Yura Isla in Blunderland

Summary: Yura Isla has always wanted to go to Abyss…he thinks it will be paradise! He's about to have his wish come true, AND get a big surprise (and so is Xerxes Break). Spoilers for Retrace 55. CRACK!

Words: 1909

Rating: T for violence, because, well…I need Yura Isla to suffer.

Writer's Note: Thanks to total_alias for beta reviewing!

BTW I think his name is officially "Isla Yura" but everyone seems to call him "Yura Isla" so I'm sticking with that.

()

Paradise, here I come! thought Yura Isla as he tumbled down into Abyss.

It had only taken Raven a few moments to create the portal that would shunt the bug-eyed man down to that place the cult leader thought was a paradise, but every other intelligent person knew was a nightmare of hellishly bizarre proportions. Once the portal opened, Gilbert gave Yura a swift kick on the backside while Oz brought the blunt side of B-Rabbit's scythe down on his head, forcing him to tumble head over heels down the long, dark channel into Abyss.

Yura's long limbs flailed about while he hurtled down through the portal, and landed with a thud in a pool of murky water. He came up for air, sputtering, and wiped his face rapidly with his spatula-shaped hands. His eyebrow felt bruised and nicked from where he'd gotten smacked en route with his heavy snake pendant.

"Goodness me!" he said, squeezing the excess water from his eyes and looking all around him. He expected to see flowers, beautiful maidens, handsome serving lads, and an opulent array of fruits, cakes and delicacies.

While he was trying to make out if the blood red cluster of disjointed body parts over yonder was actually a large bouquet of roses, a chest of drawers floated by and smacked him on the side of the head. The drawers opened, cackling dolls fell out and started nipping at his nose and fingertips with their little porcelain teeth.

"Mercy!" he cried, trying to shake them off.

Then Yura caught sight of Grim, the giant caterpillar chain, and he wailed in fear like a third-rate opera singer.

Oh, Grim knows about the headhunter…dear me! He tried to run away, but Grim picked him up with tentacle-like suckers and hurled him about forty feet through the air. His body slammed against a brick wall and slid back down into the shallow water.

Just as he caught his breath, little leech-like creatures crawled up his trouser legs and glommed on, which hurt and tickled at the same time. He stood up and tried to get away from them, but without stripping off his clothes – which he was too shy to do - he couldn't make any progress in shaking them off. Still, he thrashed his legs to and fro and windmilled his arms, screaming the whole while.

"That's quite a song and dance routine you have there!"

Yura looked up to see who had spoken.

"J-Jack!" Yura stuttered and blushed and tried to hold still. "Jack Vessalius?" He almost wet himself with excitement. "Oh, I'm a big fan of yours…" Yura stumbled over to the handsome blond man and tried to grab hold of his lapels.

Jack stepped backwards to avoid the unwanted groping, and Yura tripped over a toy and fell face first in the muck. Struggling again to his feet, Yura saw Jack walking away.

"Jack! Wait!" He raced after him.

"It's alright if you follow me," said Jack, turning his head and smiling. "I have something to show you."

Dripping wet and shivering from the cold, Yura chased after Jack. He tried to keep his eyes on the man's long braid, but out of the corner of his eyes, he kept seeing unexpected things: gruesome creatures, cackling dolls, bloody stuffed animals and giant, insect-like chains. This is a strange paradise, thought Yura. But Jack's here, so it will be alright.

They arrived at a room with a checkered floor and Jack stopped at the doorway.

"She's been waiting for you," said Jack, then he morphed into a giant baby head and floated away.

"Jack! Jack!" screamed Yura in despair. Oh my God, what's happening?

A chain with cat ears and large paws emerged from the shadows.

"Nyaa, that was not Jack, it was Mad Baby," said the cat. "Come this way. My lady wants to see you, nyaa."

Yura followed the one-eyed cat with a bandage around its head into the room with the checkered floor. The walls were full of demented looking dolls and animals and in the middle of the room stood a lovely young lady in white.

"Ah, you've come," said the lady, turning to face him.

"What is happening here, young lady?" said Yura, bowing slightly. "Is this the paradise we were promised? The beautiful place called Abyss?"

She laughed heartily.

"You can decide for yourself if this place is a paradise," she said, chuckling. "I made it myself from the ruins of my own abandonment. For me, it is a paradise, but it is carved from the hell of loneliness." She motioned toward a chair. "Please sit and have some tea."

"D-don't mind if I do, thank you, young lady," said Yura, sitting awkwardly on a chair that was much too small for him and taking a sip of some tea that was so sour it was as if an entire lemon had been squirted into it.

"Dear guest," said the lady, frowning, "why are you making that funny face which reminds me of a puckering fish?"

"Oh, I-I…simply…" Yura blushed and failed to find appropriate words.

"Please stop, it's quite ugly," she scolded. "In fact your face, since you've come to visit, is quite the opposite of comely. Perhaps I can help…" She then reached her hands up to Yura's brow, and plucked out both his eyeballs, with a smooth gesture born from experience.

"AGGGGH!" screamed the red-haired* man, putting his hands up to his face.

"For you, Cheshire," she said graciously, as she placed the two eyeballs in a bowl. "Now you may have two eyes the same color."

