to go provide cover!"
"Sam?"
The black-violet aura at Kallen's fingertips stilled for a second, then slowly withdrew back into her palm.
Sparkle collapsed backward in relief, slumping into the sofa and gasping for breath, her bangs damp with cold sweat.
"Y-yeah. The one in the mech," she said, rubbing the back of her neck while stealing nervous glances at Kallen's face. "Silver Wolf said the Family has some huge conspiracy going on in Penacony, so Sam came to investigate, and I was supposed to help out in the dream."
"Oh? So you lot know quite a bit," Kallen said.
"Not me! I really don't!" Sparkle immediately raised both hands in surrender. "Lady Kallen, I'm just a runner! The Stellaron Hunters are all secretive weirdos. Why would they tell some outsider like me the real core plan?"
Kallen looked slightly surprised.
Judging by Sparkle's reaction, she had clearly filed Kallen under righteous heroic figure. She was even swearing up and down that she definitely wasn't here to do anything evil.
And, to be fair, this time Sparkle actually wasn't lying.
After all, the bombs she had planted, while they looked dangerous, would eventually break one layer of Sunday's triple-dream prison during the final battle.
Looking at it that way, this Masked Fool really had come to Penacony to do something good.
At that thought, a small smile finally appeared on Kallen's face.
Then she stared directly at Sparkle.
Even if Sparkle had come to do good deeds, Kallen herself had come here to do bad things.
For some reason, a strong sense of doom crept up Sparkle's spine.
"...Lady Kallen?" Sparkle called out in a soft, sticky voice.
"Sparkle," Kallen said.
"Present!"
Sparkle reflexively sat up straight. Her knees snapped together neatly, and she placed both hands obediently on them like a student being called out by the teacher.
Even she found the posture humiliating, but she didn't dare change it.
"You said you came to Penacony to do good deeds?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Sparkle nodded so hard her twin tails bounced. "Sparkle is absolutely here doing charity this time! Truer than pearls!"
"And how exactly do you plan to perform this good deed?"
Sparkle blinked, her brain spinning at top speed.
It looked like a simple question, but it was a trap.
Say too little, and Kallen would think she was hiding something. Say too much, and she'd be handing over all her cards.
Since when had the great Lady Sparkle fallen so low that she had to explain herself to someone else?
But in the end, she answered.
"I hid a few... little toys around Penacony." She once again held up two fingers to show an absolutely tiny gap, her expression unbearably innocent.
"Bombs?" Kallen asked flatly.
Sparkle's fingers froze midair. "...How did Lady Kallen know?"
"Guess."
Sparkle inhaled deeply and decided to smash the pot and break the bowl.
"Fine, fine, they're bombs. But please hear me out, Lady Kallen."
She leaned forward and lowered her voice, her expression becoming unusually serious.
"The Family's Harmony shtick is way too dull. Everyone's trapped in their beautiful dream, all half-asleep, and nobody can even laugh in an interesting way anymore. Sparkle just wanted to give everyone a little reminder—no matter how beautiful the dream, when it's time to wake up, you have to wake up."
"So you're using bombs as your reminder?"
"Bombs have a sense of ceremony!" Sparkle replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Then she seemed to remember something and hurriedly added, "Lady Kallen, don't worry. These bombs absolutely won't hurt anyone!"
At that, Kallen glanced at the still-unconscious Robin nearby.
If she remembered correctly, Robin's efforts would also play a part in all of this.
That meant that, by now, all the pieces needed to break Penacony's three-layer dream had already gathered. It had practically fallen into her hands.
Sparkle, however, seemed to misunderstand Kallen's silence and quickly added, "I mean it! If Lady Kallen doesn't like them, I'll dismantle them, okay?"
"All right," Kallen said.
"Huh?!"
Sparkle clearly hadn't expected that answer.
In her own mind, although she had indeed come to Penacony mostly to have fun, this first batch of bombs really had been planted for a good cause.
Yet now this Emanator of Preservation was actually telling her to dismantle them?
No way. From everything she had seen, Kallen didn't feel like a villain.
Then a thought occurred to Sparkle.
Oh.
Maybe this lady was just too strong and too clueless. Maybe she still hadn't figured out Penacony's real secret.
At once, Sparkle's mood brightened.
So what if she was an Emanator? In the end she'd still been kept in the dark by the Family. In that sense, wasn't Lady Sparkle already ahead?
Sparkle's lips curled into a sly grin.
"Lady Kallen, you don't think Sparkle is one of those lunatics who blows things up without caring who gets hurt, do you?"
She wagged a finger in the air, smugness creeping back into her tone.
