Yui's feet slipped and slid as she walked along a muddy animal trail, leaning against Kirche for support while Antoine cleared away the low hanging branches from their path. The Count trailed along behind them, holding Euphrasieclose to himself and murmuring nervously that everything would be alright. Yui could tell that he was lying.

To either side of their path, the low, sleek shapes of Dagger Dogs prowled and Vespid Knights flitted through the air, keeping watch over their prisoners. They were being taken someplace, though the Knights refused to tell them where. Yui could only hypothesise from overheard snatches of conversation that their destination was the Yggdrasil Shoot.

After the Count had killed the treacherous Fernand and Sayuri had detained them, the strange turtle and the Pixies had been taken from the still grieving Count and the two Tristanians plus Yui had been driven to the edge of the Garden by a prodding flock of agitated Knights.

There, Yui had been reunited with Antoine and Euphrasie. As Sayuri had promised, the children had not been harmed, though Antoine's grazed shoulder had not been treated beyond the crude bandage constructed by Euphrasie. On seeing Euphrasie, the Count had been briefly shaken from his stupor, stepping forward to embrace the girl and mumbling a flurry of apologies and chastisements. Seeing them side by side, Yui couldn't help but compare their features.

Thankfully, the children did not recognize Yui in her human form, and the Count had been incapacitated when she had transformed in the fight against Fernand. Though Kirche had seen everything and her eyes pleaded an explanation, the Germanian girl had wisely held her tongue. Yui didn't think it was very wise for her to talk about her true nature in earshot of the Pixies lest she agitate them further, likewise for returning to her Pixie form. The Tristanian's had soon come to their own conclusions, that Yui was simply a child who had been separated from her family and gotten lost in the woods where she had been captured by the Pixies. This fiction was close enough to the truth that Yui had felt no need to correct it.

Euphrasie and Antoine had been very kind to her. Euphrasie had treated her arm, constructing a crude sling to prevent Yui from moving the shoulder and making the injury worse. The girl had then turned to mending the Count's cheek, though as with Yui's arm, without a wand, Euphrasie could do very little. Meanwhile, Antoine had dutifully assured Yui that everything would be alright and that they would surely be found soon. Yui already knew that. Aunt Suguha would definitely be looking for her.

Other than their Guards, a half dozen Vespid Knights mounted atop Willow Wasps, the Pixies paid Yui and the others little mind throughout the rest of the day into the evening. The Garden was in complete chaos and every Elder Sister was needed elsewhere. Shamans had directed the oldest of the Little Sisters to help in putting out the small fires that still burned at the edges of the garden before they could grow and become a danger. Mobs were summoned from the woods, Dagger Dogs and Giant Mole Rats to construct fire breaks and smother the flames. The Knights had scattered outwards, patrolling the Garden's surroundings and sweeping for any signs of more beings.

All through the afternoon, Yui and the others had listened to the distant sounds of hundreds of crying Little Sisters being desperately comforted by the Shamans and Knights. Yui learned from snatches of conversation among their guards that there had been more casualties than the solitary unfortunate Vespid Knight who had been incinerated by Fernand. Several Little Sisters had been asphyxiated, trapped in lingering pockets of carbon dioxide, and at least a dozen Knights and Shamans had been killed as well, caught on the wrong side of the Count's flame shield. By evening, the crying had subsided to be replaced with a low mournful chant composed of hundreds of small voices. For the Pixies, their Garden had been Sacrosanct , but no longer. Even the normally collected Knights were on edge.

It was as the sun had begun to set, and the sky had started to darken that they had finally been confronted by Sayuri. The Vespid Knight had approached in the company of a dozen of her Sisters. Unlike the previous times Yui had seen her, Sayuri looked far from composed. In fact, the leader of the Knights looked ready to fly into a rage.

"You!" Sayuri spat, ignoring Yui entirely as she glared down at Kirche. Despite the immense difference in size, the diminutive Knight still managed to intimidate. "You are one of the beings that came from beyond the village, the fire user?!" Sayuri's eyes grew hateful as she spoke.

Kirche nodded hesitantly, eyes never leaving Sayuri. "What, may I ask, do you want with me?"

"Your magic. It differs from our own and that of the Fae. There were others with you, a blue haired wind and water user, and another, a pink haired being. What is her power?" Sayuri pressed. Yui studied the Knight closely, something must have happened, but what? From little context she could gather, Aunt Suguha and the others must have foiled Sayuri's plan, and the Knight somehow believed that Louise was responsible.

