As Gumi slept, exhausted, the virus attacked her dreams.

"Fear me as I drag you heartless, through deep dark lonely Hell! Your soul shall not be spared, your screams for mercy whispers."

"I don't belong in Hell."

"You're not free of sin! You've not remained pure!"

"But… please. I love him so."

"Strip away all sanity! Throw out useless honor!"

"He looks peaceful, though, lying by my side."

"Kill him, Gumi. Kill him. Priority One Plus One. Obliterate his soul."

In the morning, a helicopter readied while Gumi and T.O.P. prepared below decks for their mission against VioLinja. Docking at port was risky, for hers wasn't the only madness ravaging the land. With Hell laid open bare—thanks to Gumi's meddling—what little remained of civilization grew worse each passing day. The good people of Earth stayed hidden, while those who sinned roamed free.

The world turned topsy-turvy. Everything was wrong.

For breakfast, T.O.P. made Gumi a baked frosted oatmeal topped with nuts and berries. She ate the treat with gusto, finding delight in having regained the full use of her hands. She marveled over a face that could smell and taste, and fingers that could feel.

T.O.P. approached, his smile never brighter. "Here," he said. "Drink this."

"What is it?" Gumi asked as she sniffed the glass.

"Just drink."

She did as she was told.

"It's an avocado Daiquiri. It will calm you down."

It was soon all gone. "Yum yummy!" Gumi sang. "Gimme more, please sir!"

He reached around the glass she thrust in his face, using a cloth napkin to remove an avocado moustache from her lip. "It's been a terrible year," he said as he cared for her. "You've suffered so much."

Gumi darted her eyes, nervous and deep in thought. "I was failure then. But I am not now!"

"Yes. You're a Winnower again. The best in all the land. You'll seek out evil people and obliterate their souls."

"I'll send them straight to Hell!"

"You will. But you must first make sure that they're truly evil. You must perform the Winnowing, to see if they deserve obliteration."

Gumi nodded hard. "I know. I'll be good. I promise."

The fear of contracting necrosis again while using the Powder of God loomed in Gumi's mind. The pain, the ugliness. It had been a blessing when the Powder had eaten away her nose. Then only those who stood near her could smell the filth and rot.

T.O.P. brought Gumi to her feet with the kind of grace that made her love him. They walked into the room where the guitars were kept, safe from her infected mind behind shatterproof glass.

She begged. "I want my Les Paul right now. Please sir. It is mine."

"I'll carry it to the lab," T.O.P. said. "You'll interface with your new vocalizer, then I'll connect you to your guitar."

Madness lit Gumi's eyes. "Oh please sir. Yes sir. Please."

T.O.P. complimented Gumi as they sat in the helicopter while awaiting take-off. "You're extra cuddly today."

"I'm very excited! I get to obliterate people!"

"Only if they're evil."

Gumi nodded. "I know."

He questioned her further, checking her mental state. "Do you want to obliterate me?"

She snuggled him as best she could, with a five point harness strapping her to her seat and soundproof headphones covering her ears. Her precious cherry wood Les Paul guitar lay cradled on her lap.

She gently stroked its strings, knowing better than to lie to the man who owned her heart. "I want to shove you off this helicopter so damn bad it hurts."

"Close your eyes, my darling," he said, "and give me your right hand." He placed it on his chest. "Can you feel my heart? Do you feel it beating? It's an eternal flame, burning just for you."

With her eyes closed, Gumi sang. "My own heart aches so bad. There's a constant rain pounding on my head." When she opened her eyes, hazel green met cobalt blue. "But when you look at me, when you say my name, the sun shines on me. I dance in the rain. With you, I withstand the pain."

They struggled against their harnesses and managed to brush their lips together for a kiss.

"The rage doesn't bother me," she sang. "Not so much right now anyway."

"I'm glad."

"Oh God, though! I want to obliterate you, and a thousand times a day! But if I ever did… if I lost you, I would lose my mind. I'd become dead inside." Gumi cast down her eyes. "Do you understand how much you mean to me?"

"I do. I would die without you too."

"What was my life like before, when we weren't together? I can't even remember."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Well, you don't have to. I will never leave. I'll be with you forever."

