Chapter 127: Sparkle, Your Butt Doesn't Hurt. It's on a Tree.
March 7th looked down at the bound Sparkle, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Who said little March wasn't a prankster at heart? See? A single, well-aimed sentence was all it took to shatter Sparkle's composure.
"Lies don't hurt," March chirped. "The truth is the sharpest blade."
Sparkle's playful mask twitched. How utterly, infuriatingly annoying.
"Next," Rekka announced, stepping forward, "I'm going to let you experience the official punishment of the Astral Express."
"Oh?" Sparkle's eyebrow arched in amusement. "And how, pray tell, are you going to punish me?"
"Come on, Rozaliya, Liliya! Hold her down!"
With a wave of Rekka's hand, his two most loyal subordinates sprang into action. Twin tails of shimmering energy, one from each of the sisters, lashed out and wrapped around Sparkle, binding her as securely as any enchanted rope.
Rekka then casually reached down and, with a soft pop, detached Sparkle's head from her neck.
"Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?!"
Sparkle's head was promptly passed into Stelle's waiting hands. The gray-haired Trailblazer held the head aloft, the corners of her mouth slowly, menacingly, curling into a grin.
Sparkle's disembodied face stared back. 'Oops,'she thought.'Did I take this a bit too far?'She was now in a state reminiscent of the infamous Retsu Kaioh memes, a living torso bereft of its limbs. All five of her extremities—her arms, her legs, and her head—had been fitted with the Directional Spatial Displacement Rings Rekka had fabricated earlier. He'd made quite a few of the handy little gadgets, and the resulting sight was… surreal.'The Forbidden One… Sealed Exodia…'Rekka mused internally, a faint smile on his lips.'Retsu! Retsu! Retsu! How tragic.'
As if that wasn't bizarre enough, Stelle decided it wasn't quite fun enough yet. She fitted two more rings to Sparkle's feet and detached them as well.
"Look, Rekka." Stelle held up Sparkle's two disembodied feet and presented them to him as if she were a food blogger showcasing a prize-winning dish.
"Move them away, move them away!" Rekka waved a hand dismissively. "I can smell the foot sweat from here."
"You invaded the Astral Express without permission," Stelle declared, still holding the feet. "We have every right to punish you!"
"Oh my~" Sparkle's voice drifted from the head in Stelle's other hand. "Fine, then. Punish me. I'm dying to see what you'll do. You should know, I'm not afraid of being tickled on the soles of my feet or in my armpits."
A challenging smile played on her lips.
"What about your other ticklish spots?" Stelle, not believing a word, reached out and began to tickle the waist and neck of Sparkle's torso, which was still lying on the floor.
Sparkle didn't even flinch. Instead, she let out a theatrical yawn.
Stelle's fingers froze. She looked down at the small face on the table, its expression now one of pure, unadulterated boredom. A strange sense of frustration began to bubble up inside her. She turned to Rekka, her eyes pleading for help.
"She's not ticklish! What do I do?"
Gazing at Sparkle's smug expression, Rekka spoke slowly. "Then take her feet and her head to your bathroom."
"Wash her feet?" Stelle balked. "What kind of punishment is that? That's just serving her!"
Rekka sighed. "Where's your Spicy Red Oil bath additive? Your Hell Lava bath additive? Your Medicated Oil bath additive? Do I really have to spell it out for you?"
A dark spark of realization lit up Stelle's eyes. "Got it."
She moved with terrifying speed. From some forgotten corner of her room, she unearthed a palm-sized glass bottle filled with a suspicious, bubbling red liquid.
Sparkle's expression finally wavered.
Her unease was justified. When Stelle popped the cap, a single, errant drop of the concentrated chili oil splashed onto Sparkle's thigh.
"Aaaaah! Hooo-hooo-hooo-hooo!!!"
A sharp, piercing screech tore through the Parlor Car as Sparkle's torso began to twist frantically on the floor.
"It hurts! It's spicy! It's burning, aaaaaah! It's on fire! IT'S ON FIRE!"
But because she had been thoroughly "dismembered," she couldn't reach her own leg and could only howl in agony.
Stelle scrambled to carry Sparkle's torso toward the bathroom, while March 7th grabbed her limbs. The two of them rushed into the lavatory and unceremoniously threw all of Sparkle's parts into the bathtub.
