Part Zero - The Opportunistic

Yuugo remembers his sister's tremulous smile.

He remembers the way she looks at him, the two of them each hindered by the crowd, one by ears, one by eyes. Their bodies were a little slow.

Only one fit inside the heavy device. Two had stuck their bodies in.

Imagine the disgust, the fascination. Yuugo wasn't sure. He hadn't been cognizant. Besides, everyone seemed to like them.

Or at least him. It was hard not to when he was the only one left. Him with his twig legs and lying ears. She was in a much better condition than he and had blazed a trail. Or had they just let her leave a trail of dynamite?

Either way, her tiny body had taken to the elevator. He had hugged her of course but the memory was so far away. And so was her voice? Had she said goodbye? the help he had been given made it so hard to recall.

He couldn't remember. He could never remember. It was like someone had gone into his brain and overwritten it from top to bottom. Even her face was fuzzy.

At least, until today.

Her voice rang out. It was somewhere in his heart, someplace in the less cynical section of the human body.

And it was loud. It almost covered the sound of the sonic boom beneath his feet.

Yuugo hated heights.

He lived above an abyss, so perhaps he was justified in this. Looking down into the great, endless chasm - said to be a gate to another world - made him very grateful for guard rails. Therefore, he made sure to look away as often as possible. His friends, fallers though they were, agreed with him.

"There's a reason we go on lifts with covers rather than just jump down," Arata said to him at one point, wrangling his one-eyed octopus back into his lap.

"That's because of the flying coelamon, you derp," Takumi corrected from beside them, his own green blob bouncing about in an attempt to see the other side. Takumi shoved it down. He got too high, he would get snatched, and Takumi would have to start from zero, again.

"Coelamon don't fly, dog brain. Those are swimmon."

"Neither of them fly!"

Yuugo tuned them out, cradling his own little blob of protection. Only in this absurd world do we tame the monsters we eat. He said none of this out loud. The monsters had feelings after all, as far as they knew. Some of the bigger tamed ones could even talk that wasn't just parroting humans to eat them.

"What are we looking for today?"

"Anything." Arata glowered at him as he spoke. He enjoyed arguments, the jerk. "Some debris got swept up last night. Anything would help with repairs."

"Mn." Yuugo sighed. "Boring."

"You're boring."

Takumi knocked Arata on the head. "C'mon, behave. We're about to land."

Arata swiped at him and missed, just as the lift touched the grass.

"I'll go look by the waterfall," Yuugo muttered as the two ducked aside from flying bubbles.

He didn't get two steps away before his head screamed in pain. For a moment, his brain felt like it was leaking from his ears.

Then it was gone, like a sharp jab too sharp to feel before the knife was removed. Yuugo waited, legs shaking. Then, before the other two could pay attention, he went ahead.

Beneath his feet, the ground started to crumble.

A/N: Made In Abyss is a beautiful show and everyone needs to watch it. Until then I will write in it.

Challenges: digiotpweek day 13, crossover boot camp prompt - wandering, novella masterclass story list 6, mega prompts writing prompt 194