Pearls of sweat trickling down her flushing forehead, Niko groans as she stirs awake, the fever ravaging making the heavy bed sheets feel like treacly magma slowly burying her body underneath layers of discomfort. As she tries to expel the disease with increasingly desperate pants, she looks around her, squinting to get a sharper impression of her surroundings. She remembered. She was lying in a queen-size hotel bed, in one of the many rooms that had been made available for the many Mitakihara citizens who’d been evacuated from the first neighborhoods to be lost to anarchy. People used to pay good money for this bed. Then she lay down in it and all that remained was a crumpled mess soaked in the stench of her own sweat.

Niko: Ngh…

With considerable effort, she manages to unplug her phone and pick it up from its designated spot on the nightstand, amidst the empty cups and boxes that used to contain aspirin. She checks her notifications. No news. Her father has been missing for weeks now, under threat of being burned alive, or worse, whenever his abductors feel like making their point once more. She has never gotten along with her father much, but he is the only family she has left in this rotten town. He doesn’t deserve this. No one does. Through the door, she can hear children horsing around in the hotel hallways, then, the sudden, shrill voice of a woman, demanding their silence with enough decibels to overwhelm an active war zone. Niko hopes the irony isn’t lost on the woman. One of the children starts bawling. Everyone is losing their minds. And it is her fault.

From the day that man running for mayor, Masato Yasuda, was assassinated, she has sensed hundreds of thousands of souls adrift in the Dreamscape, chased by nightmares. It was never her intention for them to end up there. Dreaming in the Dreamscape has its advantages, but to reckon with it requires a mental fortitude — so she discovered — only a few are blessed with. And so, at night, the people of Mitakihara are haunted by nightmares, while at day, their grasp on reality is gradually waning as a result. There is nothing she can do for them. Keeping her friends sane, protecting them from the Dreamscape’s noxious influence so they could spend this hell with their sanity intact, has already been doing such a number on her, her body is now as vulnerable as her mind. She used to be the mistress of the Dreamscape. Now, it has left her bedridden and ailing. Just where did she go wrong with the legacy the Troubadour had left her?

Niko: Sh-Shinju…? Are you there?

(After a few seconds, Shinju opens up a door from the adjoining hotel room, hurrying in quietly. She crouches down at Niko’s bedside, concern on her face)

Shinju: Hey, bunny. Can I get you anything? Water? 

Niko: That would be nice… I just—I didn’t call you here because I wanted anything or… Err, did you hear that woman screaming? People are losing their minds…

Shinju: (She turns to the door, an eyebrow raised) I’m sure it’s just some soccer mom. She’ll be okay… livin’ on a military base for a while would straighten those kids out. 

Niko: I’ve seen what these people have to see every night… I got, like, no idea how your sister stays so calm and collected and stuff…

Shinju: She’s a soldier. She’s tough. I don’t know how bad it is, but… 

Kohaku: (She appears in the doorway, leaning against the frame) I’m used enough to poor sleep. I’ve had some worse nightmares, even…

Niko: … Like war flashbacks? Y-You’ve gone to war? … S-Sorry, c-captain Hayama, ma’am?

Kohaku: The JSDF just does humanitarian work now. Cleaning up after our allies’ wars and such. Sadly, some places we go, it’s not easy to tell us apart from the invaders and we get fired on.

Niko: O-Oh, I was probably supposed to know that. I can’t exactly think straight right now… Not that anyone else can.

Kohaku: You can say that again. A group of hoodlums in the park tried to rob the place and wouldn’t back down even when I used some of my power to make a gunshot noise. Even though they could’ve just gone and gotten what they needed like everyone else. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone put them up to it. 

Niko: P-People.. Lose their minds while this city is in shambles… M-Maybe it is one big conspiracy… T-That girl who kidnapped my dad, she’s… always talking about chaos, you know? W-What’s happening to them in the Dreamscape is weakening their minds so they become… animals. (she reaches for Shinju’s hand and gently clutches it) I have to fix it… It’s my responsibility… It’s my responsibility.

Shinju: (she squeezes Niko’s hand) Hey, you’re not alone in this, okay? I’m here with you. Sis and everyone else, too. Let’s work on this together, alright?