"Her power?" Kirche asked. The reply sounded almost sarcastic but Yui was certain that Kirche was being honest. The Germanian genuinely did not know what Sayuri was talking about.

"None of your tricks!" Sayuri demanded, hand reaching for her sword. "What is that power?! It isn't of any element I know of. It resembles fire, but also darkness magic."

"Louise's power?" Kirche asked again and then began to chuckle. Sayuri and her fellow Knights recoiled faintly at the alien response from the Germanian. "You think Louise is powerful? I hate to break it to you, but Louise is a joke, a Zero, she can't cast straight to save her life."

"Liar!" Sayuri hissed. "Our scouts saw her in battle. Her spells must be powerful dark magic to act as they do."

A battle? Yui wondered, had there been a battle? And if there had, had it been between the Pixies and the Fae, or had the so called 'Lhamthanc' been involved.

"Well then." Kirche replied slowly, giving the Knight a cheeky smirk. "It sounds like you know more than we do. Why don't you fly back out to Louise and give her some pointers. We'd really appreciate it."

Sayuri trembled in midair, her wings twitching and her face growing red. "Answer my question!" Sayuri growled, slowly drawing her sword.

The Germanian gave an indifferent shrug. "But I have answered your question. Threatening me won't make me change my answer. Louise can't cast anything but explosions. They're big, and loud, and they make a mess, but they usually don't do too much damage. Really, they're not much good for anything. And we've never figured out why she can't cast anything else either." Kirche gave a fox like smile. "Don't tell me the Zero of all people is giving you trouble. Didn't you have a big scary snake you were going to sic on the Village." The Fire Mage's eyes widened, "I know! Your little plan fell through, didn't it?"

Sayuri's trembling grew and grew and then, suddenly, the Knight became still. "We're done here." She told her subordinates. Sayuri cast one last glare over her shoulder, eyes briefly meeting with Yui. The former mental care AI looked away, there was nothing in Sayuri's expression, voice, and posture, that didn't speak of utter hatred.

After Sayuri was safely out of earshot, Yui tugged gently at Kirche's arm to get her attention. "Kirche-san. You shouldn't antagonize her like that." Yui warned.

The Germanian gave her an apologetic smile. "I know, but something about her reminds me of Louise, I couldn't help myself." The Germanian grew serious, "Besides, we just learned something useful, right?"

Yui paused for a moment to review the events of the past sixty seconds. Suddenly she understood. "Un." Yui nodded. "Sayuri's plan must have been foiled, which means the others will be looking for us again."

"More than that." Kirche agreed and leaned closer, whispering softly to avoid being overheard by their guards. "Silica was sent to get reinforcements. From the sound of it, I don't think Tabitha and the others would attack the monster without backup, so the reinforcements must have also arrived. They must be scouring the forest by now."

Yui nodded in agreement. It shouldn't be too long until they were found. Depending on the number of searchers and available daylight hours, even a small number of Faeries would be able to sweep the forests around Tarbes in less than a day. The issue would be whether they would know what to look for from the sky, and with night rapidly approaching, the search would only grow more difficult.

Night had fallen and still their promised judgment had not come. The only sign that the Pixies even remembered their Prisoners was the changing of the guards. Yui recognized a few of the Knights in this new detachment, but her attempts to get their attention were ignored or worse, regarded as insults. Some of the Pixies had shifted uncomfortably, giving Yui looks that ranged from conflicted to openly distrustful.

Finally, as the Garden had at last settled in for the night, it had been decided that they try to get some rest. The air that night was not particularly cold, but nor was it warm, and Yui had shivered in discomfort until Kirche had covered them both in her travelling cloak. The Germanian placed her arms around Yui, careful not to touch her injured shoulder. Opposite the two girls, the count had spread his own cloak over Antoine and Euphrasie, holding the children close as he drifted off into a troubled sleep.

Analysis The count needed help. It was very difficult for Yui to diagnose his condition. Despite his apparent openness, the Count was a mess, he seemed barely capable of operating socially, and killing Fernand and only made his condition worse. Hypothesis He displayed symptoms consistent with a slew of disorders, not the least of which was PTSD. The fact that he was functional at all was testament to a tremendous strength of will.

