Hana "Cherry" Chen's Arc

Chapter 6 of 14

Hana opens the team roster screen and scrolls past the characters and horses. The game prompts her to assign companion pets — one for the hero side, one for the villains. She didn't expect this to happen so soon after the stable drama, but the world progression won't unlock without it. Chat is already screaming usernames before she even hovers over the wheel. She spins it once and lands on puppytune-67-fan. The second spin gives her moody-darkness20. She reads both names out loud and watches chat erupt into immediate war. One side spams heart emojis. The other floods the screen with skull and fire. She opens the world editor and searches for dog objects, finding a small fluffy terrier with bright eyes and a pug wearing a jagged crown. She places the terrier near the hero base and the crowned pug outside the villain fortress, then realizes they're too far apart to feel like rivals. She scrolls through the object menu looking for something that bridges the gap. She finds a statue of both dogs mid-play-fight, frozen with tiny paws raised. She drags it to the space between the two territories and drops it exactly on the dividing line. Chat goes silent for three seconds, then explodes. Half of them are already writing fanfiction about a forbidden puppy friendship. The other half insists the dogs should hate each other forever. Hana saves the placement before anyone can convince her to move it. She locks in the world and watches both dogs appear on opposite sides of the statue. The boundary is set. The rivalry is real. Chat has already picked sides, and she knows every future battle in this playthrough will somehow circle back to which dog people liked first. She didn't just assign companions — she built the foundation for a war she'll never be able to stop.