Blood on the Cat's Ear

{Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick}

The three woke up back in their beds.

"I need to text them the plan before he can do anything…" Shiro grabbed her phone from her bedside table and started texting Kurono.

"First off, destroy this phone once you reply. Robert keeps using the NPCs to his advantage by manipulating them. If we can stop him from doing that he'll be at a disadvantage… I know that this is terrible and probably the thing we want to do the least but they're just going to get in our way…

We need to kill them. It's likely that Robert has been disposing of bodies that didn't matter, Emilia was killed at the school in the first timeline (We'll split the timelines once we meet up) but Robert killed her at her house to make us fall for false evidence which led to Ren who only had two bodies burning his house down and when one leaves it's post it's probably replaced by the second one… There must be less bodies depending on how important they are to allow them to grow more instead of feeling like NPCs… So if we can eliminate the possibility of him using them we may have a slight advantage… Meet me at the lake, he'll most likely think we're going to head to the school again…" She clicked send and copy and pasted it to Ena.

"She's right." Kurono read the message.

"Meet you there."

He put the phone into his kitchen sink and destroyed it with water.

"I can't believe that I… I-I'm sorry Shiro." Ena read the message knowing she was the main entity that had been manipulated.

"I'll be there soon."

Ena replied and stabbed a kitchen knife through her phone.

Once again the morning was scorching hot, the streets were miraged and the cicadas continued to cry out. Shiro approached the lake and sat down next to the tree. *This place feels more significant to me… But why..? Wish… Purgatory… Soul… Kill… This place must be a purgatory… But what does he mean by the others… Could soul mean mine and Kurono's are actually connected at the moment and that's why we feel each other's pain and die when one dies…? I thought that was my dumbest theory… I still don't know what he means wish and kill… Oh, they're almost here…*

She saw Kurono and Ena walking down the mountain towards her, waving their hands.

"We understand your plan but let's split the timelines first so we know what we're talking about when we refer to them." Kurono sat down next to Shiro, Ena following after.

"Ok… The timeline where that weird creature came out of Emilia is Timeline A… Timeline B is when the blood of that creature was used as poison on Ren… Timeline C Ena was framed by Robert… Timeline D is when we ended up in the prison…"

"W-wasn't there another one?"

"I died early in that one…"

Ena nodded her head.

"We don't have much, but these should do…" Shiro gave a lighter to Ena and a rope to Kurono.

"Ena, I want you to go and burn all the houses down so any NPCs inside die and if they escape there's a chance that whatever this world's programming is is going to stuff up and eliminate them… And if it doesn't, me and Kurono will take care of it…"

"Y-Yep."

"Kurono you're with me… I didn't have anything left for you to use as a weapon but the rope… It seems that something weird is going on with it… When I was throwing it away in annoyance that I couldn't find anything to use as weapons, the end I wasn't holding onto came back into my other hand…"

"That is weird."

"I have a kitchen knife… It was the only thing I could actually use a weapon, everything else seemed to have disappeared… I want you to use the rope to either choke them or pull them towards me so I can kill them…"

"Understood."

"Ok, let's see how Timeline E will pan out…"

Ena ran down to the school as the first target, Kurono and Shiro slowly walked behind so that the entities would run towards them in the middle of the chaos.

"AHH!!" There were screams of terror as buildings started to burst into flames, alarms began to ring throughout the town. The entities started to run towards Kurono and Shiro. Kurono threw the rope towards one, keeping hold of one end, it wrapped around the back of the entity. The end that was out of Kurono's grip came back towards his free hand, he grabbed the rope and pulled the entity towards him, Shiro slashed her knife through the entity's throat.

"That worked better than expected…"

"Let's keep going."

They continued executing the entities running towards them, gradually the bodies piled, Ena looking guilty at every person she burned.

"How did you know they'd all come towards us?"

"If we continue to think of this as a game world as we have been then there has to be a sort of invisible wall… Or they're programmed to run only one way in case of an emergency…"

"Yeah, that makes about as much sense as everything else. Where's Robert? Shouldn't he be trying something to stop us?"

"You're right… I thought he would be preoccupied with something at first but he hasn't shown any signs of appearing…"

The sun had begun to sink beneath the sea of flames that was the town, resulting in a blindingly orange view from the mountain that Shiro and Kuron had retreated to.

"Where's Ena…?"

"I-I'm g-getting `cough` there."

"Oh, thank god you're alive… Do you have any idea where Robert might be…"

"Wait, he d-didn't come for you two?"

"No…" Shiro looked behind her to see Kurono cleaning up the bodies that were spread out on the grassy flower fields.

"What are we going to do about the-"

{Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick}

"Shiro, you heard that right?"

"Fuck… Kurono prepare for a really bad headache…"

{Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick}

The world around them flashed rapidly, Kurono and Shiro's heads in excruciating pain.

{Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick}

"Fuck this hurts."

"Yeah…"

{Tick, Tick, Ti-}

Everything returned to normal.

"Ena can you run and get a paper while me and Kurono recover…?"

"G-Got it." Ena ran down to the ash covered ruins of the town.

"What just happened?"

"I think we went further forward in time…"

"Do you think this is Robert?"

"Most likely… Last time I passed out and looped on New Years Eve…"

"Isn't that your birthday?"

"Yeah… Wait, how was I…"

"How did we?"

"I have a feeling we're forgetting something really important…"

[I just want your

Blood! Blood! Blood love!

I was feeling my

Love! Love! Love less!

I need your

Touch! Touch! Touch now!

I just want your blood]

"Huh? Isn't that Kokoro?"

"Yeah, last time she was playing on new years… Appears she had a concert during the day as well…"

"But how can we here it? The city should be at least 3 hours from here."

"That is strange… Unless it's possible for us to get there in this world…"

"Huh?"

"Think about it, a world like a game world that exists on one plain of being would have to keep its stages close together, there must be a way for us to get there…"

"That could help solve even more of whatever the fucks going on as well."

"If we fail this timeline, let's make our way there…"

"SH-SHIRO!! KURONO!!" Ena came running up the hill.

"It says New Years Day right…?"

"Y-Yes, but we've got a worse issue."

The town that had been lying dormant in the ash came alive with a bright burst of pure red fire, the bodies that had started to decompose around the three began to reanimate back into what they had previously looked like.

"Haha, at least they still look normal." Kurono laughed nervously.

The sky faded to a pure black, the only light being that of the fire covering the town.

"Run…"

"Wait, Wh-what!?" As the three began to run they felt an intense force hold their bodies in position.

"Robert…" Shiro looked angrily at a figure that had started sinking down into the flames closest to the mountain

The crowd of entity's walked painstakingly towards the three frozen in place and surrounded them.

"Shiro, Tail!" Kurono yelled out through the sea of people.

*What does he- Oh I get it…*

Shiro moved the tail she had been given as a result of Kurono entering the purgatory to wrap around and snap the necks of the already dead entities. Eventually the freeze effect wore off and Shiro cut down the entities to get to Kurono and Ena.

"Should we run or…?" Kurono looked towards Robert who was still standing in the flames.

"We don't have much to lose…"

{Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick}

"We're about to loop soon anyway…"

"Ena, stay a distance from us in case he tries any funny business with you."

"O-Ok I-I will. Don't w-worry."

"I think you're the one worrying the most…"