To pass the time, Yui ran through possible treatment regimens. Her former existence as a mental care subroutine within a virtual environment meant that Yui's Training was in psychotherapy. Naturally, she was not able to medicate a player within virtual reality. Though using the Nerve Gear to monitor neural activity under a variety of stimuli did offer insight into chemical and structural abnormalities in a subjects brain. Rather, her purpose had been to place players experiencing excess anxiety at ease and nudge them gently in the direction of seeking real world psychiatric help.

Yui had finally drifted off after some ten hundred seconds spent examining the problem only to be woken before dawn along with the others by the Knights. They had been lead from the Garden, marched along narrow animal trails and through thick brush, heading to the East. The journey had taken another eight thousand, one hundred, and fifteen seconds by Yui's internal timer. In all of that time, they managed to travel barely a mile from their starting point. The Knights had made agitated noises at their slow progress, but without wings, there was little that the humans could do to travel more quickly.

The forest had begun to thin before them, widening until they found themselves before the edge of a cliff. Yui and the others looked up, squinting in the dazzling morning light. The cliff, as it was, was not really a cliff, but the lip of an immense hole, or more accurately, a cavern. Yui estimated that the Cavern was at least forty meters wide, and from her vantage, appeared to be about the same in depth, cutting straight through earth and bedrock. The cavern wall was covered in vines and vibrant flowers clinging to cracks and fissures and growing gradually thinner with depth. But most striking, rising from the cavern, its spherical crest level with the tops of the surrounding trees, was a miniature World Tree .

Yggdrasil Shoot Yui thought. The tree's distinctive crest and corkscrew trunk rendered it unmistakable Conclusion This explained why the Yggdrasil Shoot had not been visible from the air, it was partially hidden, Camouflaged . The Vespid Knight at Yui's side poked her lightly with the tip of her tiny sword and pointed towards a human sized staircase that had been carved into the wall of the cavern, spiraling downward to the broad lip of a circular pool from which rose the trunk of the Yggdrasil Shoot. The water in the pool was incredibly clear, but even so, Yui couldn't see the bottom, only shadows, and brief glimpses of an immense, pale white, coy-like fish, as it swam in lazy circles around the trunk.

Despite their circumstances, Kirche and the children gazed in wonder at the sight, even the Count faintly admiring the flowers and the Yggdrasil Shoot . The symbolism did not escape Yui. Sayuri had probably brought them to this place for a reason, it was meant to Humble them before their judgment.

Waiting before the lip of the pool were hundreds of Pixies, Yui estimated that it had to be the entire population of the Garden, or at least, all of the Little Sisters and half each of the total number of Knights and Shamans. The Little Sisters sat and stood, chattering and gossiping in hushed tones while the Knights stood watch over them. The Shamans were mostly collected together in a single group at the edge of the Pool, their grouping was more organized and they appeared to be holding an informal meeting.

Finally, Yui had spotted Sayuri. Standing atop a platform that had been carved into the trunk of the shoot the Vespid Knight was flanked by the senior Knights and Shamans including Kigiku and Hinagiku. Yui shivered, the Knight leader wore a predatory smile as she watched the beings approach.

"The Fae?" Hinagiku paused, the Shaman balled her fists. It seemed she didn't want to speak, but she had no choice but to continue. "It is said that long after the World Tree sprouted forth from the Sea of Chaos, Yggdrasil-sama's great roots anchoring the flotsam that would eventually become Alfheim, the Pixies were born as her first children to tend to the barren lands and shepherd the small lives that Yggdrasil-sama created to inhabit this realm. The land grew ripe with life and we were rewarded with our Gardens, our safe havens in this difficult world."

"And the Fae?" Sayuri pressed.

Hinagiku looked away as she recited. "In time came the Faerie King and Queen who took refuge among the branches of Yggdrasil-sama. Some of our Sisters, upon seeing the Faeries for the first time, grew to covet the power that they possessed. They chose to turn their backs on Yggdrasil-sama's song, swearing their allegiance to Titania and Oberon, and were reborn as the first Fae."

"And they have fought amongst each other ever since." Sayuri finished. "So would it not be natural to think that a Sister could take the form of a being if she walked down this same path? Answer me Hinagiku!"

"I cannot say." The Shaman confessed after a time. "Perhaps." She admitted.

"Which makes Yui something worse than a Tame Pixie!" Sayuri accused. "To be Tamed is simply to be lost. Tamed Pixies are still our Sisters, they still deserve to be taken in and cared for." The Knight gestured to the frightened little Sisters. "But she has willfully turned her back on her Sisters and decided to work with the beings!"

