“Um, y-you’re here for what?” Aria asked Justice as she stared at the demon-girl standing just outside her house.

“For the part-time farmhand job,” Justice replied. “You know, the one you mentioned earlier.”

“Yeah,” The Dazzling said as she ever-so-slightly tightened her hold on Princess Thunder Guts. “That’s what I thought you – wah!”

Before Aria could fully finish her sentence, she found herself being abruptly pulled backwards against her will by someone. She didn’t know which of the other three girls had done this at first, but when Kiwi stepped in between her and Justice a second later she figured that the elder of the two PostCrush girls was the responsible party.

“What do you want?!” The former popstar asked Justice, sounding downright hostile towards her.

“Uh, to apply for the farmhand job,” Justice answered bewilderedly, as well as in a manner that suggested she’d been unperturbed by Kiwi’s enmity. “Am I mumbling or something right now? ‘Cause I’ve said that like…two or three times now and it doesn’t seem to be registering with you guys.”

“Hold on,” Su-Z chimed in as she joined her best friend and housemate at the front door. “How do you two know Justice?”

“We met her at Chaus once,” Aria answered. “How do you know her?”

“From when Sonata and I -” Su-Z started to answer before Sonata stepped in front of her.

“She doesn’t know her,” The youngest Dazzling very hurriedly and very anxiously said. “Neither of us have ever seen this girl before in our lives.”

Su-Z opened her mouth to rebut Sonata’s claim that neither of them had met Justice before, but just as she was about to utter her first word of contradiction she remembered the promise that she’d made to the Dazzling after their adventure with the demon-girl; she would never tell Aria, Adagio, or Kiwi anything about that adventure.

“Um, y-yeah, Sonata’s right,” The former popstar said tentatively. “I’ve never met this girl before.”

At first, it appeared that Aria had bought Su-Z and Sonata’s claims that they hadn’t previously met the girl at their front door until just now, as evidenced by the furrowed brow that quickly crossed her face. However, this apparently successful deception didn’t last long, as soon the middle Dazzling’s furrowed brow disappeared and was replaced by a look of immense austerity.

“I heard you say Justice’s name when I opened the door,” The middle Dazzling very sternly and matter-of-factly told the PostCrush girl before turning her attention over towards her sister. “Both of you.”

“U-Uh, well, t-that’s because, um…” Sonata stammered as she struggled to form a complete thought.

Picking up on how painfully clear it was that her friend was struggling to come up with a suitable response to Aria’s astute espial, Su-Z took a small step forward to place herself in front of Sonata to try and gain some more control over the conversation at hand.

“Well, what’s the story with how you and Kiwi met her at Chaus, huh?” The PostCrush girl asked the middle Dazzling tempestuously. “Seems like she’s more than just an acquaintance to you.”

Despite knowing full-well what it was that Su-Z was trying to do, Aria found herself caught off-guard by the girl’s words. She desperately began to try and think of a response to them that didn’t involve revealing that she and Justice worked for Lucy, but much like her younger sister she too found herself unable to come up with a fully formed answer.

“Um, s-she and I…” The Dazzling uttered as she continued to ponder her response.

“Hey, uh, girls?” Justice chimed in. “Not to interrupt whatever’s going on right now, but do you think I can maybe come inside? It’s kinda cold out here.”

Before actually being told by anyone that she could enter, Justice stepped over the threshold with her right foot and promptly followed by taking another step over it with her left foot. And as soon as the demon-girl did this Kiwi once more took hold of Aria and pulled the Dazzling away from her, jostling the pig-tailed girl so much that she nearly ended up dropping Princess Thunder Guts.

“Don’t come any closer!” The elder PostCrush girl shouted at Justice, causing the former High Prosecutor to instinctively raise her hands up in a forestalling manner and hastily step back outside.

“The fuck, Kiwi?!” Aria hollered at the girl as she forcibly removed herself from her hold. “Will you stop moving me around like a piece of furniture?!”

“I’m sorry, Aria,” Kiwi genuinely apologized before turning her attention back to Justice. “But I’m not going to let this girl poison you again!”

“What?!” Sonata and Su-Z both shouted in unison.

“Again?” Justice replied. “When did I poison her befor – oh, yeah, during that whole thing with Lucrezia. No, you’re right, I totally did poison Aria once before.”

Both Sonata and Su-Z found themselves speechless upon hearing Justice’s confession that she had, at some point, poisoned Aria. Not simply by the confession itself though, but also by the plethora of questions that each of them had regarding the details of when and how Justice had managed to envenom the girl.

