Picking Up The Pieces

--Alexia's Perspective--

"What? What do you see in her? She doesn't look injured," I asked Hiyochi. She previously said something that made me worried, as soon as she saw Dani.

"There's black shrouding her arm... I can't see through it at all," Hiyochi said. I was standing behind her, so I couldn't see it at first. When I adjusted my view, she was right. The black on her arm I saw before was moving up her arm, it was now at the end of her bicep, almost touching her shoulder.

Hiyochi ripped the clothing Dani was wearing on a whim, only to reveal the black shroud over her body had taken itself all the way down to her hip on her left side. The shoulder was left as Dani's normal body, but the rest was so black it looked like somebody turned the light off to her pale skin.

"What the hell? Is that dangerous? How do we fix it?" I asked. I tried to use my ability to see if I could shrink it, but I felt resistance as if I would be shrinking her body instead.

Out of pure curiosity, Hiyochi pushed Dani's skirt out of the way to see that she had that black roaming near her left thigh as well.

"I can see things you can't... a history of all injuries in an individual, and what I'm seeing right now is an extremely bright body, lit up with injuries... until my eyes scathe that darkness in her skin. It's like my eye refuses to see what's there," Hiyochi explained to me. I believed her, as that's not unbelievable with all I've seen.

Hiyochi picked up a scalpel after a small period of silence and slashed Dani's thigh open with a large wound. I was alarmed by the fact, but after Hiyochi stuck two fingers in and pulled something out, it started to clear up.

It was a black thing, like a huge worm in her body roaming around. Hiyochi started to pull it out, letting go of the ending like it was a rope, and continuing to pull.

"This is why I couldn't see... help me pull this out of her!" Hiyochi yelled out to me. I nodded, slowly grabbing onto the bloody, black worm coming out of Dani's skin.

"What the hell is this? What is this thing capable of?" I asked Hiyochi, but she had no idea, she just kept ripping out.

Slowly but surely, the worm took away the black coloring in Dani's skin and lay limp on the ground as Hiyochi began to observe it.

"Interesting... it's the result of strands of some sort. It doesn't look normal, but it's harmless for the most part unless supplied with strands of some kind. Look, here it has this receiving thing that most neurons have, except it turns grey in color when strands leave it. I've read about this in Grandma's book before... I'm just surprised Dani had something this rare," Hiyochi said. She picked up the black worm like it was nothing and wrapped it around her arm to stare at it more.

"Wait a minute..." Hiyochi said. She ruffled the worm a little bit and then grabbed it by two edges. She shook it, like letting a blanket float in the air, and surely enough, the worm rapidly unfolded into a wide sheet made from the same black material. It had patterns of gray in it and still had material flowing around in it.

"Is this a bedsheet or something?" I asked Hiyochi. I walked around to the side she was on and saw something... deranged...

There was a message on it, but it was written as a System message, one that occasionally appears in my left eye.

[System Corruption] was the first line, and I continued down further, reading the message.

[To Unleash The Asterio]

[Find The Various Keys]

[Incarnation of Wrath] [Singularity Incarnation] [Incarnation of Aether]

[White, Red, Purple, Gold, Black, Iridescent]

[Generation Three Arkian]

[Goddess of Wrath]

[Do Not Let Them Get Close]

[Sky Asterio Is Not Dead]

The message ended there, and I thought Hiyochi and I finished it at the same time since she looked at me.

"So... what do you think the point of this black blanket is? Also, why was it in Dani-nee?" Hiyochi asked me. I shook my head, reading the message out loud to her.

"It says a ton of things, a lot of which I know about, and some I don't. It talks about System Corruption, and to unleash 'The Asterio' you must find some keys. It then says three Incarnations, one of which I've heard about, and then it looks like the start of strand colors... no, could it be there are black strands? Are these the black strands it talked about?" I lost myself in thought, and Hiyochi snapped her fingers in my face before telling me to continue.

"Right, right, sorry. Then, it talks about a Generation Three Arkian and the Goddess of Wrath... it says not to let them get close, and that Sky Asterio isn't dead? What the hell does that mean...?" I asked myself.

"Hmph, well, the Goddess of Wrath is Dani-nee, right? I think... and the Generation Three Arkian is Lia. She told me that when I was training her. But... black strands? Doesn't seem far-fetched. I mean, we've seen all sorts of crazy things," Hiyochi admitted, putting the black strand blanket on a chair by Dani.

She shot up as soon as it hit the chair and looked around nervously. Her arm was still weird looking, with a tattoo on it, but it was now lacking the black coloring.

"What happened?! Is the fight over?! Where's Sky?!" She asked nervously.

"Calm down Dani-nee, we just removed this thing from your body. It was corrupting your entire body... also, you should probably put on another shirt... sorry," Hiyochi said. She playfully tapped her own head while sticking her tongue out to symbolize the ditzy nature she always had. I was surprised to see her doing so well.

I was at a confusing point... staring at the blanket while wanting to tell Dani that we should head over to Sky... but I'm not going to just ignore what it said. The Goddess of Wrath, who Dani could become, shouldn't mix or get near Sky... but, what if that's just in general? What if the damage has already been done?