This time, they didn’t hit me too hard — I came to pretty quickly. Well, kinda quickly — it was already dark outside. The room was dark too, the only light coming from the greenish shimmer of the barrier surrounding me. I was lying on one of those shitty, narrow, monk-style beds, and I could hear soft breathing from both sides. Looked like only one of the sisters was keeping the barrier up while the other two had passed out.

I probably could’ve broken free and bolted right now, but without Joanne around, there wasn’t much point.

Dazai — what the hell was he doing here? — was sitting on the floor next to my bed, talking in hushed tones with one of the sisters. Took me a second to figure out it was Emily. They were having some deep, heartfelt conversation.

“We talked it over, Charlotte and I,” the girl was saying. “Thought about what you said… And, well, you’re right. Madame Joanne is using us…”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite so harshly — ‘using’ sounds a bit unfair. She undoubtedly wants what’s best for you…” Dazai cooed, sweet as a dove. Man, he worked fast — already halfway up their asses. And by “asses,” I mean their souls, not their skirts. Though honestly, if it was their skirts, I’d at least know there was something human left in him.

“No, that’s exactly what it is. We’ve thought about it before, we’re not that stupid. We see it — our church brothers and sisters with weaker abilities get their blessings and ‘deliverance’ all the time, while she keeps stringing us along with empty promises. Because she needs our powers…”

“Well, yeah. If you don’t remind her it’s time to start keeping those promises, this could go on forever. You could even bring it up tomorrow at the ceremony, huh? She mentioned there’d be a few… hmm… volunteers for purification. Why not one of you? Haven’t you waited long enough?”

Damn. That’s why he was here. And damn, he was smooth.

I also realized he hadn’t slept in God knows how long — he’d been chatting with them the whole damn flight, too, and not for fun, but for this. He’d already looked like shit when we landed — dark circles under his eyes, those little lines around his mouth — and now, I had no idea how he was even staying upright.

“Yeah, yeah,” Emily nodded. “That’s actually a good idea. Charlotte and I already decided — Anne should be the first to be purified. She’s been through the worst.”

“But if she forgets the past and loses her abilities… you’ll have to pretend to be normal girls around her, won’t you?”

“We will. We’ve gone over this a million times. We even have a story prepared — our parents died, then we moved here…”

“Well, that’s not even a lie…”

“No. Because new memories have to be built from the scraps of old ones. We’ve seen how Madame Joanne’s ability works — she doesn’t create memories. That’s probably impossible. She just cuts away the pain… like a surgeon. And then the brain fills in the gaps on its own, stitches up the inconsistencies…”

“Interesting,” Dazai murmured. “And if, after all that ‘surgery,’ there’s nothing left to fill in the gaps…?”

“What?” Emily asked.

“Nothing. Not about Anne. I think she’ll be fine.”

They kept talking for another hour or so — mostly more tragic backstory about the sisters’ rough childhood. Wooden toys nailed to the floor, that sort of thing. Not exactly funny, but hey, people have been through worse. No one ever felt bad for me or Dazai.

Eventually, he got up, apologized for leaving her alone, said he really needed some sleep, and left.

I, on the other hand, decided it was time to make my presence known. Got into a little argument with Emily, negotiated myself some food and a bathroom break, but couldn’t talk my way into a smoke or a shower. Which sucked, because my clothes were already starting to reek, and my hair was turning into a greasy bird’s nest.

By morning, I actually managed to get some real sleep. Finally, without the help of a goddamn electroshock.

Barely had dawn broken when I was rudely jabbed in the side and dragged out of whatever half-assed sleep I’d managed. No breakfast, no explanations — just straight into the car and off we went. Again.

How long is this shit gonna last? (Preferably no more than a couple of hours.)

We drove out of the city, spent ages rolling through the countryside, and finally stopped near some house in the middle of the goddamn woods. Like a forester’s hut straight out of a bad horror flick. Though, gotta admit, it made sense — if half of these so-called "seekers of purification" weren’t exactly eager to be purified, better to do it somewhere nice and isolated. You know, where nobody’s gonna hear the screaming.