"Sparkle's bombs were specially prepared for the people sleeping far too soundly. Do you know what Penacony's biggest problem is right now?"
"What is it?" Kallen humored her.
"No one wakes up." Sparkle's expression grew a touch more serious.
"These bombs are meant to shatter the Family's conspiracy."
At that, Kallen gave a small smile. "In that case, leave them be for now. They might still come in handy."
Sparkle froze again, clearly not expecting Kallen to accept that explanation so easily.
Still, reaching her goal was what mattered.
She immediately put on a flattering grin. "Lady Kallen! You're so broad-minded! Sparkle knew someone as great as you would appreciate art!"
But the moment she finished speaking, Kallen smiled coldly.
Without warning, she grabbed the unconscious Robin with one hand and Sparkle with the other, and all three of them vanished from where they stood.
Once they had left the café, Kallen began fully exercising her authority within the dream.
She carried the two of them as she moved through it.
Robin was tucked under Kallen's left arm, her head resting lightly against Kallen's shoulder, still sleeping soundly.
Sparkle, meanwhile, got much worse treatment.
Kallen held her by the back of the collar, leaving her limbs dangling miserably in the air.
"Lady Kallen, where exactly are we going?" Sparkle asked in a trembling, ingratiating voice, though curiosity had already begun to flicker in her eyes.
"Shut up," Kallen replied with a glance.
"Okay!"
Kallen moved fast.
Under her feet, the dream compressed itself. Distances between districts became something like elastic string, stretchable and collapsible at will.
She passed through the Golden Hour, crossed Clock Studios Theme Park, and swept past Dewlight Pavilion.
Each time she passed a location, her fingers would make a tiny hooking motion, as though plucking invisible fruit from the air.
Sparkle could see it.
She watched as the bombs she had so carefully hidden lifted out of their hiding places one by one, like summoned familiars, converging from all directions to follow behind Kallen.
Sparkle's mouth twitched.
She had spent a full three days hiding those bombs. Some were wedged into clocktower gears, some pasted behind billboards, some dismantled into components and mixed into the Family's decorative furnishings.
She would have bet anything that even the best investigators from the Bloodhounds couldn't have found a third of them.
And yet this woman had simply walked past once and collected every single one.
"That's impossible..." Sparkle muttered.
Kallen ignored her completely.
At last the three figures stopped atop a clocktower.
It was the tallest building in the Golden Hour, capped with a circular stone platform.
With one casual motion, Kallen tossed both girls onto the platform.
Then the bombs began to fall.
One. Two. Three...
They dropped from the sky and piled up in front of Sparkle until they formed a small hill.
Sparkle counted them.
Fifty-seven.
Not one missing. Not one extra.
Only then did her expression truly change.
"Lady Kallen... how did you..."
"Any more?" Kallen cut in coldly.
Sparkle's lips moved, but at the end she just shook her head.
"No," she said, her voice now entirely stripped of its earlier glibness. "Fifty-seven. They're all here."
Kallen nodded.
Then she drew out Judas.
In the next instant, countless lances flashed through the air, skewering every bomb and destroying them all.
"Lady Kallen... what exactly are you trying to do?" Sparkle finally realized something was very wrong.
According to the information the Stellaron Hunters had given her, Penacony's dream should have had a single master—someone with total authority over the entire dreamscape.
And Kallen's earlier method of finding the bombs... it had absolutely nothing to do with Preservation.
In a flash, Sparkle thought she understood.
She was doomed. This Kallen was one of the black-hearted villains, and she was in league with the dreammaster.
"Lady Kallen..." Sparkle asked cautiously, "may this humble one ask something? You... don't happen to be on very good terms with Penacony's dreammaster, Gopher Wood... do you?"
"Gopher Wood?" At that, Kallen turned toward her with a crooked smile. "Why don't you guess?"
Sparkle's heart dropped straight to the bottom.
Lady Sparkle had crossed the galaxy for years. She had seen storms and disasters. She could handle the madmen among the Masked Fools, and even the ruthless members of the Stellaron Hunters.
But right now, she was genuinely panicking.
Without hesitation, she dropped to her knees.
Then, with a thump, she wrapped herself around Kallen's leg in a textbook-perfect display of begging for mercy.
"Lady Kallen, Sparkle is just a runner."
"I know I was wrong! I shouldn't have pried into your business! I shouldn't have listened to the Stellaron Hunters' nonsense! And I especially shouldn't have—"
She sniffled dramatically, lifting those pink-violet eyes to Kallen, tears glistening just so.
"I especially shouldn't have disguised myself as Sunday in that café to scare you. Sparkle really knows she was wrong. Please, in your great generosity, spare Sparkle just this once!"
