Chapter 2:( Quest of Hololive )

Tik tok, the clock spun faster. Ame disappeared in front of Bae and Okayu as she warped through the timeline, transporting herself back to the same spot near the city, and under the same exact sakura tree, the only difference being that Ame is now 2 years ago from present time. She checked her pocket watch and put it back into her pocket. She has an hour before the performance starts, the idols left 30 minutes ago, which means the Ame 2 years ago should be arriving at the stadium with the other idols and A-chan heading towards the stage and getting ready to perform. As Ame recalls, Bae said that Calli wished to be left behind with Yagoo. Yagoo had planned a party to celebrate their 5th year anniversary, so he was making some last minute calls for food and drinks. If anything happens or if things don't go well, Ame can convince past Calli to team up with her to face the mysterious killer.

She walked into the city and called a taxi, telling the taxi driver that she wants to go to Hololive Productions. Hololive fans bought merchs and cosplayed of all the Hololive members and was parading on the streets, since the entire stadium was booked so quickly, the big screens on the malls and tvs in almost every shop has been given the permission to play the live stream of the performance. The taxi drove through all the crowds and eventually had to make a stop near the Productions because too many people were trying to congratulate the Hololive Productions, and also the taxi driver wants to go home quickly so he can celebrate the anniversary as well.

Ame payed the taxi driver and got off, looking around at all the Hololive fans, she can even spot a lot of her own fans among the crowds. She sighed, maybe this is the problem with being too famous, Ame was always bound to the tight schedule and she has only met her fans through streams, not in person. Maybe she should tell Yagoo to organize an in person meeting with the Hololive fans, to meet their warm and cheerful fans first hand.

"Damn that's one detailed Ame cosplay I gotta say, well done," said one of the Japanese citizens passing by, he was cosplaying Ame. "Your craftsmanship is so good, what the heck, I bought mine from the Hololive merch store."

"Uhhh thanks," replied Ame. "Your cosplay looks good too.."

"You also sound like her, my god how much have you practiced. I am a guy, by the way, had to fit all those stuff in it to make it look boing boi-"

"Yeah I know," said Ame, disgusted. On second thought, maybe she doesn't want to meet them first hand anymore. "I know..."

"Are you a guy also, huh? No need to hide it fro-"

"You know what, just tell me which way the Hololive Productions is and then shut it."

"Uh right around that corner and you'll see it, love your craftsmanship," said the Ame cosplayer and he left with the crowd. She followed the directions he pointed out and arrived at the place where she once called home. A warm feeling swayed over her and she felt safe. It felt like it was only yesterday when she came into the office to do some last minute practices for the performance 2 years ago, the only thing is that for her, it was yesterday. I can save Hololive, she said to herself, and she went in. Everyone left the building already for the performance, so the only people who are in this building should only be Yagoo, Calli, and the killer. The first thing she should go check is Yagoo's office, she took the stairs to the top floor, and along the hallway, the rooms were knocked down and it was clear a battle happened before Ame got here, but it was before the explosion. Ame immediately took out her time watch and stopped the time.

She walked through the broken hallway, wooden floors torn, walls were scratched, some were cut through and you can see the room behind it. Traces of dark magic spread across the hallway, mild flames burning proving the clash of dark magic happened not too long ago. She kept walking towards Yagoo's office at the end of the hallway as everything was in silence, the time stopped and so was the parade. The Hololive idols in this timeline should be at the stadium now, Ame and Kronii from this timeline should be wondering why did the time stopped, but it will all be over once she stops the killer. At the end of the hallway, Yagoo's office door was blasted open as Ame tripped over something as she entered the room. She immediately looked back and screamed in terror, the thing she tripped over was Calli's body. Calli only has a part of her body left, regenerating but slowly, her scythe was stuck on the wall beside. Ame crawled over to Calli checking if she's still alive before turning back what's in the room, and screamed again. Luckily, Ame managed to stop the time right before the killer used the huge dark magic that blew off the top of the building. The killer was huge, he held Yagoo up in the air by choking Yagoo.

She can't fight with a hostage held in the grasp of the enemy's hand. She thought about reversing time to an hour ago, so that she can have all the idols here to fight against the killer, but considering they were about to perform, injuries aren't the best thing to live with. She pointed her pocket watch towards the killer and tried to reverse the time to 45 minutes ago, to where the idols just got on to the bus, so she and Calli can fight this killer together. She double clicked and then....