“She isn’t going to poison me again!” Aria indignantly told Kiwi. “And even if she was, I don’t need your protection!”

“Excuse me?!” The former popstar replied incredulously.

“I said I don’t need your protection!” The Dazzling reiterated, though even more indignantly than the first time. “And for that matter, why the hell are you even trying to protect me?! For the last few weeks you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder at every turn but now you’re suddenly all hyper-concerned about my well-being?! What’s your deal?!”

As though Aria’s words were bolts of lightning, Kiwi’s incredulous expression quickly shattered upon hearing them and was immediately replaced by an expression of great confusion and disorientation.

“W-Well, I-I just…I-I mean, you…” The elder PostCrush girl stuttered as she backed a couple of small but noticeable steps away from Aria.

As Kiwi slowly and discreetly tried to distance herself from Aria, the sound of subtle whimpering began to emanate from the petite pooch within the irate Dazzling’s arms. Neither Kiwi nor Aria seemed to notice this though, as neither of them so much as even looked at the now distressed Princess Thunder Guts while she let out her soft cries of distress. However, Su-Z picked up on her pet’s disquietude almost immediately and promptly went about trying to placid her pained poise.

“Aw, come here, little girl,” The pup’s owner said as she took the small dog from Aria’s arms. “It’s okay, it’s all right.”

“Stop yelling at Kiwi, Aria!” Sonata chimed in as she placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder and forcibly spun her around.

“Cram it, Sonata!” Aria shouted at her younger sibling as she aggressively swatted her hand from her shoulder. “Unless you’re finally ready to tell me how it is you know Justice!”

“Oh, yeah?!” Sonata replied rather haughtily. “Well why don’t you tell me how it is you met her at Chaus, hmm?!”

Unsurprisingly, Sonata’s cavalier response only added fuel to Aria’s already heated mood. But rather than offer any actual retort to her sister’s request the elder Dazzling simply clinched her teeth together and shot her the sternest and most pissed off expression she could muster up. Sonata, in response, did likewise and shot an equally irate expression right back at Aria, placing the two girls in a silent stalemate that neither seemed willing to backdown from any time soon.

“Um, c-can I please c-come inside?” Justice chimed in from the doorway as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m r-really starting to feel c-cold just standing out h-here.”

Unfortunately for the demon-girl, her plea fell only on deaf ears as Aria and Sonata continued to stare one another down whilst Kiwi and Su-Z watched them in an almost hypnotic manner.

After a few extremely uncomfortable seconds of silence passed, the two tempestuous Dazzlings began to give off low-level gnarling noises at one another in what could only be described as an animalistic attempt to further try and get the other girl to yield. Though hardly intimidating to either party, these noises appeared to take a toll on Princess Thunder Guts, who upon hearing them let out a few more soft, whimpers as she tried to retreat to what she assumed would be a safe place; the inframammary fold of Su-Z’s breasts.

“It’s okay, Princess,” Su-Z delicately told her pet as she continued to try and seek refuge beneath her bosoms.

“U-Um…” Kiwi uttered as she summoned what courage she could and tried to place herself between the bickering Dazzlings. “M-Maybe we should all just calm down now, don’t you think? B-Before anyone does something they’ll regret later?”

“Shut up, Kiwi!” Both Aria and Sonata said in unison as they diverted their fierce stares away from one another and directed them towards the PostCrush girl.

As soon as the two Dazzlings’ vociferous retort and directed their sharp, piercing eyes at her, Kiwi felt all sense of desire for peace and calm within her instantly evaporate and become transformed into a boiling steam of ire and fury that she couldn’t contain.

“Well fine then!” The former popstar hollered at her housemates. “Just keep getting madder and madder at each other until you tear one another apart! See if I care!”

Unsurprisingly, Kiwi’s boisterously harsh words only fanned the already intense flames of animosity within the room, and within no time the PostCrush girl, Aria, and Sonata all found themselves in a three-way shouting match. One that appeared to grow louder and louder with each passing moment that it continued.

“Come on, girls! We don’t need to fight like this!” Su-Z hollered in a pleading and somewhat panicked manner as Princess Thunder Guts began to writhe around within her grasp. “We can work all this out without yelling and screaming at each other!”

The younger PostCrush girl’s desperate appeal for cooler heads to prevail immediately proved futile, as not one of the three other girls in the room so much as lowered their volume.

