The number of youngsters at work in what used to be Inori Jazz & Karaoke has grown significantly over the last few days, and the work they are doing has become more and more focused on the small details. While two students are stocking the bar, a group of three is looking up at a fourth at the top of a ladder, wiring a speaker. As two more volunteers enter, each holding two plastic bags filled with a stack of pizza boxes, the young man operating the PA system in the back of the venue tries to turn on his equipment and, satisfied to see everything flicker to life, raises his thumb.

Alice: We good? (wearing her guitar around her neck, she carefully steps over some of the wires on stage as she tunes her final string) Okay, where do you want me?

Tada: Anywhere’s fine, I’ll do the lighting later.

Alice: Alright. (she finishes her tuning before plugging one of the cables lying about into her instrument a strumming a chord; one of the volunteers handing out pizza boxes promptly whistles, causing some others to clap) 

Tada: That sounds great! I… I can barely believe it’s all working.

Alice: (she plays a few quick scales) Well, one guitar sounds great. I’m not counting my chickens until we’ve let a drummer cut loose in here… Anyone here play?

Tada: Why not get the whole band in here?

Alice: There… is no band anymore, dude. (she seems a bit upset at Tada’s careless remark) When’s the last time you’ve seen me perform with a band?

Tada: S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to—

Alice: No, no, I’m sorry, it’s nothing, we just— I mean, that just happens when you try and fail to make it. It’s not like we… broke up or anything.

Tada: Well, if you need a new drummer, I might know a guy.

Alice: I bet you do… (she chuckles as a way to get Tada off of her back) Oh! (as her gaze drifts towards the main entrance, she is surprised to see a familiar face coming down the stairs) … Didn’t expect to see you here.

Shinju: Oh hey! I like music as much as anyone! And the American tunes at the base get a little old after a while. How’s it going? 

Alice: (putting her guitar away, she jumps off the stage to approach Shinju) This place isn’t exactly open yet.

Shinju: I heard about this place from Koharu’s sister. It’s starting to look pretty nice! 

Alice: Yeah, it does. Hope she didn’t forget to mention that venues like this one’re usually off-limits for high schoolers, right? Unless you’re volunteering, that is.

Shinju: Oh, I know. That’s why I’m here before it opens! Don’t tell the base people. (She clears her throat) Anyways… I wanted to see how you were holdin’ up after we all stopped livin’ at that gym. Whatever Yui did for your shoulder went well? 

Alice: Hmm? Oh, yeah. I’m back at it… (she sighs) Pretty… freaky stuff, but, I dunno, at this point I’ll just take what I can get. I realized I shouldn’t try to stop Yui from doing the right thing just because I… don’t think I deserve it. I guess we’re both just trying to make up for something… Not that it’s anything you should worry about.

Shinju: I get it. But, um, I mean, she is kinda the Puella senpai and leader around here. Hard not to worry about it when there’s a problem!  

Alice: I… Shouldn’t have said that, should I? I meant… I don’t want to weigh on you too much. I’m okay— I mean, I will be okay. I get that you’re concerned about Yui, though.

Shinju: I know, it’s prob’ly not as much of a problem as I think, ‘cause I mostly hear about it from people who are mad because something happened. Just, she asked me to beat her up or something and I dunno what to make of that. 

Alice: That’s her thing now, yeah. I dunno, Yui keeps saying that she “needs someone to beat some sense into her”. But… the sense is already there. It’s like she’s, I dunno, me talking to her won’t work, neither will Yuzuki or Aoi. It’s like she’s arbitrarily tying this “fight” thing to it just cause she knows there’s no one who can beat her… Makes it easy to— (she sighs) No, I mean, I do get it, I guess. Or at least I can imagine having a fucking… thing inside of you that just wants to fight.

Shinju: Eh, y-you can? You’ve not ever been a Puella, right? 

Alice: No! Oh… hell no. No, I’m just saying I can imagine. Emphasis on the “can”.

Shinju: Right… I guess you have experience dealing with those weird Conductor artifacts n’ stuff even if you didn’t make a contract yourself. Was it one of them that Yui used for your shoulder?