A dark magic beam shot towards Ame's hands and the pocket watch flew from her grasp as she whined in pain.

"Yeah no, I cannot allow you to do that," said the killer as the killer threw Yagoo on the ground. "I'll deal with you later."

"This, this is impossible," Ame panted. "I stopped the time, you weren't supposed to move without allowing time to give your body to move."

"There are beings who live above time, my dear Ame. And judging by your dirty detective clothes, I'd say you are not from this timeline."

"I came from two years later, and I'm here to stop you from destroying Hololive."

"So much details given in so little time, I see my plan exceeds my expectations, although I anticipated a few years longer. 2 years time you say? I shall make a note for myself to start hunting you idols again after all the wonderful chaos you caused within those two years time."

"Why did you want to destroy Hololive??" yelled Ame.

"Because of Calli, my dear Ame. She has grown weak after joining this pathetic group. I originally planned to kill Yagoo right now, until you and my dear Calli interrupted me, but now I know I must kill all of them in order for Calli to start taking her duties seriously, starting with you."

"Who are you," Ame asked as she slowly reached for her pocket watch, pretending to whine in pain in her hands.

"I see that you are trying to distract me, but it doesn't matter. I am the Death itself, and revealing myself to you means your soul will be harvested soon enough. I do see that you are reaching for your pocket watch and may I ask, what are you planning to do with it, when you know that I'm beyond time, that I am Death?"

Ame quickly grabbed her watch, double tapped the surface of the watch and yelled: 'Reverse'! While Death sends a death beam towards the watch. The collision created an explosion as the whole office was destroyed. Death screamed in pain as the explosion that was infused by its own dark magic harmed it, Death quickly opened a portal and escaped back to the Soul Realm. This time, not only the top of the building was destroyed, but the entire floor of the building was destroyed. Calli's body flew out and fell onto the ground while Ame and Yagoo was blown to pieces.

…

"Okayu-senpai, it has been 5 minutes since Ame warped, when do you think we can go back to being idols?"

"I don't know Bae-chan. Logically, if she succeeded in stopping the killer, the change should occur the second she left."

"So does that mean she failed?! Oh ma god, is she… gone?"

"No, that wouldn't make sense, if she failed, the her that was supposed to be in that timeline is not harmed, therefore she did the same thing, which leads to what we were doing 5 minutes ago, which means she should be around here somewhere," explained Okayu.

"But if she continued the same path, doesn't that mean that she will also be here 5 minutes ago, telling us that she's gonna warp? Like right after she warped, the second her should appear the moment the first Ame left," said Bae.

"Or, maybe the first Ame that went back and changed something that made the second Ame aware of something, which stopped her from warping, 5 minutes ago."

Okayu and Bae turned around and saw Ame, then they rushed over to hug her.

"We thought we lost you," said Bae, her eyes watering.

"Wait, what do you mean? I literally just told you that I'm gonna take a nap, I thought we agreed to do the time leap tomorrow, I am not doing this with a barely sober mind." 

"But, you just left, 5 minutes ago, when did you come back?" asked Okayu.

"I never left…. Wait, are you telling me that I am the result of a time heist through our surface timeline of what the previous me did???"

"English Ame, english," said Bae. "And apparently Japanese."

"Ok so, you said that the Ame you know left 5 minutes ago, but the me right now never left, therefore the Ame that left 5 minutes ago should've done something 2 years ago in order to change and wipe out this timeline," Ame explained. "To be honest, I noticed time froze before we went to our locker room to change into our performance clothes, the moment the time stopped freezing, everyone including me started becoming, well, savage. Oh my god Bae, check the news of the explosion in Hololive and tell me if there is anything different."

Bae reached for her phone and searched up the news on the Hololive accident again. The first result remains the same, the government's cover up of a misfire that caused a chain of explosions, but this time, it's not just the top corner of Yagoo's office, but the entire floor. Bae told Ame the difference and then went into a deep thought, trying to piece together their next move.

"Ok so we left an hour before the performance started and assuming that she went by the time just before the explosion, let's assume it was 30 minutes before the performance. Some of the websites showed that the first explosion occurred 20 minutes before the big one," Ame analyzed. "Therefore whatever we are dealing with is strong enough to kill both me and Calli, and I doubt that the killer has shown their true powers yet. So if we are going back there a second time, we need to be there the moment our past self left and with a bigger army."

"Let's go get all the idols!!" Bae yelled.

"But can we get some onigiri first, I'm hungry," Okayu asked and they all agreed. It is hard to tell if they have had a proper meal within those two years. They went into a convenience store and there was a long line. Most of the customers are high school students, and they weren't even buying anything. Bae, Ame and Okayu both took some food to their choices and went to the back of the line. The people in front of them, both boys and girls were flirting with the cashier of the convenience store, until the cashier said:

"Guys, you are blocking my actual customers," said the cashier as Ame, Bae and Okayu moved past the crowd surrounding the cashier. "Haachama-chama~!!! What do you want to buy today?"

"Hachama-chan?!" exclaimed Okayu.

"That's right!!" Haachama as she scanned the foods. Bae took out her wallet to pay for the food. 

"So when do you get off?" Okayu asked while Haachama counted Bae's cash.

"Umm, I get off in like an hour, I have the morning shift you see," said Haachama as she put the food in a plastic bag and handed it to Bae.

"We can wait," said Ame as she continued to wander around the shop. The group of students were murmuring and gossiping about something. Ame caught a few words like 'idols', 'news' and 'dangerous' as she pretends to be interested in the products near them. 

"We should probably call the police," whispered a girl as the boy next to her took out his phone. Ame made eye contact with Bae and Okayu, then at the exact same moment, Bae commanded some mice to block out the security cameras, Okayu dashed and knocked out the group of students, while Ame took out her pocket watch and timed Haachama's mind into the future. Haachama's ribbons and dresses faded as she reverted back to Akai Haato. Her powers exhausted, Haato collapsed onto the floor and fainted. Okayu hid the fainted students in the blind spots of the camera and Ame dragged Haato out of the store and back under the sakura tree from before. The rats disbanded as Bae and Okayu followed closely behind Ame. Haato woke up after Ame, Bae and Okayu finished their lunch.

"I… feel faint. Like I just hit my head with something. What happened?" asked Haato.

"Well technically, you did hit yourself in the head when you fell onto the floor," said Bae and they filled her in. Haachama has taken over Haato's body for the last two years, the overuse of the power took a heavy toll on Haato's body and now she's too exhausted to move.

"We should discuss our next move now," said Ame.

"Well it is useless for us to split up right? The only way for us to revert the idols back to normal is for you to use your clock," said Bae.

"Hmm that's true, but I'm not the only one with time powers," said Ame.

"You're saying Kronii-chan is also conscious now?" asked Haato.

"So are we gonna go find Kronii now?" Okayu asked. "But Ame, didn't you say that you woke up by excessively drinking alcohol?" 

"Oh yeah what a great idea, let's clunk down gallons of alcohol into their throats while they are trying to kill us!!" said Bae sarcastically.

"I don't think that's the case, when I tried to fast forward Haato-senpai's mind, my pocket watch didn't exactly work. Which means I didn't fast forward anything, nor did I push time through Haato-senpai, she just coincidentally collapsed the moment I pointed my watch at her," Ame explained. "So alternately, you don't need to push time through someone to calm them down, maybe wear down our powers or do something that can trigger our inner selves from our chaos selves, or damage our brain in some way."

"So let's split into two teams," suggested Okayu. "That way we can progress faster."

"How about we split into EN and JP?" suggested Bae. 

"That's a great idea," Haato began. "Ame-chan, can you fast forward my rest time so I can get up immediately?"

"Yeah about that, I forgot to tell you guys, if I fast forwarded your mind or your body, that means I'm pushing time through you, which means you will age," said Ame.

"It doesn't matter," said Haato.

"Why?"

"Because it won't matter once we fix this right? Everything will just be like 2 years ago, and we can go on performing without any memory of this horrible event."

"Ok then," replied Ame as she took out her pocket watch and fast forwarded Haato's body and exhaustion slowly faded away from her body, then Haato was back on her feet.

"Ok so our main goal right now is to find Kronii and to find , but just in case, we also need to save other idols who are not yet back to their consciousness," Ame continued as she took out the phone to check the news. "According to the news, the closest one to us is… hmmmm. Natsuiro Matsuri-senpai in the nearby Tokyo High School and uhhh Moona Hoshinova in Tokyo's top new idols TV show."

"The school and the radio station are on the opposite sides of the city," said Haato. "Me and Okayu will go get Matsuri-chan."

"Ok, then me and Ame-senpai will go to Tokyo Tv Radio Station then," said Bae.

"Let's meet back here at the end of the day," said Ame. "Good luck everyone."

"Good luck girls!!" The rest of them cheered and they went separate ways back into Tokyo city.