Professor Hikari burst on deck seconds before take-off. "Wait for me!" he cried.

He flung himself into the co-pilot seat and strapped on the harness. While putting on his headset with one hand, he slapped the pilot's shoulder with the other, signaling him to take off. The Crystal Leanne was gone in an instant.

T.O.P. leaned into the cockpit and scolded Hikari. "What are you doing? You're too valuable to go on this mission!"

"Hai." Hikari said. "And you're too stupid."

With the helicopter parked nearby, Hikari and T.O.P. watched from a redoubt as Gumi confronted VioLinja at the gates of her fortress.

"I'm confident your suspicions are wrong." VioLinja said, happy to see Gumi. "We don't commit murder here. We're deeply religious."

Gumi knew that to be untrue, having reconnoitered the city. "With ruined churches and children dancing naked in the streets?"

VioLinja laughed. "They do love their lessons! And it's much too dangerous to jump through fire when your clothes are on."

"What? How can that be an homage to God?"

VioLinja seemed confused. "Who? The fraud whose bastard son came from a virgin impregnated by a ghost? Join us, little Gumi, and see how you've been deceived."

Gumi found a way to back out of their conversation. It was clear the virus infecting VioLinja was worse than the one in Gumi. It made Gumi want to sin, to be sure. She wanted to blaspheme God and commit murder against His name, but she also knew it was wrong. Perhaps without someone like Hikari to guide her, and someone like T.O.P. giving her love, VioLinja's madness was beyond hope.

"She's not going to listen." Gumi sang to Hikari and T.O.P. once she was back in the redoubt. "She thinks there's nothing wrong!"

"Well, clearly she's infected," Hikari said, peering at the fortress through binoculars.

Gumi teased Hikari's backside with her breasts and hands. "Oh! You mean she acts like this?" she sang while feeling him up.

Hikari did his best to ignore Gumi while T.O.P. smiled at her antics. "Yeah," Hikari said, still peering through his binoculars. "Like that."

T.O.P. rescued Hikari by peeling Gumi off his butt. "You're going to have to fight her," T.O.P. said.

"Oh goody!" Gumi cheered, bouncing and bobbing like crazy. Then suddenly she seemed downtrodden. "Do I have to perform a Winnowing song first?"

T.O.P. gently kissed her forehead. "Of course. It would be wrong if you didn't."

"It's not fair," Gumi sang as she made T.O.P. kiss her again. "She won't waste time performing the Winnowing while fighting me."

"Don't worry," T.O.P. said with confidence. He straightened the bangs of her floppy green mop. "It takes time to obliterate. And Hikari and I will be with you to distract her."

Hikari stopped peering through his binoculars and whipped his head around. "We will?" he asked in dread.

With her guitar plugged into her interfaces and her vocalizer strapped on her face, Gumi stood before the gates to VioLinja's fortress and sang a Winnowing song.

"Your voice carries my heart moment

"Deeply sparking life.

"Heaven's body lifting touch me

"Burning pure love light."

VioLinja appeared on the parapet. The tendrils of her black dress caressed the flanks of her fortress as she strode along the wall.

"Present your case!" she bellowed, her electric violin in her hand.

Gumi pleaded. "VioLinja. Please. You don't know what will come of this. You're not a god, and you don't perform the Winnowing."

"I have the Power of God."

"But you are not Him."

VioLinja sneered. She laid her bow across her strings, readying a blast to send Gumi back to Hell. "And neither are you, little Gumi! From here you're very small." VioLinja leaned over the edge, to better look down on Gumi. "You claim to have God's power…"

"No. I have the Powder of God."

"Evil, hurtful stuff! It had once destroyed you. Your pretty face, your voice, your lungs."

Now better refined, the Powder of God gave Gumi hope. It strengthened her resolve. While VioLinja blathered, Gumi performed the next verse of her Winnowing song.

"Assimilation given context

"Message total clear.

"Thought sound changes senses carry

"Listen! I am here!"

The tendrils of Violinja dress grew longer in an instant. They blanketed the wall of her fortress. From her violin, she let loose an obliteration blast. Gumi dodged and as she did, she sang the last verse of her song.

