You can feel the stress finally build up to a critical point. "I am, yes." You smile frantically at the woman, before you stand up and grab her by the hands. She flinches in surprise for a moment before you suddenly start spinning the two of you around on the spot. Nero makes no attempt to escape from your grip and seems to just be willing to go along with it, a good thing too, because if she didn't want to, you'd probably have broken your arms trying to move her against her will.

"Hahaha! Hashire sori yo, Kaze no you ni, Homurahara wo, padoru padoru!" You laugh madly as you spin around with Nero, who seems to be enjoying your strange actions, the stress you'd been suffering from finally causing you to suffer a minor form of mental breakdown, and you eventually collapse on the floor after spinning around with Nero for about half a minute. The mental fatigue causing your body to shut down. The last thing you can see before falling unconscious is Nero's concerned face looking down at you. Ah damn it, you didn't want to make her feel bad. You try to fight against the mental fatigue when you realize what's happening. No! There's still so much to do! You can't let yourself fall asleep yet! You need to find Waver and Gray and everyone! You need to save Monica, and Bazett, and Cu! You...

Everything goes black, and you find yourself standing in a plain looking hallway.

Part 32