Kallen looked down at the Masked Fool clinging to her leg.
She had to admit, Sparkle's acting was first-rate.
The trembling lashes. The faintly reddened nose. The way her lips pressed together as if she were desperately holding back tears. Every detail was perfectly calibrated to make her look helpless.
If Kallen hadn't already known exactly what sort of person Sparkle was, she might actually have bought it.
"Let go," Kallen said.
"No!" Sparkle buried her face against Kallen's knee, her voice muffled. "If I let go, Lady Kallen will definitely hand me over to that dreammaster!"
"Who said I was giving you to Gopher Wood?"
"Then why are you taking my bombs?" Sparkle looked up, tears still on her cheeks, suspicion beginning to flicker through her expression.
"And that power you used in the dream... Sparkle may not know much, but I know that wasn't Preservation."
She lowered her voice even more.
"Lady Kallen... you're really working with that dreammaster, aren't you?"
Kallen said nothing.
She just looked at Sparkle, her gaze as still as a dead lake.
That silence was more frightening than any threat.
Sparkle felt a chill rise from the base of her spine all the way to the top of her head.
She wanted to let go of Kallen's leg, but her fingers felt frozen in place.
"S-Sparkle didn't say anything!" she blurted out at once.
"Sparkle knows nothing! Whatever Lady Kallen's real identity is doesn't matter. What matters is that Lady Kallen must be a good person!"
"A good person?" Kallen finally spoke, a note of amusement in her voice.
Looking at the situation now, even if Sparkle hadn't accidentally exposed part of Kallen's truth, Kallen still would not have let her go. She needed to be sure Sparkle wouldn't cause any more chaos later.
Unfortunately, Sparkle still clung to a trace of hope.
"Yes! A good person!"
"Look, you helped the Astral Express, you took care of Robin, you even—"
"And I spanked you twice," Kallen finished for her.
Sparkle's face flushed scarlet.
"T-that was Sparkle's own fault! Who told me to get arrogant enough to test you?"
At last Kallen smiled.
Then she hoisted Judas onto her shoulder.
Sparkle, being no fool, immediately understood from that gesture alone that Kallen had no intention of letting her walk away.
Damn it. She had already sacrificed so much dignity. Was this woman still not going to let her go?
Did she really think the Masked Fools were made of clay?
Mask upon me, Aha above me—today, Lady Sparkle would defy an Emanator with mortal flesh!
"Damn it! I'm throwing down with you!"
Bang.
Sparkle's body went limp and collapsed onto the clocktower platform, cheek pressed to the cold stone bricks, her face still frozen in a stubborn expression that seemed ready to fight to the bitter end.
Yes.
Kallen had knocked her out with Judas.
"Hah. All bark, no bite," Kallen remarked as she put Judas away and looked down at her two "trophies."
Robin was curled up at the edge of the platform, breathing evenly, sleeping as peacefully as though she were simply having a long dream.
Sparkle, on the other hand, had sprawled at Kallen's feet in a comically ridiculous pose, like a flattened frog.
"Fairly symmetrical," Kallen judged.
From the start, she had never had any intention of letting Sparkle go.
Even if she confiscated this batch of bombs, there was no guarantee the Fool wasn't hiding more somewhere.
Now all that remained was to find somewhere to stash the two of them.
At least until the Charmony Festival was over, neither of them could be allowed to pop out and cause trouble again.
But just as Kallen was about to act, a sharp ringtone suddenly cut through the silence.
It was Sparkle's phone.
Kallen looked down.
The caller ID displayed two words:
Silver Wolf
Normally, without the owner pressing accept, the call shouldn't have connected.
But the person on the other end was a hacker. Normal rules didn't apply.
A lazy female voice came through at once.
"Sparkle? How'd it go? What were the results?"
"...Why aren't you talking? Sam's already gone in. She's waiting for you to pick her up."
Kallen spoke instead.
"Sparkle can't answer right now. But I can go pick up Sam for her."
...
Silence lasted about three seconds.
"Who are you? Where's Sparkle?" Silver Wolf asked.
But Kallen didn't answer.
By then, she had already used the dream's authority to lock onto the distinctive signal threading through the dreamspace.
Then Nihility severed the connection.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 155)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter200)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter110)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter230)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 200
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 180
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 230
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 220
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 120
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 135
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 110
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 100
My Harem Is Indescribable 90
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 95
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 105
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 80
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 70
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 75
Checking In in Demon Slayer 80
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 85
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 70
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 65
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 70
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 70
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 65
Why did they assign me to Uma 65
MYGO Beauties 65
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 55
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 65
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 45
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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