Twisted Wonderland | Mickey's Print

6. The Crimson Tyrant

After trying on his uniform, the ghosts found an old leather strap in the dorm's basement and gave it to Yuu, so he could carry the ghost camera with him.

Finally, everyone went to sleep. Grim settled next to Yuu's legs and fell asleep in no time. The young human got to sleep much better than the night before.

"Hurry up and paint the roses red!" Some voices exclaimed insistently. "Quick, quick! Before they wilt!"

Yuu suddenly opened his eyes and found himself standing in what appeared to be a maze of tall green hedges. In front of him were what he recognized as three card-shaped soldiers from the french deck painting some white roses of tall rose bushes shaped like hearts and spades.

In that, Yuu couldn't help but notice his clothes: instead of his white shirt and black pants, he was wearing a blue dress adorned with a white apron and long white stockings along with black shoes. He took a better look at it and found it adorable.

He had only worn a dress twice in his life: at six years old, when he wanted to dress up as a princess like Yukiko to go to an amusement park, and at fifteen at work to replace a coworker during an event.

In his rambling, the scene kept going with the card-soldiers. None of them seemed to notice him.

"Faster, faster! There are some roses that are still not painted!" An ace of clubs urged.

"Are they... painting the roses?" Yuu asked himself. "Why?"

Then appeared a girl with long blond hair who seemed to be twelve years old. She was wearing an outfit very similar to his. Yuu had never seen her, but for some reason he knew that her name was Alice.

"Why are you painting the roses in the garden?" Alice asked the soldiers, who were surprised to see her, so much so that one of them ran his brush full of red paint over the faces of his two coworkers.

"You ask us why?" A two of clubs asked. "To be honest, we planted white roses by mistake."

"And the queen told us they must be red," the ace of clubs added. "If she sees white instead, she will behead us!"

"Goodness..." Alice and Yuu murmured, the girl putting a hand to her neck.

"In order to save ourselves, we are going to paint them red!" exclaimed the three soldiers.

Just when Alice had decided to grab a bucket full of red paint and a paintbrush to help them, Yuu heard the sound of a door-knocking, and the images faded until everything was black again.

"Wait a second!" He said to himself. "What place was that?"

He slowly opened his eyes after hearing the knocks at the entrance to the bedroom for the second time. It had all been a strange dream.

It was still nighttime, he supposed he didn't sleep for more than three hours.

"Hey, Yuu... Someone's knocking on the door..." Grim told him, still half asleep after waking up to the noise. "Is it the ghosts? They don't know when to give up."

Yuu scooped up Grim and walked him down to the front door.

"Who is it?" He asked after the third knock on the door.

"It's me, Ace," said his voice from outside. "Can you let me in for a bit?"

"Ace? What is he doing here at this hour?" Grim asked as Yuu opened the door, and his eyes widened at the sight of him. "Eh!? That collar is...!"

Yuu also recognized it immediately: Ace was wearing the same shackle closed around his neck that the young redhead, Riddle, had put on Grim before. If he remembered correctly, that thing prevented the use of magic...