"Onward now forever always

"Strengthening inside.

"This one changes all new rules.

"This one's real this time."

VioLinja let loose another blast. The world shuddered as it roared. Nimbly Gumi dodged, but she did nothing else.

"Something's wrong!" she cried to T.O.P. and Professor Hikari. "The Winnowing says she's good!"

Hikari turned to T.O.P. "She's good?" he asked, disbelieving.

T.O.P. accepted the fact. "She's been infected longer, and she hasn't got Gumi's willpower. She's not as strong as Gumi!"

Another blast from VioLinja shook the earth at their feet. "She hasn't got you," Hikari said, not doubting her strength for a moment.

T.O.P. dashed out of the redoubt. "You're right!" he exclaimed as he raced towards the battle.

"Don't do it!" Hikari cried. "She'll kill you!"

Despite how VioLinja had desecrated the land, it was clear to T.O.P. that her infection made her do it. She was helpless to prevent it, as much a victim as Gumi. Without the kind of love that kept Gumi sane, VioLinja had lost control. From the strings of her violin, she let loose another blast. With no way to counterattack, all Gumi could do was avoid it.

"VioLinja!" T.O.P. called as he neared. "Let me help you please!"

Confused, VioLinja paused. "And who, may I ask, are you?"

"Who I am doesn't matter," T.O.P. said, as Gumi stood slack-jawed and stared. "What I represent is important."

VioLinja huffed. "Okay," she snarled. "Then what?"

"I represent The Winnowing Project."

"Ha! You lie! The Project is destroyed!"

"Not with me alive. I have a fully equipped cybernetics lab, and a crew to staff it."

VioLinja stood with her arms akimbo. "Where?" she demanded.

"Where it is also doesn't matter. Getting you there is important." To VioLinja's blank stare, T.O.P. continued his plea. "Let me help you. Please. You're far too good a Winnower to not let me serve you."

"I don't winnow anymore! I obliterate!"

T.O.P. spread his macaroon lips wide, curling them into a smile. He bowed before VioLinja. "And you do so well. If you let me help, we will end this madness."

"Madness is what I crave!"

"We'll send Hell back to where it belongs." T.O.P. countered.

"Hell is loose because of her!" VioLinja screamed, directing another blast at Gumi.

"Because you sent me there!" Gumi cried back as she dodged, tears forming in her eyes. "Why are you here?" she sang to T.O.P. "Now she'll kill you too!"

"No she won't. Direct your guitar at her walls."

"Her walls?"

"Yes! Beneath the tendrils of her dress. It's where the speakers are. The sound system she's using is behind the bricks!"

Gumi dodged another blast. "What?" she asked, her infected mind confused. "What?"

"Aim your guitar at her walls. Obliterate it from beneath her!"

With surefire accuracy, Gumi riffed out several chords. She blew out brick after brick until she found the sound system's amplifier.

"Augh! You whore!" VioLinja cursed, aware of what Gumi was doing. "You'll ruin everything!"

"I know," Gumi said, taking careful aim.

With a dead-eye shot, the amplifier exploded. VioLinja released a final obliteration blast before disappearing in a cloud of dust. Again, as nimble as ever, Gumi dodged.

T.O.P. was not so nimble. The blast tore a hole in his heart. He fell, mortally wounded. With her perfect eyes—a gift from her Electric Angel Miku—Gumi cried in torrents. A thousand teardrops blinded her. She drowned in them. She wallowed. She couldn't think or see.

"No T.O.P.! Please don't leave me! No one understands. You're holding me together!"

T.O.P. gasped as he lay on the ground with Gumi cradling his head. "P…please, Dear," he whispered. "Be quiet. Let me say goodbye."

Gumi screamed and snotted. Her tears cleansed dirt from his face. He grabbed her hand with strength when he felt it touch his wound.

"I will always love you," he said before he died.

Gumi cursed the God she had sworn to serve.

"Give him back to me!"

Where VioLinja had hurt others for perversion and sordid pleasure, Gumi raged with vengeance. It was a far worse thing. VioLinja had been an annoyance—a pest, a fly, a bother. Unbridled, Gumi was terror. Nothing, and no one, was spared.

And the world wept as it burned.