She plastered on a smile, swung open the door, and found herself face to face with Lillie.

  Tears streaked down the girl's rosy cheeks. As soon as she caught sight of Mizuki she immediately broke eye contact and stared down at her white slippers, the only article of clothing she'd been permitted to keep. Across from her, Tenshiro Kazakami balanced his teacup in between his thumb and index finger daintily, as if he fancied himself an aristocrat. Mizuki peered over its rim to see, to her dismay, the green liquid still undrunk.

  "Mizuki."

  His tone was low and sullen, like one of Lucario's warning growls. Mizuki by impulse took a step back and reached for the door handle, but that cowardly girl was sniveling again, whimpering, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had to, and Mizuki's fists clenched and Yūra was looking at her like she'd burned down an orphanage or drawn a stupid picture in red, and the lump was writhing, cooing for her mama without language. Stupid lump didn't know it never would find its mama here.

  "You told them," she said to Lillie.

  "I - I had to, I told you, you saw it - you can't give that drug to pregnant women, and the dose - "

  "You told them," Mizuki repeated.

  "Mizuki," Lillie pleaded, "you know why - "

  "I should have known." At Tenshiro's snarl, Lillie gasped and clammed up. "I should have known all this time you were a demon-child. A little parasite feeding off our graciousness, our love, masquerading as an angel."

  "Angels don't exactly have the luxury of acting docile and demure all the time," Mizuki retorted. "Some do, sure. Some seek peace. Others have the duty of exacting divine vengeance. I thought you'd know a thing or two about that."

  "Mizuki, that isn't your burden to carry," Lillie said. "You're a child."

  "Mizuki." Mom, Yūra, was crying, calling her name, clutching her stomach, and Mizuki couldn't see whether the cup she held was full or not, and despite everything she wanted it to be full. It had been a while, but surely it must be too hot still, even though she knew it had been an eternity since she had brought it over on the tray. "How could you, Mizuki, my daughter."

  Her slashes were aching again, even though she'd bandaged them, and her mind whirled with pain and overstimulation -

  "Mizuki, you little demon, you little devil-spawn, you - "

  "Mizuki, you know I had to - "

  "Mizuki, think of your brother - "

  Some of the techies were watching, incredulous. Not with any sympathy towards Mizuki - Lillie must have told them, too - and a flash of light illuminated their faces. Lucario materialized in front of Tenshiro, and took an offensive stance, summoning a bone spear.

  Oh, that's how you want to play, huh?

  No amount of bravado could obscure the fact Mizuki knew Lucario could smash Frostfire's head in in a heartbeat. No amount of bravado could protect her from the overlapping voices, the Mizuki, Mizuki, Mizuki, the techies giggling at her like little girls watching a Durant melt under a magnifying glass, and the lump crying because it wanted to be rocked by its mama, or because it wanted to feed on the sweet lies flowing from its bottle. It's bottle, yannow, because Yūra couldn't even make milk if she wanted to -

  "To think I once believed you would inherit my empire."

  "Mizuki, we can still be friends after this, if you just turn back - "

  "I thought you loved us. I thought you adored your sisters, you told me you would take care of your brother, so why would you ever think to hurt us this way?"

  Mizuki bolted past them out to the stage, the lump still in her grasp. She barreled past the keyboard player, zigzagged between the lead and bass guitarists, and almost tackled the lead singer to snatch the microphone from her. The singer, who she couldn't recall the name of, took a sharp inhale and cast her a quizzical look, but didn't protest. Even though the music stopped, it was loud enough Mizuki could feel its vibrations in her jaw.

  She prepared to slide the microphone off its stand, then reconsidered; some of the backup singers had headsets, and when she batted her eyelashes and asked the nearest one for his, he blinked at her and handed it over. Must not have heard the big news.

  "Okay. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Everyone can hear me? You can. Okay, great."

  From here, she could verify it: everyone did look equal, perfectly identical. Even though she'd known many of them since she was a toddler, even though her father had told her they'd touched her and passed her around and beamed at her and cooed over her when she was an infant, before her brain had even developed enough to focus on their features. Eleven long years, huh, and they were still here, paying their tithes and awaiting the answer to the question of heaven.

