Enormous, glass-vaulted ceilings rose above Team Natsuko as they entered the Selenian Capitol building. Multiple stories of cerulean moon-metal balconies filled with shops and offices and labs and condos and every other type of activity flanked them on either side . There were a few relevant locations in the part of Selenia that surrounded the Capitol, but most of the “city” was inside this one building. Team Natsuko’s headquarters in this region was an enormous, multi-room condominium that took up a quarter of the balcony space on the 13th story of the central dome atrium.

“Go~od afternoon!” Zhidao announced cheerily as soon as they walked in the front door.

Natsuko would’ve thrown her flask at him, except that would’ve been alcohol abuse. Instead she glared.

“What do you want?” Natsuko said, refusing to slow her power-walking march back to their headquarters.

“I was just letting you all know about the status of your costume requests for the Halloween event,” Zhidao said.

Ailing and Koyon seemed excited about it. Boulanger was indifferent. Natsuko had a sinking feeling about the Yishang’s response to her own request. Zhidao notified them as they plowed through the crowd of Non-Heroes.

“The only modifications to yours, Ailing, were that your boot heels needed to be slightly taller and the color of your stockings and the stripes on the dress will need to be a brighter orange,” Zhidao said. “Does that sound alright?”

“It sounds perfect,” Ailing said.

Natsuko wasn’t sure how the boots could get any taller. Ailing’s current pair were already 6 inches.

“For you, Koyon, “bunny butler” is great, no changes requested,” Zhidao said.

Koyon smirked to himself as though it were somehow a great win to get the Yishang to approve special event costumes on the first try. Maybe it did feel good. Natsuko wouldn’t know.

“Boulanger, for yours the Yishang were hoping for something… maybe a little softer. Vampire is good. We like vampire. Especially for the tall, dark, and handsome Heroes with brooding, troubled pasts. But maybe not so much with the blood lips and dark circles. Yes to the rose boutonniere though.”

Boulanger shrugged. For him it was just a costume. Since all the other Top Tier Heroes were obligated to come, he wasn’t losing sleep about falling behind them.

Zhidao exhaled. “Now, Natsuko…”

Natsuko responded with a wide, fake grin. “Yes, Zhidao?”

“The Yishang… well, they agreed with the concept…”

“Uh-huh. And how did they mutilate it?” Natsuko asked, sincerely wanting to know what the hell they had done to stick with the “concept” of a chicken suit. She had a feeling there was a lot of plucking involved.

“So… instead of a chicken suit, they were thinking more like a phoenix…” Zhidao said.

Natsuko rubbed her chin with mock appraisal. “Ah-hah. I see. I see. Now, this phoenix costume, it’s basically a bikini with feathers on it, I imagine?”

“It is not,” Zhidao replied. The fox sprite punctuated this with a sigh. He was clearly ready to be done with this conversation so he could pester the other six teams on Selenia.

“But it’s got the holy trinity, doesn’t it?” Natsuko asked.

“It— yes. It does. But you know what?” Zhidao said, floating up so that he was level with Natsuko’s eyes. “The Yishang said so. Deal with it.”

She grit her teeth and snarled at him, but that was the end of the conversation. The Yishang could threaten to do to her what she threatened to do to Boulanger but on an entirely different scale. As for the holy trinity, that was a term she’d coined to refer to the core attributes of the costumes they stuck her in: Armpits, Belly, Toes. Whatever they approved was guaranteed to have all three. Of course, they didn’t do that to Ailing because her archetype was the mature, sultry, dominant type, but that came with its own hell of heels, cleavage, and thighs. Natsuko wasn’t sure which was worse, but it kept the Use-Numbers up. At the end of the day, she was going to let the Yishang have their way, but for the sake of her dignity she had to put up at least a little bit of a fight.

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“Fine,” Natsuko said.

“You don’t want to see a concept picture?” Zhidao asked.

“Would it matter?”

“You could make additional changes.”

“Not ones they’d approve,” Natsuko said.

With that business taken care of, Zhidao floated off to another group of Heroes returning from an XP-farming trip. It looked like it was Cunegonde, Kane, Yuna, and Daisy. Natsuko watched Boulanger’s eyes scan them for any hints that they might have stumbled on a competitive edge. Concluding they weren’t, he walked over.

“Good afternoon, friends. Cunegonde, you look lovely as always,” Boulanger said with a nod.

Cunegonde curtsied. “Why thank you.”

Yuna grunted. “How’s the new quest?”