Splash—!
Water flew everywhere.
"Quick! The mint one! The cooling one!" Stelle grabbed a bottle of green bath additive from the shelf, unscrewed the cap, and dumped half its contents into the tub.
The once-clear water was instantly dyed a soothing mint green, and a refreshingly cool scent filled the air. Inside the tub, Sparkle's various body parts bobbed in the green water, and her heart-wrenching screams finally began to subside.
In truth, Stelle wasn't evil enough to torture Sparkle with the kind of chili oil that felt like being stabbed. The red oil bath additive wasn't meant for direct skin application; its proper use was to be diluted in a full bathtub.
"Are you okay? Does it still hurt?" March asked, peering over the edge of the tub.
"It hurts! Of course it hurts!" Sparkle immediately pulled a pained face. "My butt hurts…"
"Your butt seems to be…"
Himeko, who had come to water the plants in the Parlor Car, paused. Her gaze drifted to a large potted plant, where the lower half of Sparkle's torso was currently hanging from a branch. She fell into a moment of deep, deep thought.
'Why did the potted plant grow a butt?'
March 7th, having followed Himeko's gaze, deadpanned, "Sparkle, your butt doesn't hurt. Your butt is on the tree."
The sheer absurdity of the situation was staggering.
Finally, Rekka, March 7th, and Stelle managed to gather all the pieces and place them on the sofa for reassembly.
"Super Assembly!" Stelle cheered.
"Wait, Stelle, why did you put her head and feet together?" Rekka asked, bewildered. "Are you trying to turn her into Kirby?"
"Ehehe."
"Stelle! That's an arm, not a thigh! You can't attach a hand to a leg!" March 7th watched, at a complete loss for words, as Stelle tried to connect Sparkle's arm to the socket below her waist.
At long last, Sparkle was put back together completely. She moved her limbs, testing them, before standing up from the sofa and taking a long, satisfying stretch. Of course, the spot on her thigh where the Hell Chili Oil had splashed still stung fiercely.
"You people on the Astral Express usually bathe with this stuff?" she asked, rubbing the sore spot.
"That's right!" Stelle puffed out her chest proudly.
Rekka sighed. "Actually, no. It's just Stelle's personal hobby."
Sparkle ignored them and walked right up to Rekka, bowing deeply at the waist.
"I just want to say," she declared with utmost sincerity, "I'm actually your biggest fan!"
Rekka was so stunned by the sudden, dramatic bow that he instinctively took half a step back. "A fan? What is there to be a fan of?"
"I already know what you did on the Xianzhou," Sparkle said, straightening up. Her eyes shone with genuine admiration. "What you did was simply too joyous, too fun, too stylish, and too powerful!"
She gave him a firm thumbs-up.
"The news was brought back by another Masked Fool. Unfortunately, that particular Fool got caught up in an incident with the Antimatter Legion last month while seeking her own amusement. But I heard she prepared a very fun surprise for you before that."
"…Surprise?" Rekka's brow furrowed. "You mean the antimatter bomb?"
"Really? An antimatter bomb?" Sparkle raised an eyebrow, a look of disdain on her face. "That's so tacky."
"Although people on the Path of Preservation can't be killed by a simple explosion, they can at least be blown into a semi-crippled state," Rekka pointed out grimly.
"And involving innocents is a certainty."
His expression darkened. He had always found the matter of the antimatter bomb suspicious, and now, with Sparkle's words, a broken clue finally reconnected in his mind.
"What was that Masked Fool's name?"
"I, Sparkle, don't know either." Sparkle tilted her head, tapping a finger to her chin. "What a pity, what a pity. To lose oneself while seeking fun… tsk tsk. Anyway, your Astral Express is now quite famous in the circles of Elation."
"What kind of fun is that?" March 7th frowned, crossing her arms. "Bombing a port? Getting us put on a wanted list? That's just… excessive."
"Yes, it's very excessive," Sparkle agreed with a shrug. "Don't think too highly of Elation. As long as there's joy to be had, things like bottom lines simply don't exist for the Masked Fools."
She gave them a knowing look. "You should have been to The Tavern by now, right? Don't you know what kind of people mostly hang out in there?"
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