  Out of her peripheral vision she saw the trio of traitors emerging from the wings, with Lucario trailing them from the shadows, and she held out the lump, flipped it upside down, and dangled it over the edge of the stage, so that its head was positioned to fall on the hardwood gym floor.

  "Get back, or I'll drop her. I'm not afraid to."

  The same adrenaline rush that had overtaken her when she'd given Yūra the drugged tea returned to her, and she feared the shaking in her arms would cause her to lose her grip, and she risked a glance over her shoulder and saw what she'd hoped she never would - Sun, limping to Lillie's side, perplexed as anything. From the crowd a well-meaning devotee cried out, "you wouldn't."

  It wasn't that she would. It wasn't that she wouldn't. Her intentions had escaped into some odd in-between, fueled by a mix of agony and ecstasy, and she thought, this is a nightmare, there's no way I'm ever coming back from this.

  "You know you shouldn't even love her at all," Mizuki called out to her parents. "If you followed your own advice, you wouldn't call her your daughter. You wouldn't have even given her the time of day."

  Tenshiro said, "Mizuki."

  Mi zu ki みずき her name didn't sound like a name when spoken with the devil's silver tongue. And Lillie was saying it, too, and Sun was mouthing it, like, whose side was he on? because the only person she could trust in life was herself, she knew that, she'd always known that, because she'd always known deep down her parents wouldn't love her unconditionally. They'd love the lump unconditionally, because... because...

  Her rage reached its peak, and matured into serenity.

  "Why can you love Mirai, Mom? Dad? Why are you able to love her?"

  No answer met her.

  "Why can you love her when you couldn't love Mizune? She's just a way to 'recoup your loss', right? You might have lost a daughter, but at least you got one in return."

  "I knew you were going to try and hurt her," the girl-traitor sniffed. "She's just a baby, Mizuki..."

  "Stay out of this, mouth-breather," Mizuki spat. "Tenshiro. You don't really love her at all, do you, Ten-shi-ro? You love what she could do for you one day, the same way you loved me."

  Tenshiro signaled to Lucario, and the Pokémon's eyes flashed. Its bone spear had seen some use over the years; parts of it had chipped away, revealing patches of porous marrow underneath.

  "Tell them, Dad! Tell them, our beloved Spiritual Guide! Guide them to the right conclusion, won't you? What's your real relation to Mirai Kazakami? If you're not willing to tell them, I'll be the one to fill them in, and I won't make the story sound so pretty. This is your last chance to show off your favorite virtue: truth!"

  Despite the threat, the coward was silent.

  "Very well, then," she said, stroking Mirai's back. "I'd like to tell everyone a story. A true story. It might sound a little familiar. You might even see yourselves in it. Yes, I believe some of you may have played the role of Mizune Kazakami in your own pasts, before meeting us..."

  "You are going to destroy this family," the coward said.

  One long last look back in his direction.

  "It's already destroyed," Mizuki said, and a laugh escaped with her words. "You know that. Come on, now. Use your brain."

  She turned to Lucario; to Lillie; to Yūra; to Sun. I'm so sorry, guys. The truth's been bottled up for far too long.

  "A girl is abused by her father and step-mother, and by - " Mizuki winced. "And by her half-sisters, too. Yes, I admit it: even I'm at fault here. They - no, we - called her our 'lightning rod'. We had decided long ago she belonged to Mizuho, and she would never shake off the stigma of being Mizuho's daughter."

  Sun was casting her a pathetic look. Lillie, too. But there was no going back now.

  "She worked and worked for our approval until she came to learn there was nothing in the whole universe she could do to earn it. She'd been passed over for love so long ago, and she had no one who knew about or empathized with her pain."

  Or: she thought she had no one. I was...

  "She had no one," Mizuki repeated, "so she started to act out. To search for an escape from the darkness of her life. She did things that - things we - things no kid or teenager ought to do."

  Justin - must have stuck around out of morbid curiosity, that bastard - snorted. "Mizune? The goody-two-shoes? I used to play four-square with her, and I can't imagine her doing anything against the rules. She'd practically have an anxiety attack if you so much as suggested the concept."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "She found comfort in the wrong people," Mizuki continued, ignoring him. "She made mistakes so grievous they ruined her life. She made one mistake our parents would never forgive her for."

