Petite Princess Yucie: 2nd Year
Chapter 10 - Artificial and Importance

Disclaimer: I do not own Petite Princess Yucie.

Sunday morning

Yucie poked her head into the church's main hall. 'Ah, hello, Alyirt-san!' she exclaimed, skipping over.

Alyirt turned around, a calm, content expression on his face. 'Welcome back, child.'

Yucie smiled at him, 'I'll go to the bell tower!' She spun around and ran towards it.

'Very well. But please do be careful… don't run,' Alyirt called after her.

Yucie quickly halted in her steps then hastily reverted to walking. 'A…haha…'

oOo

'Oh…' Yucie gasped as she saw the woman. The person was standing, looking out at the town from the [bell] tower, her hair blowing behind from the rushing wind. This person… is… The anonymous woman turned around. Yucie confirmed her suspicion; it was "Milliet".

'Hello,' she greeted casually.

'…hello,' Yucie replied awkwardly, taken aback by the scene.

'You are… the substitute bell-ringer replacing Yuuryu, right?' she asked.

'Huh?' Yucie wondered. Wasn't "Yuuryu"… the person that was chasing her the other day?

'Ah,' Milliet seemed to have realised something. 'Never mind… I'm Milliet. What's your name again?'

'I'm Yucie!' Yucie replied, smiling good-naturedly.

Milliet smiled gently at Yucie, 'Nice to meet you, Yucie-chan.'

oOo

Yucie glanced at Milliet. There were a couple of questions that she was itching to ask, but it wouldn't be such a wise choice to just suddenly plunge them at someone she barely knew. Milliet noticed.

She smiled, 'Is there something to want to say to me?'

'Ah!' Yucie jumped. She turned around to properly face Milliet, 'Umm… the wedding… it's…'

'Yes, it's been cancelled,' Milliet confirmed, a hard-to-read expression on her face.

'…So… err…' Yucie trailed off and looked at the ground.

'"Why"?' Milliet guessed. Yucie nodded hastily. '…' Milliet sighed. 'The wedding was postponed 3 times…'

'Huh?' Yucie blinked.

'Yuuryu is a very busy person. He values his job very much; that much I can understand. He can never be with me on either of our birthdays, not on Christmas, New Years, barely any special occasion… he only has one day a week off from work, so it wouldn't always be on the day we wanted to meet up. He was always cancelling our dates and arriving late… I always forgave him then. But… postponing our wedding 3 times was a little too much. I can't marry someone that I'll only see once a month…'

'…' Yucie was speechless.

'It was because he's been working on this new project, so he's been extra busy lately… This place was also a special place for us… but he can no longer be here because of that project…but still… you understand, right?'

Yucie had a short flashback to the time when Arc walked pass her without saying anything. 'What job would take up so much of his time?' Yucie wondered instead, trying to not worry about it. Arc isn't that kind of person…!

Milliet looked at the castle from the tower, a wistful expression on her face. 'He works for the country, under her majesty… and Prince Arrow…'*

'…Oh…' was the only word Yucie managed to stutter out.

A Day Later

Kasumi and Hiyoki looked as serious as ever as they arrived back from the Magic World. Larney and Nikaru ran up to them as soon as the arriving magic was finished.

'How was it, whatever you went to do?' Larney asked.

'Professor gave it to us for free, although…' Hiyoki hesitated.

'It was easier than we expected… but this isn't good. In the end, we may have to sacrifice the Twin Crystals…' Kasumi muttered. 'Or maybe us ourselves…'

'No, no, you can't do that…!' Larney exclaimed. 'If you do that, the other 2 worlds and you will…!'

'Larney,' Kasumi interrupted. 'We've already decided. You can't change our minds.'

'Ah, Kasumi-san, Hiyoki-chan!' Yucie called from afar, walking over with the others. Kasumi-tachi flinched then immediately quieted down and quickly plastered fake smiles onto their faces.

'Hello, Yucie-san, Glenda-san, Cocoloo-san, Elmina-san, Beth-san,' Kasumi greeted, waving casually.

'So you're already back from the Magic World?' Yucie asked curiously.

Kasumi nodded. 'That's right. Did you just come back from the castle, Yucie-san?' Kasumi asked with a smile.

'Uhn!' Yucie replied yes brightly. 'So? Did you find a way to save Keiya-kun?' Yucie wondered hopefully.

'…We won't know until we try.'

Yume Inn

The 5 adults-in-kids-bodies, 2 girls and 2 boys entered the building. 'Mirai-chaaan! Are you home!?' Yucie called, her voice echoing creepily against the bare walls.

There was a short silence until the lights suddenly turned on. Mirai ran over. 'Kasumi-san, Hiyoki-san! You're back!' She looked incredibly happy and relieved.