I mean, sure, with hypnotic powers you could probably pull this shit off right in Piccadilly Circus, but good luck wiping the memories of every single bystander afterward.

The house was big, clearly set up for cult business — none of your mundane kitchens or bathrooms, just one massive hall with a raised platform in the center.
And the place was packed. People everywhere. Some of them were even dressed in white robes with hoods, looking like they’d raided a goddamn Ku Klux Klan meeting. One of those hooded freaks had their face uncovered, and — well, I’ll be damned — turned out to be Dazai.

"Oh, Madame Joanne granted you the honor of joining the Circle? Right after meeting you?" Charlotte sounded genuinely surprised.

"I suspect it’s less about my exceptional talents and more about the fact that she recently lost several of her closest followers." Dazai twisted his lips into something the Brontë sisters probably mistook for a sorrowful, sympathetic smile.

"That’s true. Poor Miss George," Charlotte sighed. "But even so, Madame Joanne must have high hopes for you, Mr. Ikita. My sisters and I also became part of the Circle quite quickly — though today, sadly, we’re excluded, since we’re on guard duty for this scoundrel. Most people have to wait much longer…"

"Oh, look! They finally accepted Jane," Emily piped up, pointing to a girl in white robes with comically oversized ears.

"And who might this charming young lady be?"

"Jane Austen. Her ability lets her manipulate emotions, but she’s not very good at it. That’s why she wants to get rid of it. Her gift is called Sense and Sensibility," Charlotte explained.

"Really? I thought it was called Love and Freindship," Anne said, intrigued.

"I distinctly heard her call it Pride and Prejudice," Emily declared.

"Shame and fucking Toad," I muttered under my breath.

Dazai’s lips barely twitched, but yeah — I saw that.

"Bernard’s in white too," Anne noted. "I thought they’d finally bless him at today’s ceremony…"

"Speaking of what we discussed yesterday, Mr. Ikita," Emily whispered, "isn’t it odd that Madame Joanne still hasn’t blessed Bernard? His ability is utterly useless…"

Bernard, apparently, was the guy standing nearby, holding hands with a very curvy woman.

"His ability’s called Pygmalion. He created himself an imaginary girlfriend," Emily explained. "They say they argue and fight all the time, and poor Bernard believes life would be easier without her — but he can’t bring himself to let go. That’s why he’s asked Madame Joanne to free him from his ‘curse.’"

She was clearly exaggerating. Those two looked about three seconds away from jumping each other right there in the middle of the hall. Then again, fighting and fucking aren’t exactly mutually exclusive. As they say, you can’t ruin porridge with too much butter.

"Tss," Charlotte hissed suddenly. "She’s coming."

A tall, middle-aged blonde was approaching. Trailing after her, much like a young Dazai had once followed Mori, was some nondescript twelve-year-old boy — probably her son. Both of them were dressed in those Klan getups too.

So this is the queen of the lunatics?

"I am most delighted to see you, my dear girls," she said to the Brontë sisters. Her tone, in stark contrast to her words, was about as warm as a frozen corpse. "I understand you will not relent in your request, so be it. Today, I shall grant Anne my blessing."

Then her icy gaze turned to me.

"And you, Mr. Nakahara… I am especially pleased to meet you."

"Can’t say the feeling’s mutual," I muttered.

She kept staring. Her eyes were dead. Like a fish’s.

"So this is the man who nearly ruined everything…"

"What, don’t like what you see? Handsome, well-dressed… bit smelly, maybe…" The key here was to keep my mouth running but say nothing useful. If Wilde was skulking around somewhere, one slip could blow our entire plan — lying was off the table.

"Tell me one thing: why did you do it? What grievance do you have against my Church?"

Wrong person to question, lady. But hey, since you asked…

"You lot are full of shit, and frankly, the world would be better off without you."

"You will not change his mind, Madame," Charlotte interjected smoothly. "We had the opportunity to speak with him on the way here. His beliefs are deeply ingrained. There is no guiding him back to the path of truth."

"A pity," Joanne murmured, with what sounded like genuine regret. "The ideal purification is when the initiate desires it themselves…"