  Her jaw threatened to lock up on her. No, no, she wasn't allowed to say these words, she wasn't allowed to discuss this subject, she needed to stop and she needed to go back to her mother and father and let them embrace her and she needed to tell them she'd never speak that name again, she'd never say a word against them again, she needed to tell Lillie she was sorry and they could be friends again and Sun could go home and she'd go tell Ilima and Paulo she was sorry too, she'd retake her Trial next weekend, everything would be fine forever.

  And the beast would feast upon her soul for that.

  "One day." No, there was no going back now. "One day, she got very, very, sick. At first, it wasn't bad enough to impair her - she was tired and nauseous and swollen all the time, but she was still well enough to go to school and attend sermons, so my parents didn't see any reason to get her help. If you brought it up, they'd pretend you were crazy, that Nene was as healthy as a Horsea. So me and my sisters took their word for it, even though we were all worried sick for her.

  "A few months passed, and her condition worsened to the point my parents couldn't ignore it anymore, so they decided to take her to the doctor. A real doctor with a degree, not one of the nurses in the Starlight infirmary - sorry, nurses, I know you work your asses off. I think my parents always knew exactly what was wrong with her, but they didn't want to believe it. They told us she had a malevolent tumor in her belly, and I think they would have preferred that to be the truth."

  A murmur passed through the crowd: what ailment could ever be worse than cancer? Mizuki rocked the lump - not the lump, Mirai - and pitied her. Pitied her and her perfect gray eyes and her tiny fingers reaching out past Mizuki's shoulder towards her mama, her mama.

  "That night, my father and Nene got into a fight, and he beat her. He beat her worse than he ever had before, and threatened to beat her even worse than that, because she was too far along - " the bile rose in her throat again, and a mist obscured her vision, and damn it, she'd rather jump off a cliff than start bawling in front of all these people. "I heard it all. I know what the man I used to call a father said to my sister that night. Why don't you repeat it, Tenshiro?"

  She twisted around to discover the coward weeping. That wasn't what intrigued her most, however: Lucario had put his bone spear away and turned to face the man. He wasn't comforting him; he bared his fangs at his own Trainer.

  Lucario? But they've been friends for a lifetime.

  Emboldened, she swallowed and steadied herself. "Never mind, then. What you said to Mizune was that her daughter would be named Mirai - future - as an eternal reminder of what she had thrown away."

  She didn't look at the crowd, or her parents, or her friends. She stared into the baby's eyes again, those beautiful eyes that had never caught sight of her mother, the tiny curl of her ear that couldn't understand a word Mizuki said, the hands that kept reaching, reaching out forever to heaven, or paradise, where maybe the two of them would be reunited someday if not on Earth.

  "She was born last November. As punishment for what she had done, Mizune was denied pain relievers during the labor." (This detail especially was a risk. Mizuki had no idea whether it was true; she'd concocted it in her brain during one of those nights she'd stared over at Nene's empty bed and given herself to that intrinsic darkness.) "She was sent away, and, as you might have heard, my parents told everyone she was away at college, at a university on the mainland. She lived on campus, they said, and it was too much of a pain to fly her back and forth for school vacations. Where she actually is now, I have no idea."

  Too much of a pain. In a perfect world where Mizuki went to college, would she be too much of a pain? Rage collected in her at the idea. Oh, yes, heaven's rage, all the world-dreamer's fury. A bloodied angel, an angel of evil, with three pairs of black wings sprouting out her back and a sword in her left hand. She stared out into the sea of identical devotees once more, ready to carry the speech home.

  "Now, tell me: does this sound like the family of a righteous man?"

  The only sound was the hush of her breathing into the headset. Mizuki turned back to Tenshiro, a grin spread wide across her face.

  "And you know it isn't," she said. "You've always known, so why did we ever have to pretend? Speak, damn it!"

  "You deserve every bit of what is going to happen to you," Tenshiro said.

  "No denial," Mizuki roared. "He won't deny a word of what I've said, because it's all true! The emissary of Truth has been lying to you all this time! If he can't even love his own daughter, how could he ever love you?"

  The rumble Mizuki had hoped to elicit swelled up from the devotees. The indistinct chanting, the brewing ferocity. Lillie closed her eyes and jammed her fingers into her ears; beside her, Sun stared wide-eyed, apparently unable to reckon with the Truth. Mizuki could practically see the gears whirling in his head: Mizune? Baby? She saw fit to confuse him further by dashing over to him and pushing the baby in question into his arms.