Kasumi smiled. 'First things first, we need to go see Keiya-kun,' she said in a strangely distant tone that made Mirai jumped slightly before recovering.

'Oh, yes, sure…' Mirai quickly spun around and ran further into the building. The rest followed hurriedly.

oOo

Kasumi took one look at Keiya's half-transparent body before taking out a small vial the size of her hand. She uncapped it without hesitation. Hiyoki quickly waved her hand over the vial, causing the semi-transparent gooey-looking mist to remain inside. Kasumi approached Keiya and froze. She looked at the bottle, then everyone else. 'Should we give this to Keiya-kun or Stone-san?' she wondered.

'Keiya,' Mirai replied with no hesitation.

'…' Everyone else was quiet.

Kasumi nodded. 'Alright, Keiya-kun it is.' Kasumi turned back to the lying body. 'Hiyoki,' she ordered. Hiyoki nodded in understanding. She waved her hand across the vial, and all the mist began slowly flowing out of the container. Kasumi looked like she was concentrating hard as Hiyoki directed the mist to surround Keiya's body. As all of the mist exited the bottle, Kasumi quickly dropped it onto the floor and got out another identical vial. She quickly uncapped it and continued what she was doing earlier.

Hiyoki frowned in concentration. This thing is so heavy and so dense…

As they emptied the second bottle, Kasumi dropped that to the ground also. Then she began muttering something unbeknownst to the rest of the group. The mist like substances began settling down, and absorbed itself into Keiya's body.

Kasumi sighed. 'That was an extremely complicated ritual.'

'…was it?' Yucie asked doubtfully.

'Yes,' Hiyoki nodded in agreement. 'Extremely complicated.' Not to mention that that stuff was…

'What was that gooey thing anyways?' Glenda wondered loudly.

'…' Kasumi and Hiyoki looked at each other.

'Don't tell me it's what I think it is?' Nikaru asked, looking uncomfortable.

'It is what you think it is,' Hiyoki replied, reading his mind.

'What is it?' Larney asked curiously. Why is it that I'm the only one being left out?

'Oniisama. You know, Nerashi and the others? …What they're made of?' Hiyoki hinted, not exactly saying it out loud.

'…What?' Larney let out, his voice suddenly sounding weak. 'It's…what?' Then he blinked. 'Err… so, what is it, exactly?' I mean, what are Nerashi and the others made of?

'Umm, hello. There are people who are extremely confused and in the dark here,' Beth exclaimed loudly.

'Who's "Nerashi"?' Yucie wondered.

'I am also extremely confused,' Elmina stated.

Kasumi sighed. 'Let's go sit down somewhere,' she suggested.

oOo

'Nerashi and the others… are our acquaintances…' Kasumi began.

'That's obvious,' Glenda interrupted.

Kasumi ignored Glenda smoothly and swiftly continued. '…they look like humans, acts like humans… although they are a little weird in their own way… and does everything else like a humans'. Except that they're not humans, but are, in fact, artificial humans.'

'Artificial humans?' Yucie exclaimed in disbelief.

'…That's right,' Kasumi replied, frowning. 'Now, you see…' Kasumi took a deep breath. 'You know how the 6 worlds have the "Eternal Tiara" every thousand years to refuel the worlds? Our 2 parallel worlds; the Second Magic World and the Second Human World have a similar system the Elders created by using the powers of the Eternal Tiara just before the former/first Magical World collapsed. And those are… the Twin Crystals.'

'The Twin Crystals contains the "lights"; but there are conditions that come to using them. Firstly; the user… must be the older part of a twin,' Hiyoki added.

'Because the Twin Crystals are so strong, it becomes too much of a burden on the bearer's body, so it cannot be used efficiently by one person. But on the other hand, only one person can use it,' Kasumi explained.

Then Hiyoki continued, 'That's why only the older part of a twin – along with their other twin to share the burden – can use it. Since they're like two people, yet they're like one. It also has to be twins who're born from the same egg…'

'Around 10 years ago, there were only two pairs of twins that passed all categories and were qualified to use the Twin Crystals,' Larney spoke up.

'And the refuelling time for us is coming very near,' Kasumi added.

'Aahh… I'm so confused,' Yucie remarked.

'There's more, don't be confused yet,' Kasumi told her. 'There are two sets of Twin Crystals; thus the reason it is called the Twin Crystals; so the two pairs of twins were both selected to bear the Twin Crystals.'

'But it just so happened that some random tried to separate the twins and caused a major accident to happen, resulting in the twins getting separated; the other two ended up in the Second Human World – they've been found now. Anyways, after that random separated the twins, the older twins were then involved in another major accident, which caused them to… die.'

Yucie and company all gasped. 'They died? Then what will happen to the 2 worlds…?'

'Just a moment, there's more,' Hiyoki interrupted.

