After a while of Mochi trying to explain what happened to the police, they finally left. Of course, she had to make up a lie because who would have believed that she got whisked away to some other dimension? After calming Yufumi down, they finally could go their separate way, and Mochi made her way home. She was utterly exhausted from the day she just had. Even though it's only been about two days since all this mess started, she feels like it's been about a few months to her.
- Location: Home -
When Mochi finally made it to her room she crashed and slept for the entire night. She didn't wake up until the afternoon. She realized that she was still wearing the clothes from the day before so she decided to shower and get her life together. When she got out and put on her clothes she finally checked her phone and saw that she had a message from both Tohi.
"How did that weirdo get my number?" She said feeling very puzzled.
The message read: "Hey Momo. Can I call you that? I'm going to call you that anyway. I would like to meet with you once a week, is that ok? I just want to make sure that you don't forget about me. I wanted to come and see you today, but I know I should give you some space."
Mochi felt a little weird about seeing him again because of his father but she knew that he'd probably come to see her against her will anyway. After collecting herself she agreed.
"I wonder if I will have to kill any of those LDEs again soon, I hope not. But with that being said I don't really know what to do now." Mochi said as she let out a sigh as she flopped onto her bed.
"Maybe I should just use this day to relax, I feel like I deserve it after being put through all of this randomly these past couple of days." She says as she flops on her back and goes to scroll through her phone browser looking at various articles. After a few hours of scrolling, nothing was interesting to her but so she refreshed the page hoping for something different. A new article posted about five minutes ago popped up at the top of her screen that caught her eye. It was title was "Breaking news: Murder-suicide at the Asagawa Residence". It took her a few seconds to process but she realized that was the last name of one of her friends, Akira.
"That couldn't be Akira's family is it?" She said as her face got a little pale. She hesitantly clicked on the link to the article and skimmed until she saw the name of both of Akira's parents, Mai Asagawa and Bosu Asagawa. She gasped, her heart skipped a beat, and the color on her face completely left. She scrolled a little bit further and saw a disturbing picture of two bodies being rolled into the back of an ambulance. She quickly swiped away and had to take a second to collect herself.
"There's...No way... I...Let me call Akira to see if she's ok." She sat up with a gut-wrenching feeling as she called her.
*Ring*
*Ring*
*Ring*
*No Answer*
"She didn't pick up... Let me try again. Please pick it up. Please." She called her again.
*Ring*
*Ring*
*Ring*
*Click*
"Hello?" Akria said as she picked up the phone.
"Oh thank god you picked up, are you ok?" Mochi said in a panicked voice.
"Yeah...I'm at work. What is the problem?" Akria said very puzzledly.
"So you don't know yet? I'll be over there shortly, clocked out, and tell your boss you need to leave early." Said Mochi trying to sound calmer.
"Why, what's going on?' Akira said sounding a little worried.
"Please just do it, I'm on my way." Mochi said as she hung up on her and quickly threw on some shoes and sprinted to her job. Akira worked at a nearby shopping mart so it only took her about 10 minutes while running to get there.
- Location: Shopping Mart -
Mochi walked in and saw Akira standing near the front looking worried. Mochi did a slight jog and went to give Akira a tight hug and started crying.
"Akira...I am so sorry." Mochi said with tears pouring down her face.
"What is going on with you, you're scaring me. What happened?'' Akira said hugging her back.
"Your parents...Let's go sit down somewhere." Said Mochi as she lets go, wipes some of her tears, and leads her to a nearby bench.
"What about my parents?" Akira says but doesn't get a response until they're both sitting down.
"Akira...your parents are dead. It was a murder-suicide." Mochi says as she looks Akria in the eye.
"What? Are you lying? This isn't funny if you are... Please... tell me you are." Akria says in a shaking voice waiting for Mochi to say this was all some big joke. However, after a few moments of silence, she realized that it was real and it finally struck her like someone shooting through her heart with a bow. She started sobbing uncontrollably and mochi followed suit. After a minute Mochi kinda got herself together and noticed that Akria had foundation on and it started to run down her face because of all of the tears. Mochi saw that there is a burse underneath her makeup on her left cheek. Mochi lifted her hand up and wiped Akira's eyes.
"Akira, was your dad still hitting you and your mother?" Mochi said with her hand on Akira's cheek with the bruise on it.