  "Hold her? I've got work to do here."

  "Um, sure, whatever..."

  Lucario approached her: gently. Lucario, who saw the true natures, the true motives underlying every beating heart, who saw without a doubt each and every devotee would reach a paradise-heaven-nirvana-spaceship where even their most unbearable days felt like hot chocolate and a banana split and ten popsicles all at once. The shepherd swapped faces, the path never changed.

  "Let us make this final," Mizuki declared. "As of today, I am no longer the daughter of Tenshiro Kazakami. My body originated from him, yes; but my spirit, the most permanent part of me, has undergone a true kōshin."

  Kōshin! Renewal! Buzzword buzzword buzzword activated the devotees' brains and they buzzed all in synchrony, and Lucario was holding out his paw to her, and she didn't hesitate to accept it.

  "Now, in addition to all of that, there's some business we've got to get to. As you can see, a cancer has taken up residence at the head of our oh-so-beloved church, and it must be pruned. As for how to go about this, I have a suggestion. Would you all like to hear it?"

  The crowd hushed, and Mizuki clapped her hands together.

  "I have a confession to make," she said, her heart filled to its brim with excitement. "Around the time of Mirai's birth, I began seeing strange colors in my field of vision around certain people..."

  Here it was. The Most Useful Lie.

  "Tenshiro always knew I would inherit his power... but he did not wish for me to do it so soon. After all, he was twice my current age when he first began to feel his own talent stirring." She spoke mechanically, for she had prepared these words for - how long? It had been a fantasy at first, a pipe dream, a deranged thought the beast had dragged to her when she was all on her own and lonesome, like when a bored Frostfire would present her with the mangled corpses of Yungoos. "But it's happened, and - "

  The speech was readied, but it would never make it to the microphone. The Children's rumble returned and strengthened with: fury? Happiness? Maybe it was every emotion at once, the kind of omnipotence you’ll only come to know the moment you're born and the moment you die. The emotion of HOPE, of the DISCOVERED MESSIAH.

  "M, M, M, mi mi mi..."

  Holy shit. This was really happening.

  "MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI!"

  "What's - ?" Breathless, Mizuki wiped a tear from her eye. "What's my name?"

  "MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI!"

  "What's my goddamned name?"

  "MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI! MI-ZU-KI!"

  "WHAT’S MY GODDAMNED NAME??"

  They were screaming, they were going to damage Mirai's ears with all this ecstasy, the only ones who weren't were the three traitors, Sun, and Justin, who stayed engrossed in filing his nails. Mizuki yanked off her headset and dashed down the stairs to address him.

  "Justin! Would you like a chance to get your revenge on the one who's hurt you for so long? Who spent an hour and a half publicly embarrassing you? Do this one thing for me, and I'll let you go without any further harassment."

  Justin didn't respond, but his intrigued expression communicated he wasn't exactly opposed to the idea. Mizuki nodded and took the stage once more.

  "Rise, now! And you, interns! Assistants! I saw you laughing at my suffering, siding with the man who's done all this... The world-dreamer scorns such a lack of empathy! To my side, now." She held out her hand, ushering them closer, and to her shock and bewilderment, they actually obeyed her. "Justin. You lot. Take my parents and Lillie to the shed in the back. You know where that is?"

  They did not.

  "Behind the incinerator room."

  They didn't know where that was, either.

  Mizuki turned to Sun. "My commander in chief. Show them the way."

  Sun pointed to himself and mouthed, me?

  "Yes, of course it's you. Who else would it be?"

  "Anyone else," Sun said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to help you with this. I'm not going to help you lead a cult."

  "This! This isn't a cult, it's - how could you even say that? You think we're like Team Plasma, or, Team Aqua, or, or Enraptorans? We're way more legit than Enraptorans, I'll tell you that. Enraptorans massacred tens of thousands in Castelia."

  "Yeah, like six hundred years ago," Sun muttered, but Mizuki had no interest in lending him her ear. Enraptorans had committed countless massacres and domestic terrorist attacks, Team Aqua had flooded Hoenn - and caused her family to flee Sinnoh - and Team Plasma had frozen a whole city. If he saw the Children as equivalent in any way, he was either terminally stupid or pulling her leg.