Sayuri's words elicited angered glares from the Elder Sisters directed at Yui. But she could think of no way to explain herself that would not complicate matters further. In any case, Yui doubted that Celandine, Iris, Lily, or Olive, viewed what Sayuri was doing as kind, or even in their best interest. The more Yui listened the more certain she grew that Sayuri wasn't simply angry, she was Delusional , and looking at the other fearful Elder Sisters, she was dragging them along with her.

"You may think fondly of her Sister." Sayuri said to Hinagiku. "But you know that I am right. Yui is not one of us. She is not a Pixie, and judging by her scent, she hasn't been for a very long time. It was my mistake to think it the scent of beings simply rubbed off on her." Sayuri admitted. "She came here with the Fae, just prior to a full moon. The Fae are in league with the beings. They must have intended to plant her for us to find. We would have thought her a lost Little Sister and brought her back to the Garden. In fact, that is just what we did. And now, because of her, the beings were able to guide that Monster to the Garden."

"You yourself said that they did not know the Monster's intent." Hinagiku warned. "They made a mistake." The Shaman turned her eyes to the humans and Yui froze. Though she was speaking on their behalf, the anger in Hinagiku was plain as day. "The crime is terrible, unspeakable." Hinagiku breathed. "But it is a matter of intent. If this was a mistake, then the danger has already ended." The Shaman turned imploringly to her sisters only to be met with more uncertainty. She was reaching them, but it still wasn't enough.

The Knight shook her head. "I said that they are full of treachery." Sayuri countered. "Hinagiku, how can you doubt this fact? First Yui, attempting to put you at ease. Then the beings come to return a lost Little Sister, only to be followed by none other than the Monster. Even I was nearly deceived. This is proof that they cannot be trusted." The Knight Leader's smile returned as she gently admonished her Sister. "Truly Hinagiku, in matters relating to the safety of the Garden, we must always choose caution. Is that not right, Kigiku?"

Kigiku stiffened at the mention of her name. The Knight didn't meet the eyes of either her Eldest Sister or Hinagiku but nodded reluctantly. "It is true. The beings know the location of the Garden. They cannot be allowed to return to their village on the mere hope that they may be peaceful."

The Shaman looked sadly to her sister, shaking her head slowly. "Then I must still ask the other Shamans, having heard what I have to say, do you still agree with Sayuri-sama?"

Words were exchanged among the Elder Sisters before a spokesman stepped forward, a small Shaman with light green hair and bottle green eyes. "Elder Sister, we must say that we do agree with Sayuri-sama. Even if the burning of the Garden was a mistake, the blame does return to these beings, and the act itself is horrific. At best it makes them a danger to all of us, at worst," the spokesman closed her eyes, "It makes them as bad as the Monster."

"And that is your final answer?" Hinagiku asked.

Looking back at her siblings the spokesman nodded hesitantly. "It is."

Hinagiku sagged slightly, "Then may Yggdrasil-sama deem you correct." Staring down as her feet, the Shaman balled her fists. "But let it be known I protested this rash course of action!"

"Noted." Sayuri said indifferently before spinning back around to face all of the Elder Sisters. "Then Sisters, are we in agreement that these beings before us share in the responsibility for the attacks on the Garden's. Are they to be punished?"

One by one, the Shamans gave their assent, and one by one, the Knights did the same. Yui noted that there were dissenters. Kigiku declined her vote, as did Hinagiku and a handful of the other Shamans. Among the remainder, only a handful could be called eager. Most simply appeared to be frightened.

Sayuri nodded approvingly, her smile returning in full force. "And then I ask for the punishment. As Yggdrasil-sama is not cruel. Kigiku?"

"Yes, Sayuri-sama." The Knight replied.

"What do we do when a dangerous animal threatens us?" Sayuri asked rhetorically.

"A dangerous animal?" Kigiku asked. "We would slay it." She answered cautiously. "For the good of the Garden."

"It is just so!" Sayuri agreed, a note of delight entering her voice. "Now then . . ." Sayuri began to gesture.

"Please!" The Count said. Looking up at Sayuri the man stuttered. "P-please. Euphrasie and . . . and Antoine. They may have picked your blossoms. But they are simply children. The blame for everything else lays with me." The Count pressed his head back against the ground. "You are right about humans, you see, we truly are terrible, treacherous creatures. But not them, not the children, they haven't learned that yet. So please, please . . . Allow me to accept punishment in their stead. Or at least, punish them only for stealing your blossoms, not for the rest, not for the rest!"