Warnings: Memory manipulation.
She'd honestly meant to punch the thing.
The Vertex. There were so many of them and she had attacked so much. It had kind of been a miracle she had managed to pierce through everything in that way.
But now, where was she?
She couldn't figure it out. Everything was so… very dark. And not the kind of darkness that haunted your nightmares, or the kind that produced whirling sounds that chattered teeth or made the fire seem so much better. She was the only thing present here in this darkness.
And then it lit up.
It wasn't like a switch had flipped. There was no click of warning. Only light. Then colors and petals and sounds. Everything that she had lost slowly washed over her.
She found herself standing in front of her school of all places. People were bustling about like always, going to and fro. The shrine outside their door swung its chimes in the wind, Taisha-sama's warning bells as gentle as ever. She looked around. Even her bag was in her hand. Where was everyone else?
Then a hand touched her shoulder. She let out a shriek of surprise and whirled. Soft blond hair, warm grey eyes, they were familiar in the way punching a Vertex is familiar.
"Sonocchi?" she heard herself say and for a moment she saw someone else. Someone in a hospital bed. Someone who couldn't move and still made herself smile any.
This person smiled and they seemed like the same person. "You're almost late, Yunacchi!" She grinned, a smile full of dangerous and wild mischief. "I'm going to put you in one of my books if you're not careful~"
"Ahaha…" She made herself laugh because her head was starting to spin in an uncomfortably familiar way. "Sorry! I got lost in thought!"
"That doesn't happen too often," remarked Karin as she passed by. "Are you all right?"
"Of course I a- hey what do you mean?" Yuna felt cheerful anger leap into her mind. "I think a lot!"
Karin regarded her with a single raised eyebrow, the softest response she had ever seen from her. Not that Karin wasn't kind! She was one of the warmest people Yuna had ever met! But she was hardly this straightforward! "But you don't exactly get lost in it."
"She's right!" Fu sang along as she dragged Itsuki in by the hand. "Come on, we've got class to do! Club to maintain! Go go go!"
Yuna stared at them all, wondering what the hurry was for. "Where's Togo-san?" If she wasn't with her it would make the ride less fun and she would take longer! She had done it before, according to everyone.
For a moment, Nogi Sonoko's smile trembled. But the others only looked baffled. "Who?" Fu asked.
Yuna, for a moment, really wanted to return to the darkness.
Instead, she only laughed. "Nothing! Just thinking about loud!"
As they kept walking, Yuna burned with questions, an ache in the deep center of her chest. She, however, did not attempt to get answers. Pushing headlong didn't work when it came to Taisha. And this definitely had to do with Taisha.
Yuki Yuna had never believed in hell before. She was starting to wonder if that was why she was there now. It was not a hell where Togo Mimori had never existed. It was a hell where she had never been to the Hero Club. So it meant something had changed. Or maybe that she was alive in an alternate timeline. It could happen. Unfortunately, she was not smart enough to figure out how that would work or why it would happen after fighting Vertexes, fighting with Mankai.
She didn't regret her choice! Not at all!
She couldn't regret a choice that allowed her and her friends to live! She couldn't imagine a fate where that was the case and the wall broke down and everything died.
Because they had to live. Otherwise, them remembering everything and continuing wouldn't mean anything at all.
She had to live, deep down and dig strong. Or something!
But… with what? She was missing something. She was forgetting something. And she didn't like that.
Yuna, for the moment, decides not to worry about it. She focuses on smiling at her friends, on helping her friends and healing them and being a Hero. That's what hero club is, first and foremost.
She has read enough books to know that the plot, the meat, the answers she seeks, will offer her a doorway to the truth whether she likes it or not. It's also how she survived fighting…
Fighting…
The blur in her head was so heavy all of a sudden that Yuna was tempted to fall over and give into it. But she was Yuki Yuna of the Hero Club. She would not worry her friends.
No matter what.
A blue swallow chirped overhead, and she ignored it.
Yuna didn't even look at it. It almost seemed to not be there at all.
"Oh Honored One."
Yuna had expected the words at this point but still jumped at hearing them coming from behind her. "Ah..." She turned around, smiling, away from her front door. An itch pulsed at the back of her mind. Yuna ignored it for the moment. She finished turning instead, smiling pleasantly enough.
"Taisha-sama," she said in quiet reverie. Even now, even remembering that they had caused this situation, had caused so much pain and so much work on her friends, she found it in herself to respect them, to revere them, as they do to her and hers. She brushed her hair back. "How, uhm, how can I help you today?"
The representative didn't answer, their mask preventing her from seeing any expression.
"You are recovering well," they finally said. "From your trial."
"My trial?" Just speaking the words aloud made her stomach churn. It brought her headache back in sharp relief and with extra force.
"You protected your fellow Heroes," the representative continued as if she hadn't spoken. "It was at quite a dangerous cost to yourself, quite unlike your friends. It is natural that you do not recall such a thing."
"Oh!" Yuna stared awkwardly across the area and gestured. "Would you… would you like to come in?" Her mother would scold her. This wasn't the manner befitting a Hero.
(But then she didn't want to let this person in, did she? Because something would go wrong if she did, surely.)
Taisha didn't answer. Instead, they turned away and seemed to glide away from the wall. Something in the movement caused Yuna to pause, however.
"Togo-san?"
They stopped walking. Yuna raced out, a smile on her face.
"Togo-san!" she called.
But there was no one there.
Yuna went into her house and promptly forgot all of it, as if it didn't matter.
Because she had homework due tomorrow and what good would she be if she couldn't pass? The Vertex were all gone.
Togo trembled.
She shuddered and sobbed underneath her mask. Underneath the robe, her body hurt.
Yuna-chan.
"Would you like to come in?"
Yuna-chan.
She wanted to. She wanted to take her up to tea. She wanted to sit with her and ask how she was healing, if she was ready for what needed to happen. That she was so sorry about what she was going through, what she was going to go through.
But this Mimori Togo could do nothing except escape the situation, except use her limited power to check on her charge.
After all, she wasn't real.
None of this was real.
A/N: Well, that happened. I have no idea if this will go anywhere beyond this oneshot but if it does, clearly, we have ammunition.
Challenges: CoM Short Oneshot Competition, Diversity Writing CoM C19, Yuki Yuna Non-Flash 074 - joke, yuki yuna mini fic masterclass 4.