'This is a long story…' Glenda muttered irritably.

Hiyoki coughed. 'Well, they did die; however, the Second Magic World was prepared for this. After the incident of the twins getting separated, they have been working on the TwinS Project; which is directly linked to the "Artificial Humans project". So they made two artificial humans basing it on the two dead girls.'

'…and Nerashi and the others were the earlier results of the Artificial Humans Project,' Hiyoki added. 'Anyways, the stuff that Nerashi and the other artificial humans are made out of is the same as the things that you guys use to refuel the worlds.'

'We didn't want to use the ones out of the Twin Crystals; otherwise our 2 worlds will get in trouble,' Kasumi explained. 'So we went to see Professor Yamakawa; the person who was – and still is – in charge of the Artificial Humans Project.'

'He gave us some… but he says that there are only a limited amount of those that we can take to a different world, unless we want our 2 worlds to collapse,' Kasumi said, frowning worriedly. 'For now, we can keep Keiya-kun alive with what Professor gave us, but the rest will be up to you, Yucie-san.'

'…O-Okay…!' Yucie exclaimed, trying to be confident.

Kasumi stood up. 'Well, then, I'll be taking some rest…' Kasumi looked up. 'I'll see you all sometime later.' Kasumi turned around and headed towards the door.

Hiyoki quickly got up and followed, as well as Larney and Nikaru.

oOo

'Kasumi. Is this really alright?' Larney asked with concern.

Kasumi screwed up her eyebrows in deep thought, '…If things don't improve soon, we may have to sacrifice the 2 worlds for the 6 worlds… If you think about it, saving the 6 worlds is the better way out.'

'We could always move the residents of the 2 worlds to here…' Nikaru suggested.

'There'll be the problem with the Second Human World residents. We can't just suddenly go tell them; "oh hey, magic exists. …And your world is about to collapse so I'm afraid you'll have to go live in another world",' Hiyoki pointed out with sarcasm. 'It'll most definitely cause an uproar. We could bring trouble to this world as well.' She bit her thumb thoughtfully.

'Would be it possible to just move the residents of our Magic World and let that, and that only to collapse?' Larney wondered as another way out.

Kasumi frowned a little harder than she already was. 'I'm not sure. After all, when the original Magic World collapsed… it was because the princess refused to make the wish because she didn't want her friends to disappear; all the magical energy had nowhere to go and it caused the world itself to collapse, right? Wait… this isn't adding up, somehow.'

'Didn't the original Platinum Princess created the curse so that the next reincarnations would want to make a wish? So you wouldn't need that much magic to redo the curse, right?'

'So even if the wish wasn't made, the magic would've gone to refuelling the worlds right?'

It's because the ritual wasn't finished properly.

Kasumi, Hiyoki, Larney and Nikaru quickly turned around to see the Direction Stone floating in mid-air. Kasumi and the others sighed in relief that it wasn't Yucie and the others.

Because the wish wasn't made, the path to refuelling the worlds wasn't created. The Eternal Tiara then bursted, causing the world that it was located in at that time to collapsed. Then it moved on to refuelling the worlds. That also caused a disturbance in the system, however. The Light Stone, originally placed in the Magic World, is now misplaced. But it is somewhere in this universe, seeing that you can still see… But then again, the original Magic World is being remade, so it doesn't really matter, ahahahaha… this way, all 6 worlds will become in-balance again.

'…but there is a deadline isn't there?' Kasumi wondered suspiciously.

Well, there's not a definite one… but if you don't hurry… you won't be able to save anything, let alone anyone.

All four swapped glances. Kasumi stepped forward, 'We won't give up, not ever, even if there is no hope. After all… the lives of thousands and thousands of people are depending on us.'

…you probably won't get acknowledge for this, you know… the Stone muttered. This is, after all, a secret that no one has discovered in the many thousands of years since the Platinum Princess split into 6 different people.

'It is fine. As the Princess of the Magic World, it is a responsibility that I must uphold.'

The stone snickered before floating back out of the room to return to Mirai.

The Next Day

Yucie whistled happily as she strolled through the town. She noticed a dress that was at the front of a certain store and stopped to look. 'Waaah! It's so pretty…' Yucie then saw her own reflection in the mirror. But I can't wear it yet… she realised with a pang of melancholic frustration. Yucie measured herself against the other people walking by. I've grown exceedingly fast during the past few weeks, but it'll still be a while until I reach my proper age's body… 'Huh?' Yucie stopped as she saw someone else, standing in the shop. 'Milliet-san!'

Milliet looked up at the call of her name and gave Yucie a wave. She then gestured Yucie to walk in. Yucie enthusiastically entered the shop.

'Hello, Yucie-chan. Window shopping?' Milliet greeted casually.