“Stop fighting, girls!” Su-Z once again pleaded, not knowing what else she could do to try and quell the skirmishing without getting directly involved herself. “Please, just stop -”

Much to the former popstar’s surprise, she ended up cutting herself off mid-sentence when Princess Thunder Guts’ writhing became so wild and intense that she found herself now struggling to simply maintain possession of the petite pooch.

Naturally, Su-Z’s first instinct to try and calm her pet down was to offer her a series of gentle, reassuring words. But before the PostCrush girl could get even a single one of those words out Princess Thunder Guts managed to break free of her hold and use her owner’s abdomen as a launching point to propel herself down to the floor, where she landed in a manner that was hardly elegant but effective enough at allowing her to alight on all four paws.

“Princess!” Su-Z shouted just as her pet touched down on the hardwood surface, fearful that she might have just hurt herself.

The former popstar’s worries about Princess Thunder Guts’ physical well-being were soon laid to rest when the small dog began to run in a completely normal fashion towards the front door – albeit whilst still whimpering. However, this sense of relief was short lived when she came to fully realize that her pet was running towards the front door, which was still open.

“Come back, Princess!” The girl shouted as she began to pursue the petite pooch.

In a rare display of disobedience, Princess Thunder Guts did not return to her owner as instructed. Instead, she continued to frantically scamper towards the front door in a desperate attempt to distance herself from the vehemently heated argument within the house. Though strangely enough, as the small dog made her escape she chose to run right through the cluster of shouting girls that she was attempting to get away from.

“Princess, wait!” Su-Z hollered as she circled around her arguing housemates and continued to pursue her pet.

Once again, Princess Thunder Guts ignored her owner’s command.

Within no time the small dog reached the front door and promptly proceeded to run almost straight through the open exit, having only to divert her trajectory ever-so-slightly in order to avoid running into Justice. Soon after, Su-Z arrived at the front door as well. But unlike Princess Thunder Guts, the PostCrush girl failed to properly notice Justice standing in her way – likely due to the fact that she was looking downward too much – and ran into the demon-girl with a resounding thud.

“Oof!” The former popstar uttered as she fell to the ground.

Amazingly, the collision with Justice hadn’t produced Su-Z any harm outside of causing her to fall down and become temporarily disordered. But even more amazingly, the collision hadn’t seemed to have had any effect on the demon-girl whatsoever. The moment the PostCrush girl regained her composure and got up off the floor she noticed that Justice was still standing just as she had been before she’d been run into. In fact, the demon-girl was standing in an almost eerily petrified manner, giving off only a few small shivering motions to indicate that she wasn’t an inanimate object.

“Justice?” Su-Z concernedly said to the girl in front of her.

“C-C-C-C-Cold,” Justice simply stuttered back as her teeth clacked together rapidly and her whole body continued to tremble.

“Oh my gosh!” The PostCrush girl said alarmedly as she quickly grabbed the demon-girl and brought her inside. “We need to get you warmed up right away!”

“T-T-T-Thank you,” Justice gratefully replied as she entered the Dazzling household, already sounding a tad less chilled.

As Su-Z steadily escorted Justice into the living room the argument amongst Kiwi, Aria, and Sonata continued to roar on in the background. Though by this point, all the racket from the three-way altercation was nothing more than white noise to the PostCrush girl. Partially because she’d gotten used to it already, but also partially because she felt that she had no choice but to disregard it in order to attend to the enfeebled demon-girl who desperately needed help.

Soon enough, Su-Z managed to successfully guide Justice into the living room and get the demon-girl comfortably situated within the arm chair located closest to the fireplace.

“Okay, just sit here and I’ll get the fireplace going,” The PostCrush girl told her companion.

Unable to reply verbally due to her clattering teeth, Justice simply gave the former popstar a thumbs-up in response.

Within a flash, Su-Z dashed over to the nearby fireplace and kneeled down to turn it on. But just as she stared at the valve to turn on the gas she realized that she had no idea how to properly start a fire within the small hearth.

“Um…uh,” The PostCrush girl uttered to herself as she tried to remember what the Dazzlings had told her and Kiwi about using the fireplace right after they’d moved into the house.

Unfortunately for Su-Z – as well as Justice – the former popstar found herself unable to recall the proper steps for getting a fire going within the fireplace, which meant that she had two undesirable options now before her: leave the fireplace unlit or attempt to ask her housemates for help. The PostCrush girl knew that going with the latter option would be extremely unpleasant and potentially futile, but she also knew that, for Justice’s sake, the first option wasn’t really an option at all.