Alice: Among others, yes. Yui is powerful. Very powerful. She can manipulate the soul itself. And our souls are everything.

Shinju: Yeah… surprised Kyubey gave her a contract like that. 

Alice: (she scoffs) Pretty sure Kyubey doesn’t really care about people, I dunno, cheating. As long as it gets what it wants, it doesn’t care about the consequences. You— I guess you don’t know, huh? But the thing was chomping at the bit to get me to make a contract and… well, that wouldn’t end well. Allegedly.

Shinju: … You ever thought about doing it? There’s a lot to wish for, especially these days… 

Alice: (bluntly) No. No— you’d… understand if you knew. Why I can never do that.

Shinju: I guess I get it. Koharu’s never seemed interested either. (She looks off to the side as if Koharu is there) She might think we’re dumb for doing it, honestly. 

Alice: Don’t think she’d still be sticking around if she thought that.

Shinju: Heh. That’d be a sight to see. Seeing that magic exists and just goin’ nope! Right back to writing the next article. Well, my sister and I both had someone to bring back. And that’s one thing no amount of working normally will ever do for you… 

Alice: Kyubey gets people killed so other people wish them back to life… It’s a… vicious cycle, I guess. And it doesn’t end even when you make your contract.

Shinju: I’m glad we don’t have any Ruis around anymore. If she ever lost someone she’d prob’ly just bully some girl into wishing them back. If she cared about anyone. I dunno if she did. 

Alice: People’d do unspeakable things for the people they care about. Remind me to tell you about the drama with Yui’s dad at some point. (she sighs) Though… I can’t blame him too much. We’re all victims here.

Shinju: Yeah… nice that it seems like he’s not around lately. Maybe he ragequit managing this town. 

Alice: I can’t help but think Kyubey only left because it has nothing left to gain here. Mentoring new Puellae is Yui’s job now. Even if—Guess you could say it’s only a matter of time before she starts granting wishes, and… (she shakes her head) Perish the thought.

Shinju: Not unless she can fix being dead. That’s one thing the weird cat-thing has got on us… 

Alice: You do know she brought Cecilia back to life, right? One of the Artefacts we got from the Conductors. She used it to heal my shoulder, too.

Shinju: Huh?? Wait, how? Can she just do that whenever? 

Alice: The Soul Lantern can put a soul in the Dreamscape back into an empty host body, so… if you have the latter, I think you can—Then again, completely soulless bodies don’t exactly grow on trees, I guess. You can’t just take any old corpse.

Shinju: That was me for a while, so it might not be that rare… 

Alice: Well, but your soul was still out there — Not that it matters, the idea is that Yui found an available body and was able to, basically have Cecilia implanted into it. That body lost its soul naturally, but… I dunno, with Yui’s abilities she might be — no, she probably is — able to just tear the soul out of any old body if she wants it to host someone else… Hypothetically.

Shinju: (A pause) If somebody evil like those Balancers was still around, I’d say go for it, but… 

Alice: So Yui gets to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die, then?

Shinju: The Balancers all fought to the death. That decision didn’t even come into it. But no, I don’t think she does. 

Alice: I’m just kidding, of course. But still — Yui’s lost people, and there’s other people she’d rather not have around. It’s… hard not to put two and two together.

Shinju: Uh… y-you don’t think she’d really…?

Alice: I… don’t know, Shinju. That’s what scares me.

Shinju: Living in another person’s body… brr, it gives me the shivers. No thanks… 

Alice: It’s… not a comforting thought.

Shinju: But, there’s nobody around right now that she could really use for that… right? 

Alice: No… I trust her. But the thought that she could… one day, come to believe that, I dunno… “Why did Mei have to die while this person gets to live?” or “It shouldn’t be this way”, or something like that — It’s… God, I hate even thinking thoughts like these. Sorry, forget I said anything.

Shinju: Nah, you’re okay. Thanks for telling me. 

Alice: So, eh… You don’t happen to play the drums, do you?