"Thank you, my Precious," lisped the cat, slinking toward the bowl in a Gollum-esque fashion.

"And now I can return this eye to its original owner," she said, removing Cheshire's red eye from its socket.

"Nya, why would you do that, nya?" Cheshire recoiled as his eye was plucked out.

The young lady in white looked thoughtful and melancholy as she cradled the red eyeball in her hands.

"The original owner is feeling sad. I can sense it," she said, placing the eyeball in a glass of water. "He has lost his will to live, and his will to fulfill my wish." She cried out, "This cannot be! He must fulfill my wish!"

Yura was still howling, the blood dripping down his cheeks. He thrashed about in every direction, dancing clumsily like a hip-hop singer whose pants are about to fall down. Then he slipped on a pair of scissors someone had left on the floor and fell head first into a giant birdcage. She pushed him the rest of the way inside, and slammed the door, locking it.

"Soon you'll be a chain!" taunted the dolls, in unison. "A chain! A chain!"

"Oh, I have made an enormous blunder," lamented Yura, with his head in his hands. "This isn't paradise…it is a living hell!" The word 'hell' reverberated around the room, and came back to his ears like painfully deafening knives.

()

With a purposeful expression, the young lady - who some called the Will of Abyss - picked up the eyeball, and walked straight into a tall mirror. She fell into the dream of Xerxes Break, who was lying in a semi-conscious state in the grass outside Yura's mansion.

"You must fulfill my wish," she said with a voice that wavered between pleading and commanding. "I will return your eye to you. Please…you must…"

Break sensed her presence and thought back to her, "I have failed in every venture I have ever tried to achieve. What makes you think I can actually fulfill your wish?"

"You are stronger than you think," she said, placing his left eyeball back into its socket.

"Em…wait a moment…" said Break, startled. "I keep Mad Hatter in there."

"You don't need Mad Hatter anymore," the Will of Abyss said consolingly. "I have another chain I'm preparing especially for you. I will be sending him to you soon."

"But Miss," he said, thinking of his friend Reim, "I…I really just want to die…"

"Your new chain will be bringing you something you have long desired. I think it will change your mind." She fell back into the mirror, a shimmering vision in white.

I saw her, he murmured to himself, slowing coming to. Opening his eyes, he saw the moon above. "I can see!" he announced, to no one in particular, since he was quite alone. He climbed slowly to his feet and pushed aside the bangs he'd long used to cover his empty eye socket. He felt the wound on his side and vaguely remembered hearing a girl's voice before he'd passed out, saying, "Sorry, Mr. Hatter…Reim's precious friend," and the feeling of a tongue there. He thought he'd hallucinated it, but when he pulled up his shirt and looked, the wound was nearly healed.

Shortly after, he detected movement in the earth. Something was coming up from Abyss…it was pink, slimy and segmented. It poked its head up from the ground like a periscope and seemed to be sniffing around.

"Mr. Break?" asked the thing.

"Em…yes?" said Break cautiously.

"I found you! I am Worm…I will be your new chain, yes?"

"Eh…I-I…"

"I am a useful chain…I can dig up dirt on people! Find out information! I can make tunnels to go places!" The thing spoke with an eager voice reminiscent of a puppy with large, dangling jowls. "I was a snake in my former life, but then I lost my eyes, so I became Worm instead!"

A vague sense of sympathy toward this sightless creature slowly seeped into Break's heart. He knew what it was like to be blind, and had been to Abyss years ago and had nearly become a chain himself. He sighed and took out his blood seal mirror, and wondered if he should go ahead and make the contract. But something about Worm's admission that he had been a snake in his former life gave Break reason to pause. Yura Isla, he thought. The snake was a symbol of his cult.

"I come with a gift for you!" Worm said, slowly creeping another meter of its long body out of the ground. "It is around my…neck. I mean…if I had a neck, that is."

Break looked at the red ribbon tied around Worm and heard a jingling sound, and then saw something he never thought he'd see again…it was Cheshire's bell. His eyes grew wide. The truth of 100 years ago! That's right I destroyed the bell before, but Cheshire was wearing two bells**, as I recall. This must be the other…He took the ribbon with the bell and wrapped it around his wrist, then started walking back toward the mansion. Now if I could just find Reim alive somehow, this might turn out to be a pretty good day…

"Mr. Break?" called Worm, dancing about in the soil. "Won't you make a contract with me?"

"Eh…maybe later…I'm a little busy now."

"B-but without a contract I have to go back to Abyss!"

"I'm sure you'll be fine there!" Break grinned and waved. "Give my regards to the Will of Abyss!"

Worm felt destiny tugging on his back end. He cried out in fear and sadness, and then slunk back into the soil. He was – against his will – hurled back down to Abyss, where he would remain for the rest of his days, resting in the muck of his own shattered ideals.

END

* According to the Japanese original of Retrace 48, Yura Isla and Rufus Barma both have dark red hair (not dark red eyes, as stated in the English scanlation). Rufus Barma's eye color, fwiw, is gray in the official Art Book "Odd and Ends". To my knowledge, Yura's eye color is unknown.

** Cheshire actually had three bells: a small one around his neck and two larger ones.