"I know I told you that he stopped, but no... I just didn't want you to worry. I kind of had a feeling that something was going to happen because last night, it got really bad." Akira said trying to collect herself.
~Flashback~
Akira
She came home after work and before she even opened the front door she could hear faint yelling coming from her father. She hesitated but she finally opened the door to see her father screaming at her mother. However this time the energy in the house felt really off, more or so than before. Akira looked at her mother, instead of crying this time, her mother had a blank face and this really made Akira uncomfortable.
All of this abuse started around the time her father got let off from his job about three years ago. He used to be so kind but around this time, it was really hard for him to find employment. The constant rejection from employers started to get to him and he resorted to drinking. Things started to get super tense from then forth. Her father was falling behind on rent, and all the money that he spent on beer didn't help with their finances at all. He would get mad at things often but the anger would increase when he was drunk. The only thing that was keeping her from completely falling apart was her mother, Mai. She would do all of the house labor, cooking, and cleaning. She would even try to console her husband by letting him know that everything was going to be all right and to not worry about it. But one day everything went bad.
The bills started to pile up and it was starting to really make her worry. So when one of the nights her husband was drinking she tried to console him again and tell him that it was going to be all right like usual. However, she added that he could take a break from the job search to relax and that she would try to find a job herself. This didn't rub him the right way at all. He proceeded to get in her face and yell things like "You don't think I'm manly enough to take care of this family?" and "How would it look if my wife was working but I wasn't?" He got so heated that he slapped her and then the house got silent. The mother was in a state of shock, she never thought that it would come to this point. She just started to cry and kept her mouth shut while he continued to yell, scream, and hit her. In the morning, he felt bad and apologized to her. He told her it wouldn't happen again, and that was all her mother needed for her to forgive him. But things he said were always a lie but it turned into a cycle. Yell, Hit, apologize over and over again. He even started to do this same thing to Akira as well, her mother would try to shift it back onto her but it wouldn't work. This went on for three straight years, it almost felt normal to them. But for Akira's mother not to be crying and sitting with a blank face, she knew something was wrong.
Akira dropped her bag and ran over to her mother and father trying to shift the anger onto herself, but that didn't and her father ended up slapping Akira. Her mother then said, "Akira, leave now." in a cold empty voice like she was broken. Akira was so frightened at that moment that she left with no hesitation. Before she closed the door she saw her mother grab an empty glass bottle and smash it on the table. Akira had a feeling about what was going to happen but she knew not to stop it so slept at the park until she had to work.
~Present Time~
Mochi
Akira tells Mochi about everything that happens last night.
"I don't know what I'm going to do, they were the only family I had. I have no one in my life to depend on anymore. Why me?" Akria says with more tears falling down her face. While Mochi was listening to her talk she could see black smoke starting to come out of Akira's heart. Mochi's phone started beeping like crazy as if it was an emergency. Mochi grabbed her phone and the screen said: "!LDE incoming!" Mochi didn't know what was going on or what to do next.
- Location: Seeker Hub in the Void -
Tohi and Tamaki are sitting and talking about something random when Tamaki's phone starts buzzing. He grabs it and checks that it says the same message on his phone that Mochi had.
"What's going on? Is it about my Momo- I mean Mochi?" Tohi said correcting himself.
"Yes, and don't give her a pet name you weirdo. There seems to be an LDE starting to form near her so I'm going to check on her now." Tamaki said as he stands up.
"I will call her whatever I want. Also, I will be coming with you, I don't want her to even have to lift a finger. If she sees how strong I am she might fall for me." Tohi said kinda cockily as he brushes his hands through his hair.
"No." Tamaki said bluntly as he teleports to where Mochi is.
"He is quite rude. He also acts as if I can just track where she is." Tohi said as he sapped his finger and teleports to the same location.
- Location: Shopping Mart -
Tamaki appears and Tohi shows up moments after. They spot where Mochi and sprint over to her.
"What's going on here? There are high levels of despair coming from her, she's turning into an LDE." Tamaki says as he glances over Akira seeing the black smoke coming out of her heart. Mochi looks behind her to see the boys standing there.
"Please help her, she's my best friend." Mochi says with tears starting to form in her eyes again.
"Don't cry Momo, let me handle this!" Tohi says as he draws a symbol in the air with his blue magic causing a blue hand to appear over Akira's heart.