And so, after taking a brief, deep breath, Su-Z stood up and turned to face her still arguing housemates.

“Um, girls?” The former popstar uttered rather meekly towards the quarrelling group.

Unsurprisingly, the PostCrush girl’s quiet and timid words failed to gain her the attention of either Kiwi, Aria, or Sonata.

“Girls!” She tried again, this time with a bit more confidence and volume in her voice.

Again though, the girl’s cry went unheeded.

“Ugh!” Su-Z then uttered.

Realizing that yelling alone wasn’t going to yield any results, the former popstar came to the conclusion that she needed to take far more dramatic action. And so, within one smooth motion Su-Z turned around, grabbed a decorative glass figurine of a cat off of the fireplaces mantel, turned back around, and threw the glass cat onto the floor as hard as she could.

Upon impact with the ground, the small feline figurine shattered into numerous pieces. And while the breaking of it didn’t exactly produce an especially loud noise it did succeed in at least registering with the three arguing girls, as each of them ceased their shouting and turned towards Su-Z once the smashing sound rang out.

“Uh, you okay, Su-Z?” Aria asked the PostCrush girl with a mixture of scrutiny and bewilderment.

“I am, but Justice isn’t,” Su-Z firmly replied right before pointing over towards the demon-girl. “Because in case you three hadn’t noticed she’s sitting over here trying to fight off hypothermia or something.”

Aria, Sonata, and Kiwi all simultaneously turned their attention over to where Su-Z was pointing and, upon seeing the still shivering Justice sitting in the arm chair, each immediately dawned an expression of consternation.

“She needs to get warm and I don’t know how to work the fireplace,” The PostCrush girl continued. “So Aria, get a fire going. Sonata, get her some blankets from the linen closet. And, Kiwi, make her a cup of hot cocoa.”

Initially, the two Dazzlings and elder PostCrush girl all simply exchanged puzzled looks with one another, as if silently asking the other two girls if they should do what Su-Z had so very sharply ordered them to do. However, this trading of perplexed countenances quickly became short-lived, as after only a few seconds of the silent colloquy the sound of yet another glass figurine shattering rang out throughout the room and caught their attention.

“Now!” Su-Z barked at the girls, eliminating any and all doubts within them as to what they should do.

As instructed, Sonata rushed over to the linen closet to grab some blankets while Kiwi hurried into the kitchen to prepare some hot cocoa. Aria likewise did as she’d been directed and made her way over towards the fireplace, though not at quite the same quick pace as the other two girls. Despite the middle Dazzling’s desire to help Justice, she didn’t want to reach the fireplace too quickly and appear as though Su-Z’s heated order had rattled her – even though it had.

“Good,” Su-Z more levelheadedly yet still firmly said just before she started to head for the front door. “Now while you’re all doing that I’m going to go look for Princess Thunder Guts.”

“What happened to the mutt?” Aria inquired as the PostCrush girl walked past her.

“She ran off,” Su-Z replied rather peevishly as she stopped a mere three feet away from the Dazzling. “Because in case you hadn’t noticed her either she got upset over all of your stupid fighting.”

The pig-tailed Dazzling couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt upon hearing Su-Z’s words, which soon enough manifested itself in the form of her inability to continue looking directly at the PostCrush girl. Within seconds, Aria turned her head away in shame as the full weight of her guilt over frightening her fantasy sports partner became glaringly apparent.

“S-Sorry,” She softly apologized to Su-Z, trying hard to sound genuinely sincere instead of her usual tsundere self.

Su-Z said nothing in response, though the fact that she ceased looking at Aria quite so testily easily indicated that she’d acknowledged her housemate’s apology.

Within one swift motion, the PostCrush girl turned back around and resumed her hasty march over towards the front door. And as soon as she reached her destination she ardently crossed the entryway’s threshold and reached out a hand to close the door behind her.

“Princess!” She called out just before the door shut.

Once Su-Z was gone, Aria quickly snapped herself out of her guilt-ridden state and went back to making her way over to the fireplace. Though as she walked past Justice, who was still shivering in her seat, her guilt reappeared almost instantaneously.

As much as the Dazzling wanted to apologize to the frigid demon-girl as well she found herself unable to, mostly due to the fact that she couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to become so frustrated with Sonata and Kiwi that she’d failed to notice her friend becoming so exponentially distressed. In truth, though, this sort of inattentiveness towards others wasn’t exactly new behavior for her. Prior to the Battle of the Bands, she’d rarely ever given much consideration to the well-being of anyone other than herself, either out of conscious indifference or simple subconscious apathy. But that was the old Aria - the Aria she no longer wished to be - and the thought that she might be inadvertently turning back into that incredibly callous person made her feel like she had a lump in her throat.