“Boring,” Natsuko replied. “Starts with a run-around time-waste, the boss dragon’s an HP sponge, the twist is it was all a distraction to destroy Selenia.”

Yuna grunted again. Nothing out of the ordinary.

As the two teams shared news and information, Daisy and Natsuko briefly caught each other’s gaze, and just as quickly looked elsewhere. There wasn’t any bad blood between them, but there was an unspoken agreement not to mention anything about the events of two years ago. That, and their mutual choice to return to the Use-Rankings competition despite both being aware it was a rigged sham. If their teammates noticed anything odd between Natsuko and Daisy, they hadn’t said anything yet.

When Natsuko first rocketed to the top of the Use Rankings, associating with the arrogant Top Heroes had been an unavoidable annoyance. However, slowly but surely, she’d come to like a handful of them. Yuna especially. Her gruff frankness was exactly Natsuko’s style. But lately she’d come back around to finding other Heroes annoying. It wasn’t their fault they were oblivious to the superficial nature of the world, but their confidence and bravado was like a cheese grater against her eardrums. Worst of all was Daisy, who acted as though she knew nothing was amiss.

“Natsu? You good?” Koyon asked.

“Huh? Yeah. I’m chillin’. We’re chillin’,” Natsuko said, taking another pull from her Moonwater.

Once the scuttlebutt was over with, Natsuko dragged her team back to their headquarters. The floors and walls of the enormous glass-domed building rolled like waves around her as they walked. She felt detached from everything in an uncomfortable way, like her mind was suddenly aware it was piloting a body it wasn’t fully in control of. An ice cold wave of terror brushed against her as she thought too hard about what exactly she was, but she bit down hard on her lip to stop it. The pain helped a little.

“Natsuko.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Natsuko swabbed her lip and came away with blood. A few droplets trickled onto the counter where she was chopping onions.

“Thanks,” Natsuko replied, only then realizing she was talking to Ailing while they cooked.

Boulanger had gone to sort through quest rewards and scrap lower-tier accessories and items for experience. Koyon was “sunning” himself out on the balcony overlooking the central atrium of the Selenian Capitol. Ailing placed a warm palm on Natsuko’s neck where her kimono’s cut left it exposed.

“Are you still worried about the global Use-Number drop?” Ailing said.

With the hand not holding a knife, Natsuko pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, no. I just drank too much moonwater too fast.”

Ailing rubbed her back. “I’m not blind, Natsu. We were all unnerved by the number drop, but it seems like you were especially bothered. We’re a year out from the start and if anything you seem to be spacing out more frequently. I want to help you, sweetie, but I need to know what’s wrong.”

“That’s not what it is,” Natsuko said abruptly. Her lip throbbed where it'd been bitten.

Ailing withdrew her hand. “Whatever it is, I just want to make sure it won’t be a problem in a critical moment. Team Windwalker is right behind us, you know. They got the quest done before us today.”

“It won’t,” Natsuko replied, tasting acid on her breath.

The strange, disjointed feeling in her soul persisted through the rest of the meal prepping. At some point, cooking had ceased to be a refuge and had become just another chore to finish, same as the experience grinding, dungeon-clearing, quest completing, item recycling, and so on. Natsuko had tried briefly to do what she called “anti-cooking,” which was to actually manipulate the physical food items in a way that she thought might be how the dish would actually be cooked in whatever realm the Celestials inhabited. But after her omurices turned out as gloopy, soppy messes or as charred brown egg flakes, she’d given that up too. If Shuixing had been there to help her…

Not that Shui would see her now. Nor did she particularly want to see Shuixing. That ship had sailed. After so much talk about wanting the old Natsuko back, Shuixing had called her silly and stupid for wanting to enjoy herself and go adventuring again. The one thing Natsuko truly enjoyed. As if Natsuko herself wasn’t perfectly aware how silly and stupid it was. As if she didn’t want to do it anyway because what the hell else was she going to do with herself in this silly, stupid world? That conversation over a year ago was the last time the two had spoken.

“Here, let’s have you lay down on the sofa,” Ailing said, gently hooking an arm around Natsuko’s waist and guiding her towards a couch the size of her old closet.

It was infantilizing for her teammate to have to do this for her, but in a way, she was tired enough to let it happen, letting Ailing ease her down onto the cushions and throw a blanket over her.

“There you go. Just take a breather and I’ll wake you up for dinner,” Ailing said.

Natsuko groaned. As the world spun around her, she stuck a leg out of her blanket and pressed her foot to the floor to make it stop.