Yucie nodded, 'Yeah, ahahaha…' Yucie looked around. 'Do you work here, Milliet-san?'

Milliet smiled, 'That's right. I met Yuuryu because of this job as well… It seemed like there was some sort of important girl visiting the castle and he gave me an order…' She let go of a small giggle. '…It was fun back then…' then her face changed to one of sadness. '…he didn't even come to convince me after that day at the church… he really is busy…'

'H-He must have his own reasons!' Yucie exclaimed. 'I mean…'

Milliet sighed, 'I know his job is important. But…' she looked away and began attending to a dress that she was holding onto. '…it's lonely…' she muttered in a quiet whisper.

Yucie slowly sat down beside Milliet. 'I… think I understand… even though he only did it to me once, the person I like…' Wait. What am I saying!? I… I like Arc!? You only realised this just now, miss main character?

'Milliet!' the door to the shop bursted open and a young refreshing-looking man with short brown hair and green eyes rushed in. 'I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!'

'Yuuryu!' Milliet exclaimed, standing up. '…' She made another hard-to-read expression.

'I promise, after this project is finished, we'll be able to spend lots of time together! Prince Arrow and I, we're putting our all into this project for Ercell!' Yucie twitched when Yuuryu mentioned Prince Arrow. Milliet frowned at Yuuryu, not convinced.

Yuuryu then noticed Yucie standing in the corner of the room. 'You are… the Platinum Princess!?'

'Platinum Princess?' Milliet echoed with a start.

'Ahh… hi?' Yucie greeted Yuuryu uncertainly.

Yuuryu immediately went down on his knees respectfully. 'It is my honour to be in your presence, Princess!'

'Eh? No…' Yucie trailed off uncomfortably.

'Hey, brat! What are you dawdling off around here for! You'll be late to clean up the castle!' Glenda exclaimed loudly, busting through the door along with Cocoloo and the others.

'The Princess of the Demon World!' Yuuryu exclaimed, looking even more startled than before.

Glenda soon had a smug expression on her face. '…That's right! I am the Princess of the Demon world who has elegant beauty and fantastic magical powers! Ohohohohoho!!!'

After Glenda finished her signature speech, Milliet spoke up. 'Yuuryu, go back. Don't you have work to do?'

'Err… no, I…' he began. Then something seemed to have hit him because his eyes went wide with shock when he saw the clock against the wall. 'Oh… oh, no! I have a conference with the ambassador from the other worlds with Prince Arrow and Queen Ercell!' His eyes went wide with panic. 'I definitely cannot be late!' Yuuryu then hesitated. He looked at the door then at Milliet. 'Ah… Mi…'

'Go, Yuuryu. It's important, isn't it? Come back later, whenever that may be,' she said in monotone.

'…sorry, Milliet!' he exclaimed, rushing out the door at break-neck speed.

'What was with that guy?' Glenda wondered annoyingly.

'Oh, what are you all doing here?' Kasumi asked from the door, poking her head in.

'Kasumi-san?' Yucie looked surprised. '…and Hiyoki-chan, Larney-kun, Nikaru-kun… what are you all doing here?'

'Hmm? We're heading to the castle. My father's coming to meet Queen Ercell and the other ambassadors today,' Kasumi explained.

'…'

Omake:

'Kasumi-san?' Yucie looked surprised. '…and Hiyoki-chan, Larney-kun, Nikaru-kun… what are you all doing here?'

'Hmm? We're heading to the castle. My father's coming to meet Queen Ercell and the other ambassadors today,' Kasumi explained.

'So… it's your fault!?' Yucie exclaimed in horror.

'No…! It's King Albiro, Queen Ercell and your fathers' fault!' Hiyoki exclaimed back, indicating Glenda and the others. 'They're the ones who arranged the date!'

Milliet looked at Glenda and the others, teary-eyed. 'B-Because of you… Yuuryu…'

'W-What are you talking about, brat!' Glenda yelled at Hiyoki.

'Did you know that your fathers just broke up a happy couple who's about to get married? How cruel…' Hiyoki commented, sniffing.

'What?'

*Yuuryu's job: anyone knows what he is? Cause I don't... just randomly writing hoping that such a job exists. X/

Here we go, another chapter… although quite short, but then again, compared to my other chapters, it's not that short…

This chapter was also written extremely fast compared to my other chapters… Isn't that good? But who knows, next chapter may take a couple of months. :p Sorry…

Next chapter includes the meeting (which will re-explain all this of "Dimension Stone business" all in one go) as well as… other stuff… yeah…

Aargh! As I read back, there are so many mistakes in the earlier chapters! (And god, wasn't chapter 1 short.) DX I'll fix them soon…

P.S. ...It would be nice if I could get a review or two...? 8D I just want to know that my story isn't disaster-inducing terrible, that's all...