  "Lucario," she said, quelling her anger. The canine Pokémon bowed his head in acknowledgement. "You show them the way. Once you're done, return here as soon as possible. I've got some closing statements to make."

  Lucario let out a courteous bark and dipped his head. Mizuki followed suit, only to furrow her brow when he, Justin, and the assistants didn't move quickly enough for her liking.

  "Come on, guys! Chop, chop! Move your asses! Shoo! Portare lo via! Vamonos! Get on the road, already!"

  Her feet tread on air, and she slid the headset on one last time, and the poetry of her heart was bubbling up in her, and she caught Lillie staring at her one last time before the assistants shunted her off into the wings. Couldn't focus on that. Focus on what matters, Mizuki.

  "I am this world," she began. "This whole world, in all its sublimity. I am the flow of its rivers and I am the melody it sings. I see and hear the intricate ways it fits together, its clockwork, how it all works towards an ultimate Good. Yes, there is a difference between what is BEAUTIFUL and what is SUBLIME. My father, at times, could be beautiful. All of you know him; have known him, have seen him. Yes, all people have flashes of this beauty, as rocks have glimmers of - glimmers of... um, glimmers of like, gems and stuff. But I have witnessed the sublime. With my own eyes - my own brain - my own sublimity - and I have opened my mind. Therefore: take my hand, and allow me to propel you into a new future. A brighter - "

  An alarm shrilled through her words, and every eye snapped to the ceiling. Mizuki's jaw dropped, and her dread dragged her heart all the way to the bottom of her abdomen.

  No.

  No.

  "Um, Mizuki?" Sun tapped her on the shoulder. "What does that mean? Do we have to evacuate?"

  "We're being raided," she said.

  "...What?"

  Mizuki snapped to face him and nearly gripped him by the neck. "We're being raided, you nincompoop! Are you deaf, or what? What do you think that means? The police are here!"

  One last time, she put on the headset to address her new followers. Many of them were panicking and staring at the double doors as if waiting for orders. Could none of them function at all without directions from a Guide?

  "Everyone! Code Red! You've all done these drills before, haven't you? This is the real thing, now. All Trainers, take the front line. Retrieve your Pokemon from Emergency Box Lambda! All able-bodied adults, trail them! Everyone else, head to your quarters! Now! Go!"

  The disciples flooded out of the gymnasium, many proclaiming their anger, or their willingness to die serving what they believe in. Mizuki thought that hyperbole - people were rarely as brave as they claimed to be - but would not begrudge them for following her orders. The alarm shut off to protect all their hearing, but the ruckus would certainly inform anyone not in the know as to their current circumstances.

  "They're probably looking for Tenshiro," Sun said. "They won't be looking for an eleven-year-old."

  Mizuki snorted, grabbing her own Poke Ball and releasing Frostfire. "They probably are looking for an eleven-year-old, in fact. You. I mean, we technically did kidnap you, after all." When Sun mirrored her by releasing Harmony, she raised her eyebrow, her interest piqued. "Oh? Are you going to help defend our Children's stronghold? I thought you weren't willing to be my commander in chief."

  "I'm fighting you," Sun said.

  Before Mizuki could react, Harmony obliged him: a jet of water spewed from his big red snout out towards an unsuspecting Frostfire. The latter reeled, taking a moment to shake out his matted white fluff and fix the kinks in his thick tail.

  "No," Mizuki said. "No, this isn't how this works."

  "I've initiated the battle," Sun said, his mouth peaking upwards in a smile. "You've got no choice now but to see it through. Else that's a forfeit." He applied a layer of sleaze to his smirk: "You wouldn't dare forfeit to your rival, would you?"

  Mizuki sighed. Stepped back, and grabbed her own proxy: a half-wilted white lily she'd found out in the grass near the holding shed. She held it in her left hand, imagining it a shining blade, imagining its hilt staining her palm crimson.

  "Very well, then, Sun," she said, lifting her chin. In her mind's eye three pairs of black wings unfolded at her back, spreading out. "The next recipient of divine justice, it seems, will be you. Prepare to feel every ounce of its wrath."