By the time Aria reached the fireplace her feelings of speechlessness had passed, though by that point she was more concerned with getting a fire for Justice going rather than offering the demon-girl an apology. Which, in all honesty, was probably just as well since Sonata came rushing up almost right behind her carrying a couple of blankets.

“Here you go,” The younger of the two Dazzlings said as she handed Justice the fleece covers.

“T-T-Thanks,” The demon-girl replied as she took the blankets and promptly wrapped them around herself as tightly as she could.

As Justice enveloped as much of her body as possible within the warm confines of the coverlets, Aria grabbed the key to the fireplace’s gas valve from atop the mantel and placed it within the spigot. But before the Dazzling was able to turn on the gas she needed to double-check to make sure that the damper was open, so she withdrew her phone from her pocket and stuck it into the hearth. Previously, she’d always checked the damper by simply sticking her head into the fireplace and looking at it directly, but the last time she’d done this she’d gotten a large amount of soot in her hair that ultimately ended up taking three showers to get out completely. So now, instead of placing her head inside the dirty inglenook her standard practice for checking the damper was to just take a picture of it with her phone and then look at said picture.

Within a matter of moments Aria’s phone gave off a quick flash as it captured the girl’s desired photo, and almost immediately after it did the Dazzling withdrew the device from the fireplace to examine her newly created image. Initially, the picture appeared to show that the damper was open, but upon more than just a cursory look she discovered that the damper was only about half-open.

“Ugh,” The pig-tailed girl uttered as she reached inside the firebox for the chain that would fully open the damper.

As Aria reluctantly reached around inside the hearth for the little lavaliere, Kiwi, with a cup of hot cocoa in-hand, swiftly made her way across the room and over towards her, Sonata, and Justice.

“Here,” The PostCrush girl said once she reached the group and handed Justice the warm beverage.

“T-Thanks,” The demon-girl lauded as she reached her arms out from under the blankets and grabbed the cup from Kiwi with her left hand.

Not surprisingly, as soon as Justice had her hot cocoa she promptly took a sip of it. Though, much to the surprise of both Sonata and Kiwi, the sip that the demon-girl took was not a small one but rather a large one. In fact, it was such a large sip that, by all accounts, she’d managed to finish off the entire drink with it.

“Ahhh,” Justice sighed with relief once she lowered the now empty cup from her mouth. “That hit the spot.”

Needless to say, Sonata and Kiwi were astonished and confounded by Justice’s ability to down the entire cup of hot cocoa in one massive quaff. Though for Kiwi, the astonishment and confoundment she felt went deeper than just the demon-girl’s capacity to immensely open her gullet. For her, she also wondered vastly how it was Justice hadn’t burned either her mouth or throat after consuming such a hot beverage so rapidly. However, despite these burning curiosities arising within the PostCrush girl there was one query she’d had for a while now that she desperately wanted to try and get answered first.

“How did Justice get hypothermia from just standing outside?” She whispered to Sonata. “I mean I know today was chillier than normal for this time of year, but I wouldn’t have thought it was cold enough for someone to get that cold.”

“Beats me,” Sonata whispered back. “I guess demons are just really sensitive to cold or something.”

“There you are,” Aria muttered to herself, though not loudly enough for either Sonata or Kiwi to hear, as she at last located the damper’s chain and pulled down on it.

Without even realizing it, Kiwi raised her right eyebrow in confusion as soon as she heard Sonata’s assertion. Had she heard the Dazzling correctly? Had she really just made a statement implying that Justice was a real demon and not just some girl wearing cosplay?

“Uh, Sonata? Justice isn’t actually a demon,” She softly said back.

“What do you mean? Of course she’s a demon,” The youngest Dazzling retorted. “Just look at her horns and tail.”

“Come on, come on,” Aria softly grumbled as she aggressively tried to get the long neck lighter now in her hand to produce a flame just beneath the logs near the fireplace’s burner.

Once again without even realizing it, Kiwi gave a derisive facial action upon hearing Sonata’s words; this time an eye-roll. How in the world could Sonata believe that Justice was an actual demon simply because of her cosplay? Admittedly, the glasses-clad girl’s horns and tail were both incredibly detailed and realistic, but for the Dazzling to conclude that these things meant that she was a genuine, malignant-spirit-from-Hell demon was, in her view, nothing short of absurd.

“Sonata,” The PostCrush girl replied - though now at a volume that was loud enough for all to hear. “Her horns and tail aren’t real.”

Just then, Kiwi reached out her hand and quickly took hold of one of Justice’s horns.

“See?” She then said just before she yanked the appendage. “These are just -”

“Ow,” Justice softly uttered as her head was jerked slightly upward along with her horn.

“W-Wha -” Kiwi stammered as she swiftly let go of Justice’s horn.

“Finally,” Aria said as she, at long last, got a flame going and used the valve key to start the flow of gas.

“T-Those horns are r-real,” The PostCrush girl said in utter stupefaction as she took a few steps back away from Justice – stopping only after she bumped into the coffee table.

“Kiwi? You okay?” Sonata concernedly asked her housemate as she slowly approached the girl.

“J-Justice,” The former popstar uttered as she continued to struggle with the sudden realization that had just struck her. “S-She’s really a…a…”

Before Kiwi could finish her thought the sound a fire suddenly and mightily roaring to life echoed throughout the room, catching the attention of all within it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Aria apologized as she turned the knob on the burner controls down a bit so that the fire didn’t burn quite so intensely.

“Wait a minute,” Sonata said as she reached the distressed PostCrush girl. “You really didn’t know that Justice is a demon?”

Finding herself unable to speak in that moment, Kiwi simply shook her head.

“But Aria said you two met her at Chaus,” Sonata continued. “How come you didn’t find that out then?”

As the young Dazzling’s words steadily sank in, Kiwi found herself wondering the exact same thing: how is it that she hadn’t learned about Justice being a real-life demon after meeting her at Chaus? True, the two of them had only been in the same room together for a short amount of time, but it still seemed extremely odd that she hadn’t somehow been made aware of Justice’s demonic-essentia during that time. And then there was Aria. How had she not figured out that Justice was a demon? The two of them had spent a good few hours together doing a pick-up for Lucy Beel, so how the heck was it that in that time Aria hadn’t managed to deduce Justice’s true nature?

Unless, the PostCrush girl began to think, Aria actually had.

Quickly turning her attention over to the middle Dazzling, Kiwi noted that Aria was picking herself back up after finally finishing up with the fireplace, and looking completely unfazed by any of what was going on only a few feet away from her. Despite having been preoccupied for the last few minutes with getting a fire going it was fairly safe to assume that the pig-tailed girl had been close enough to Sonata, Justice, and herself to have heard what was going on amongst the three of them, and thus she would’ve heard about Justice being a flesh-and-blood demon. And if that were indeed the case, then it stood to reason that the only explanation for her being unperturbed by this revelation was because, for her, it wasn’t a revelation at all.

As Aria finished getting off the floor and back onto her feet, she arched her back slightly and gave it a little stretch to help alleviate some discomfort she now felt after being on her knees and bent over for so long. After which she turned around to face the other girls in the room, and immediately became confused when she noticed Kiwi looking at her with an aghast expression on her face.

“What?” The Dazzling asked her housemate.

“Did you know that Justice is a demon?!” The former popstar replied, sounding and looking almost downright accusatorial.

“Justice?” Aria started to answer. “Yeah, of course I knew -”

The Dazzling cut herself off midsentence when she remembered that when she’d told Kiwi all about the pick-up that she and Justice had done together she hadn’t exactly told her all about it. Namely, she hadn’t told her the truth about who – or rather what – Justice really was.

“You knew?!” Kiwi exclaimed back, now sounding and looking completely accusatorial. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?!”

Feeling abashed by the PostCrush girl’s renewed hostility Sonata discreetly backed away from her and positioned herself just to the side of where Justice was sitting, hoping that by doing so she would avoid being drawn into another three-way argument like before.

“I feel like we’re about to be right back where we were a few minutes ago,” The young Dazzling glumly confessed to the demon-girl.

“Sure seems like it,” Justice concurred.

As Aria stared unadroitly at the mangled face of the now livid Kiwi she began to surmise that she’d made a colossal mistake by omitting Justice’s demonic-ipseity from her tale of her pick-up with the girl, and wondered just how costly that mistake was about to prove to be for hers and Kiwi’s already damaged friendship.

Author's Note

Finally managed to find another job and get back to working on this story. Though unfortunately I'm still having some difficulty finding time to write for it regularly due to all the training and traveling that's been required for this new job thus far.

So much training and traveling

Anyways, Part 3 coming soon!