"You have a message from the president: Please wait at the Grand Bath."
Hououmaru's words echoed softly in Satsuki's ears as the door closed behind her and she was left alone in the large room. The air was thick with hot steam, yet Satsuki still shivered as the moisture swirled around her naked form. She clutched her arms around her chest in an effort to stay warm and to ease the apprehension that swirled in her heart. She knew what was to come.
Satsuki stepped slowly into the water, the heat stinging her skin as her feet adjusted from the cold marble to the hot water. The water was hotter than she preferred, and a cloyingly sweet smell emanated from it that filled her nose. Satsuki fought the revulsion that gripped her and tasted the bitter bile that rose up into her throat. The smell was the same one that hung around her mother, the same smell that suffocated her during previous encounters. Only this water was the source, so the scent was horrifyingly concentrated to the point that it incapacitated her thoughts. Despite her every instinct screaming at her to flee this awful place, Satsuki set her jaw stubbornly and took another two steps into the bath until she was waist deep.
The water hurt. She initially assumed it was because of the temperature, but the stinging didn't abate when her body adjusted. She was unable to stop the hiss of pain that escaped through her clenched teeth and her breath hitched and shuddered violently. Satsuki forced herself to clear her mind and took several slow breaths to ease her breathing.
Shame gripped her as her Mother's radiance appeared from behind the gaudy fountain in the centre of the bath. Ragyo undoubtedly heard her daughter's distress and was likely enjoying every minute of it like the wretch she was.
"You wear it well, but you do seem to be overexerting yourself." Ragyo said lightly as she stepped into view. Her tone gave no acknowledgement of her daughters pain, yet the slight smirk that graced Ragyo's lips was tell enough.
"Mother." Satsuki breathed in response, watching the woman descend gracefully into the pool towards her.
"This medicated bath water boosts life fibre harmonization," the woman continued as she waded slowly through the pool. "Soak yourself in it."
Satsuki murmured a subordinate agreement while internally she felt a slight satisfaction at having her suspicions confirmed. That satisfaction disappeared rapidly when her mother stood before her, crimson eyes glittering cruelly. This was how it always began.
Ragyo reached out to grasp Satsuki's jaw, tilting the girls head until their eyes met. Satsuki failed to repress a sharp intake of breath at her mother's ice cold touch. "Such lovely skin," Ragyo purred, leaning in closer to Satsuki. "Give your heart to me."
The woman leaned in closely to Satsuki's face, her cold breath causing the hair on the back of Satsuki's neck to bristle. Satsuki fought the repulsion that filled her and stared flatly ahead, not daring to move.
"I will conduct the ritual purification." Her mother breathed into her ear, and reached up to pull the towel from Satsuki's head in a quick motion. Adrenaline flooded her body at her mother's words and she let out a strangled gasp of recognition. Memories flooded her inner thoughts.
Since she was a child, her mother would often call Satsuki to her quarters at night, once Soroi had retired for the evening. Rei would wake the child with a tap of the shoulder, and Satsuki would wordlessly follow the woman into the forbidding bedroom. The door would close behind her, leaving Satsuki alone in the presence of her mother.
At her mother's instruction, the child would lay on her mothers bed, her arms extended above her head. Satsuki would always close her eyes at that point, desperately trying to escape into the darkness while her mother did as she wanted. Try as she might, Satsuki couldn't ignore her mother's touch, nor the comments that emerged from her mother's lips. Her mother would speak of purity, of energy. She spoke of nakedness and of how the Kiryuin name was to be placed above all others. As she spoke, Ragyo would caress her daughter with a light hand, but intimately enough that Satsuki's cheeks would burn with shame.
It always ended the same. Ragyo would pause, her lips sucking gently on the skin covering her daughter's carotid. She would then raise her head slightly, bringing her mouth to Satsuki's ear to breathe word of the Ritual while her hand brushed the point where Satsuki's legs met. Then she would chuckle to herself and remove herself from her daughter before instructing Satsuki to return to bed. Satsuki would be left alone for the remainder of the night and no comment on what transpired would occur in the morning. This had continued several times a week until Satsuki moved into her middle school dormitory just before her seventh birthday.
The Ritual. