"A secret protector! Cure Cipher!"

"Creating a new image! Cure Jigsaw!"

"Finding the true meaning! Cure Riddle!"

"Differences coming together! Cure Tangram!"

The four magical girls did their poses. "We are Precure!"

Stile sat on the roof of the house they were facing with his legs dangling over the peak. "Oh, there you are. Geez, I was wondering where I was gonna find you."

Cure Cipher stepped forward and pointed up at him. "We're the ones who have been searching for you! You've been on the news all day, just appearing in abandoned buildings and houses for sale and jumping around rooftops. What's the point of making everyone think every building in town is haunted?"

"What's the point in asking a Metamaster the point of anything? You know we're not gonna tell you." Stile rolled his eyes. "But I'll give you a freebie. It was to try and get you four out here."

"I knew it!" Riddle took a step ahead as well. "Your trap's not going to work, though. We can beat you any day!"

"Be careful, I think!" Edel called from the sidelines, hiding in a bush with Aquamarine Lollipop and Spinel Cake Pop.

Cure Riddle and Cure Cipher ran forward at the same time. One jumped before the other, aiming to lunge at Stile. They crashed into each other.

"Ngh!"

"Cipher! Riddle!" Awkwardly hanging back, Jigsaw gasped at the forward wave's collision. She reached forward and gathered light in her hand. "Precure Jigsaw Rai-"

"Precure Tangram Snap!" Tangram next to her had had the same idea. She brushed her hands together and sent a shockwave through everyone but her. Stile was knocked off the house, but he flipped forward and landed on his feet, while Jigsaw was taken out and Cipher and Riddle fell over again just as they were getting up.

"Gk!"

"Jigsaw!" Tangram paled. "Everyone! I'm, I'm sorry, really!"

Jigsaw grimaced as she dragged herself up. "It was my mistake."

Stile stretched his arms out and yawned. "Man, you guys suck. I almost feel bad for you." He turned around, plucked a silver ball out of his sleeve, and threw it at the house. "Go, Hanjir!"

The house absorbed the ball and gave off light as it twisted and grew a face. It growled and leaned forward with a roar.

"Watch o-" Cure Cipher was cut off. The house Hanjir opened its front door mouth and breathed in. A wind sucked her in, then Riddle, then Jigsaw and Tangram, tumbling into the house.

"Everyone!" The fairies ran forward to the four Precure, only to be sucked up as well. The door shut behind them.

Puzzle Hunt Precure

Episode 5: "The Red Room! Four Bond Together!"

The four of them landed with a thud on an old, itchy carpet. Cure Tangram was the first to look up at the blank, red ceiling.

"What is this place?" She kept her eyes on the ceiling as she stood up. "Are we inside a Hanjir?"

"It looks like it." Cure Riddle plucked herself up and rubbed her sore side before holding out her hands to help Jigsaw and Cipher to their feet. "Look around."

The room was small, but populated with a few things. One side of the room was just a blank wall, and the next wall was beside a plain bed. On the wall to the right of that was a draped window. The last side had a chest of drawers sitting and a combination-locked box atop it. A black door with a shiny white doorknob stood next to it.

"A room…" Cure Jigsaw bit her lip. "Do you think it's a room escape game? Those were never my favourites."

"Probably. It is a puzzle." Riddle wobbled on her thin heel before righting herself and making her way over to the chest. "Come on, everybody. Let's start looking around. Pick up anything you can find."

As the others got up, Cure Cipher looked at them all, shook her head, and sunk to sit on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

"Do you think we can?"

Tangram's ears perked up. She looked over from checking the walls. "Cipher?"

Cipher paused. "Never mind. Let's just look for things. Riddle, you said you knew this puzzle. Will anything help?"

"Anything at all, usually." Riddle pushed the curtain open and stepped back.

A glowing Hanjir face snarled at them from where the window should be.

Instinctively, Cipher sprung from the bed, lunged forward, and punched the wall's face hard enough to leave deep cracks. The room shook, Jigsaw keeping her balance, Tangram hitting the floor with her robots following, Edel rolling across the carpet, and Riddle wobbling and grabbing hold of the curtain. The tug knocked something loose from atop the curtain. It tumbled and bounced to the floor.

"Maybe you should warn us before you do that, I think…" Edel sat up, spiral-eyed and woozy.

"I'm sorry." Cure Cipher sighed and picked faer up. "I wanted to weaken the Hanjir to help get us out."

"I." Tangram gulped and sat up, not looking at Cipher, though Aquamarine Lollipop was doing a good job of that already while Tangram reached for Spinel Cake Pop to pet. "I don't, um, I don't do well with surprises, really, or sudden changes, so, if it's okay, um, please - please warn me first. I'm sorry, that's probably a bad quality in a Precure."

Cipher's face fell. She looked at Tangram out of habit, but turned her eyes away when Tangram flinched. Right. Chika wasn't good with eye contact, either. Cipher shook her head.

"It's okay. I'm not exactly the best Precure out there. I can't judge anyone."

Edel blinked. "But aren't Queen Bianca's Precure the best, I think? You defended our land much better than the rumours I heard about other lands, I think…"

"Part of that was propaganda," Cipher admitted. "That we were the best, I mean. People said that so our country would look better and Queen Bianca would be safe. We were good, probably, but… Miu carried the team. Even the Metamasters knew that. You've seen me. All I was ever good for was fighting."

Cure Jigsaw frowned. "I guess we haven't worked together all that well all the time, but we've made it this far, haven't we?"

"Look," Tangram said.

The others stopped. Cure Tangram crawled over to the fallen item, picked it up, and stood up to hold it up. A small, curved piece of some shiny, plastic-like material, cutting off at the edges with a groove on one side and a protrusion on the other.

"It fell off the curtain bar when Cipher and Riddle knocked it loose." She kept her eyes focused on it. "Um, everyone. Is this what we should be looking for?"

"Item shows material similarities to supernatural items, with comparison to footage of Hanjir, Pre-Cubes and contents, and rings appearing throughout Metamaster uniform," Spinel Cake Pop offered."

"That's our lead!" Riddle clasped Tangram's hands and sparkled. Tangram turned bright red. So, a few paces back, did Jigsaw. Riddle let go and coughed. "Sorry."

Jigsaw blinked a few times and then giggled.

"All right! Let's look for more things like that!" She started shaking out the bedsheets.

Cipher breathed in and out. Finally, she nodded and moved to look behind the chest of drawers.

Tangram hugged her robot fairies. With a shiver, she quickly shut the curtain on the Hanjir face staring at her.

"That's going to unnerve me for a week."

There was a piece under the pillow and another one inside the pillowcase, one wedged behind the drawers, one under the bed, and one balancing atop the light fixture on the ceiling. When the Precure snapped them all together, the puzzle made a ring shape before glowing and morphing into a small white Clue Key. It dropped to the carpet.

"It's like a miniature Hanjir, but inert rather than animate and hostile." Cure Tangram knelt and picked up the key, turning it around in her gloved hands. She shuddered a little and Aquamarine Lollipop went to snuggle her.

"A Hanjir inside a Hanjir?" Riddle's eyes lit up. "This raises so many more questions! If we learn how they work, that could expose all kinds of things about the Metamasters! Right, Cipher?"

Cipher pulled out a large key ring filled with black and white regular-sized Clue Keys. There must have been almost thirty. Eyes fixed on it, she nodded.

"We don't even know what the Clue Keys really do. All we do is collect them after we beat a Hanjir, and we only have the Metamasters' word that they're important. Do you have any idea why that one's smaller than the other ones?"

"Probably because it wasn't really a Hanjir, right?" Riddle asked.

"Wait," Cure Jigsaw cut in. All eyes went on the pink Cure as she continued. "Do you think it fits the door?"

"We could try." Riddle got up and walked over to the door. After fiddling and jamming with the key, she turned back and shook her head. "No. Is there anything else it could fit into?"

"The drawers, I think," Edel suggested. "I tried opening them and one was locked, so that might be it, I think!"

"Perfect, Edel!" Riddle beamed, sparkles coming off her.

"That's her mystery face," Jigsaw giggled. "Hideko-chan - ah, Riddle. Could you try opening it, since you've got the key?"

"Absolutely!" Riddle crossed over to the dresser and knelt down. She slid the key easily into the lock and turned it. Right then, both lock and key disappeared in light. The drawer popped open.

All four Precure gathered around the open drawer. Inside lay nothing but a small, black bound book. The top corner of a grainy photograph stuck out from between the pages. All four Precure immediately reached for it. As soon as their hands collided and brushed together, they stopped, looked at each other, and pulled back.

"Ah…" Jigsaw took a deep breath and smiled at everyone. "I guess we still need to work on that, don't we?"

Tangram, who had shrunk back into herself, relaxed and nodded.

"The book does look fascinating…" Riddle clasped her hands together. "I bet it's got all the Metamasters' secrets! The purpose of the Clue Keys! Who their leader really is! You said she always wears a mask, right, Cipher?"

"She does," Cipher said. "A mask, gloves, a long dress. You can't even hear her voice clearly. It's like Cryptalla's hiding something. Or she wants to be as much of a puzzle as the Hanjir are."

"Why don't you open the book, Cipher?" Jigsaw asked. "You're our leader."

"Leader?" A slight blush darkened Cipher's face. "I'm just-"

"You're a good leader, I think," Edel said. "You've helped everyone, I think."

Cipher took a deep breath. She reached in alone this time and pulled out the book. With the others crowding around to look, she pulled out the photo first.

Aged-looking (or maybe that was how photography was in their world), the photo depicted a beautiful woman with dark skin, high-piled hair, and dangling black earrings, wearing a sweeping black gown and a shiny circlet that spiked out like the queen chess piece. She was smiling slightly and flanked by two men, one on each side. Further back, the grains on the photograph such that their faces couldn't be made out, were a tall young woman in blue and a girl more the four Precure's age in green.

"Wow!" Riddle nearly squealed. "This is huge! Who's that woman in the centre? I'll bet she's important!"

Cipher studied the photo. "I've only seen her once, but I think that's Queen Shyama. She visited Queen Bianca a few weeks before I ended up in your world. Those two beside her must be her consorts."

"She's married to two people?" Jigsaw tilted her head. "That's not too common, is it?"

"It's not?" Cipher blinked. "It happens all the time in the Eight Queens' Lands."

"Those two in the background must be her Precure. Did you meet them?" Tangram pointed at the photo.

"I didn't get to meet them, no," Cipher said. "They must have been either where the queen was staying or busy protecting their land. The meeting was supposed to negotiate giving the three Pre-Cubes to Queen Shyama. She's been right on the front lines of the Metamaster invasion, so she needed reinforcements."

"And instead, we got them," Riddle mused.

"The implications are provoking a little trepidation, aren't they?" Tangram looked at her robot fairies and then nearby Cipher, avoiding her eyes.

"...Yes." Cipher sighed. "The negotiations a few weeks later were attacked by Cryptalla before anyone but us could get there. So I didn't seen Queen Shyama and her Precure there, either. I barely saw the queen herself the first time. The actual meeting was so secretive that it was just Queen Shyama and Queen Bianca."

An awkward pause followed. Finally, Cure Riddle leaned in. "What else is in the book?"

Cipher leafed through it. "Well, there's a map on this page… Is it this house?"

The others looked. It was a mazelike structure, and as Cipher paged forward, more floors appeared - there must have been at least four or five, each covered by multiple pages.

"I don't really think so," Tangram said. She blushed and shrank back a little. "I mean, ah, multiple-room escape games do exist, some of them are almost legendary, at least that's what I've heard, but on the other hand, if he turned the whole house into a maze and wanted us to solve that, then why have we been in this room so long? I think the room itself is the only puzzle."

"Supporting Chika-chan's hypothesis, for a trap of that scale, a map wouldn't be provided in the first room," Spinel Cake Pop added.

"I didn't say that part?" Tangram fidgeted and petted Spinel Cake Pop. "Thank you, Spinel-chan."

Jigsaw smiled. "Then that must be important in some other way. It's a clue, so we should keep it! Do any of you have any ideas?"

"It looks like a castle… Maybe it's Cryptalla's lair!" Riddle pulled her own notebook and pen out of nowhere and scribbled ideas down furiously. Tangram's robots started recording them and projected ever-growing holographic text displays.

"What's on the next page, I think?" Edel asked.

Cipher wondered, not for the first time, how faer sentence ender was meant to work with a question, but she turned the page. The next page wasn't a map or a wedged-in photo. All there was on the page consisted of a few lines of handwritten text.

We were already here.

You need us.

Eight Queens and Precure,

your enemy is yourselves.

"That… sounds startlingly ominous," Tangram said.

"What does it even mean?" Jigsaw asked. "How do we need the Metamasters?"

Riddle wrote furiously. "I don't know, but let's think! We've got a photo of a queen and her detail, a bunch of maps that are probably where the Metamasters are based out of, and then this warning. All of it must be tied together. Everything probably goes back to the Metamasters' base!"

"But then Queen Shyama's in this book because…" Cipher went silent.

"Huh?" Riddle and Tangram said.

Jigsaw paled. "Oh, no." She reached over and laid a hand on Cipher's shoulder. "She and her Precure must have been defeated and captured, right?"

Slowly, Cipher breathed in and nodded. "That has to be it. It's been so long since Edel and I ended up in your world. Queen Shyama never got her Pre-Cubes. Queen Bianca has no Precure at all now, and Miu, who even knows where she's gone?"

"Cipher…"

"Don't worry."

Everyone looked at Riddle. She shut her notebook and gave an emphatic nod.

"They might be captives in the Metamasters' castle, and I agree that we need to follow that lead. It's the best one we have. But we're Precure. I know you said - we all said, actually, that we aren't very good Precure. Even if we're not, though, we're still uncovering information, we're solving Hanjir, and we're beating back the Metamasters every time they show up. I'd stake my honour as a future detective that we're going to solve everything!"

Cipher gripped the edges of the book more tightly. "But it's like we all said earlier. We don't even know how to work together. You three are new, and I only ever stuck to the fighting while Miu solved the puzzles. We're lucky we've lasted this long."

Tangram clapped her hands together once, like she was using Tangram Snap. The other three, plus fairies (real and constructed), looked at her.

"That just means we need to understand each other," she said.

"Understand?" Cipher's eyebrows raised.

"I'm not very good at understanding other people," Tangram continued, "and they're not very good at understanding me, so it's sort of a mire of mutual disadvantage. But throughout history, at least with scarce collected interviews with witnesses and recordings of mid-battle speeches, something has been a constant that's also reflected in our own unexampled Precure team, and, um, that's that the relationships are strong. Precure who are close friends, who are siblings, who are in love, they all seem to be very common from expert studies and the honest words we get."

Right. The day they arrived at Queen Bianca's castle, when they were walking down to the courtyard. Rei could remember her sister smiling at her, their fairy assuring them.

"Precure who fit together work best," Nono had said.

Precure who fit together.

Cipher blinked. "You're right. That is common, at least in the Eight Queens' Lands. I didn't know any other Precure personally, but from what I heard, other queens' Precure were usually closely related like that. Queen Shyama's apparently didn't get along, but even they were cousins or something, I heard once."

"Really?" Tangram brightened. "So that's true! What we need to do is try to understand how we work together!"

Riddle nodded. "I like all of you. Jigsaw, you're my best friend. You and Cipher are living together and I guess you and Tangram are sort of a thing?"

Jigsaw tilted her head. "Sort of? I thought we were a thing."

Tangram blinked. "There's such a thing as 'sort of' a thing?"

"Societal restraints on expression of emotion produce unnecessary hurdles and classifications," Aquamarine Lollipop helpfully offered.

Jigsaw giggled. "Big words and that kind of view - I know for sure that Chika programmed you!"

Tangram's face heated up. "That's the first time you haven't called me Senri-san or Tangram."

Riddle smiled and put her hand on Cipher's other shoulder, the one that Jigsaw didn't have her own hand on. "See? We all like each other. And if we start getting into a comfortable pattern, we'll do better and not crash into each other anymore. We're all good at different things, right? Just like you and your sister!"

Cipher thought. "I'm good at fighting, and so are all of you, but your moves and styles are all different. I have the experience of a Precure and I know what the Eight Queens' Lands were like. Jigsaw is really smart and can solve puzzles with everything in front of her, Riddle is good with uncovering things you don't see right off, and Tangram comes in when we're stuck and gives a perspective we never thought of. Does that make sense?"

"That sounds perfect, I think!" Edel offered. "It's what I think whenever I see you all, I think!"

Slowly, Cipher shut the book. She looked at everyone.

"I miss my sister. I miss being Puzzle Hunt Precure with her. I miss home and everything about it, the way we got around town, the bakeries with cinnamon pastries in the shape of Queen Bianca's seal, the clothes that looked more familiar. Coming to your world was like going to a different time. But… I like this world, too. And I like you. You've all been so nice when everyone else was avoiding me. Even Emi's family took me in and let me stay with them and work in their shop.

Jigsaw smiled. "It might be scary, but we can work this out if we think about it. I might not know what I want to do with my life, and that scares me, but I know we need to do this. Fight the Metamasters, solve the puzzles, get to the bottom of the mystery, and do it all together. That fits all of us perfectly!"

"Count me in for sure!" Riddle gave a V-sign. "This whole mystery is exactly my thing, and more importantly, I want to help. It's the right thing to do for all of you and everyone else."

Tangram hesitated and moved over behind Cipher to be closer to the circle instead of on the outside. "I… ah, I have a lot of trouble understanding people or getting them to understand me, and I'm sort of shy. But I know we can all do this, so if everyone else will try, so will I."

Edel hopped into Cipher's lap and snuggled her. "I believe in everyone, I think!"

"Analysis uncovers high likelihood of success," Aquamarine Lollipop said.

"You are all Precure, and you'll do well!" Spinel Cake Pop added.

Cipher hesitated. She pocketed the book and turned her head up and around to see everyone.

"You're all right. We can do this. Maybe… we can even live up to the name of Queen Bianca's Precure again."

"That's great!" Riddle and Jigsaw hugged her at once. Tangram blinked and held back a second, her robots nodded in their direction, and she hugged the group as well.

"Now we just need to get out of here…" Jigsaw paused. "Hey, what's that back there?"

Riddle squinted and looked forward. "Huh? Behind the drawer? There's something written back there. It's probably another clue!"

"I'll pull out the drawer," Cipher said. "Is that okay?"

The others gave nods and hums of agreement, let go of her, and stood up a few paces away. Tangram backed up furthest and covered her ears.

Cipher put one hand on top of the drawer chest and, with the strength of a Precure, flung out the drawer. It flew across the room and embedded itself into the empty wall with a crack and crumble. The Hanjir bellowed from behind the curtain at the next wall over.

"That still disturbs me!" Tangram squeaked.

"We'll be out soon," Jigsaw reassured her. "Cipher, what does it say?"

Cipher stuck her head into the empty space to read. "It's a code," she called back. "2-5-2-2-5. Five digits. Does that fit the box on top of this thing?"

Spinel Cake Pop flew over to the box. "Room for five digits," it chirped. "Enter code?"

Cure Tangram took a deep breath. "...Try it, Cake-chan!"

"Affirmative." Following its master, the little robot fairy put in the combination. As Cipher pulled her head out of the empty dresser drawer slot, the lock box popped open. Inside was a small black Clue Key, just like the white one they'd unlocked the drawer with.

"I hope that's the end of it," Riddle said. "A lot of room-escape games have really long chains of puzzles."

"Let's try it." Jigsaw reached her hand out. "We never know until we try, right?"

Cipher picked up the key and handed it to her. "Let's get out of here."

They approached the door.

Stile groaned.

The Precure had been in there forever. How long was this going to take? No way that one was too hard for them. Sure, maybe he'd been a little harsh by giving them a thinking-heavy, battle-light puzzle when Cure Lock was still laid up in bed in their castle behind Lady Cryptalla's back, but Cure Cipher had three partners now. Besides, this was an easy game. He remembered playing seek-and-find games all the time, back in the day. Surely the people in Queen Bianca's land and whatever this weird, freezing cold world was played them too.

(Okay, maybe he was being unfair to call it freezing cold when the frost was gone and buds were starting to appear on the trees, but come on. He'd never even seen frost before. He had no idea how Tetya and Cubia managed not to come back as ice cubes whenever they'd fought the Precure.)

Still, floating around got boring, and he could only bounce a ball off a paddle for so long. It was worse than the news reporters showed up. He'd had to chase them off with a Hanjir, but he felt bad just endangering them without anyone to protect them, so he just had the house run around in a circle until they backed off. He was still pretty sure that flying drone in the air that appeared afterwards was some kind of news camera, but he felt too lazy to do anything but make faces at it every so often.

"Geez," he muttered to himself. "What's Lady Cryptalla even thinking, sending us here? I thought she wanted the Pre-Cubes out of the way, not to send us trying to attack some other world. And then she says we're invading? That's got nothing to do with what we're supposed to be doing in the Eight Queens' Lands. The first plan was better. Then we'd at least have more people."

Just as he said that, the Hanjir glowed.

"Now what?" Stile's head popped up.

The door opened. Out launched four Precure, one real fairy, two robotic health companion fairy simulacra, and a thrown dresser drawer.

"Whoa!" Stile barely dodged the drawer and moved right into the path of a punch from Cipher that winded him. He dropped to the ground and gasped for breath.

"Let's go, everybody!" Cipher called out. She hid half her face and then swept her arm out. "A secret protector! Cure Cipher!"

"Creating a new image! Cure Jigsaw!"

"Finding the true meaning! Cure Riddle!"

"Differences coming together! Cure Tangram!"

Stile got up to his feet. "You got out?"

The four Precure posed in unison, light flashing behind them.

"Bringing your problem to its solution! Puzzle Hunt Precure!"

The Hanjir roared. The four Precure stared it down.

"Let's go!" Cipher turned her head to her purple-haired pink compatriot. "Jigsaw, contain it!"

"Okay!" Jigsaw's hair blew out dramatically as she reached out and created light in her hand. "Precure Jigsaw Rainbow!"

The light became a rainbow chain and wrapped around the house. Jigsaw dug in her heels and held on as it strained.

"Go! Riddle!" she called.

Riddle ran up to the house and did a front flip, kicking it to land. As the house staggered, she bounced off it and twirled in the air, the wind picking up around her.

"Precure Riddle Twist!"

A wind ring moved from around her and whipped around the Hanjir, wobbling it around as Jigsaw kept hold of the chain. The Hanjir staggered and slowed.

"We've got it in one place!" Riddle said. "Tangram, you're up!"

"Wha- me?" Tangram shook off the startle and sprung from the ground up into the air. She landed square on the rooftop, not even dislodging her circlet, and clapped her hands together enough to brush them past each other.

"Precure Tangram Snap!"

The resulting shockwave shook the house to its core. The face contorted and groaned as it started to crumble and glow.

Tangram leapt off the roof and grabbed the edge of the house, slamming the whole trapped Hanjir to the ground just as Jigsaw let her chain go.

"Cipher!"

Cipher shot out her hands. They were surrounded with rings of light displaying old writing.

"Precure Cipher Encrypt!"

The rings of light siphoned into beams that shot from her hands. They impacted the Hanjir right in its face. It made one last growl before becoming enveloped in light and shrinking until it popped into nothing. The original house appeared in its place and a full-sized white Clue Key floated down into Cure Cipher's hand.

She grabbed it and turned back to Stile with blue flames in her eyes.

"Whoa. Uh." Stile backed away. "That was kind of overkill. I guess you got out?"

"Don't give me that!" Cipher said. "You're our enemy, aren't you?"

"Technically, but…"

"Technically again?" Riddle took a few steps forward to join her. "You're hiding something. All of you are."

Just like that, Stile's smirk came back. "We've always been hiding something. Hold us off, get your Clue Keys, and maybe you'll find out what!"

"Are you afraid to say it?" Tangram stepped in.

"What?" Stile made a face. "Afraid? This is how things are! It's a way better alternative than just sitting there waiting for someone to move! Back then, everyone was afraid!"

Jigsaw closed the circle. "Back when?"

Stile's eyes just widened.

Cipher stared him on. "Be completely honest for once instead of hiding behind monsters and teasing hints you don't expect us to get. Tell me! Where are you keeping Queen Bianca?"

"What?" His voice cracked in surprise. "Queen Bianca?"

"Stile!"

All heads turned to a dark portal in the sky. Tetya tumbled out and dropped to the ground, her green buckled Mary Janes clicking on the pavement.

"Tetya!" Stile wiped his forehead. "What's going on?"

"It's a total emergency!" Tetya waved her arms around. "Cubia's back from her mission in Queen Gri's land, we have another big meeting in fifteen minutes, and you-know-who is gone!"

"You-know-who?" Riddle's mind was already filling with hypotheses.

"Ugh, obviously you Precure wouldn't get it!" Tetya marched over and grabbed Stile's arm. "Come on! Cure Sticky Note or Cure Hornet or Cure Daisy or whoever just disappeared from her room, and if Lady Cryptalla finds out about her, we're so dead!"

Stile's face went grey. He quickly looked at the Precure's stunned and thinking faces, grimaced, and ran for the portal before any of them could move.

"Hey, wait!" Tetya ran after. "We don't even know where Cure Chip-At-The-Bottom-Of-The-Bag went!"

The four Cures ran after, but the portal closed before any of them could reach it.

"Ugh!" Cipher bit back more and clenched her fist. She started to shake.

"We were close…" Jigsaw started to reach a hand out.

Cipher deflated, her rage draining out. She detransformed and sunk to the pavement.

"We were almost there."

The other three looked at each other, detransformed, and kneeled beside her again.

"We'll find her," Emi said. "And your sister. Just like we all agreed."

"We're a lot closer now than we were before!" Hideko gave a bright smile. "If we keep going like this, they definitely won't pass us by next time!"

"And we defeated the Hanjir, we know the Clue Keys are important to whatever they're hiding from us, and we know a lot more about what we have yet to find out," Chika added.

Rei sniffled and rubbed her eyes. "I guess. ...I just miss Miu. She was always there and always knew what to do. And Queen Bianca was so closed off. She never really opened up to anyone, even us. It's probably because the Eight Queens' Lands were so tense."

The others were silent for a minute. Slowly, cautiously, they all leaned into Rei and one another.

"...Thank you." Rei sighed. "You're all great. I don't know what I'd do without any of you."

"We're here for you," Chika offered. "No matter what!"

"You're important to us," Emi added.

"And we're going to help!" Hideko finished. "We've done a lot today. Why don't we rest? I'm getting pretty hungry, and the Arrow Ring should still be open!"

Edel clapped. "I'd like some food, too, please, I think!"

Rei breathed in the warming spring air. She found her feet and pushed herself up to stand.

"All right. It's going to be better from here."

As they walked away, the news drone from earlier flew off back to the station.

Edel: Now it's time for…

Everyone: Puzzle Hunt Comment Corner! (Edel: I think.)

Tetya: I can't believe we just LOST a Precure who's been unconscious for ages!

Stile: You were the one watching her…

Rei: We promised team-building this episode, and that ended up being most of what we did.

Hideko: On top of that, we learned a lot about the mystery! Though it's not exactly coming together yet.

Chika: Maybe the readers can figure out which parts don't fit to see the right way to look at the solution!

Emi: See you all next time!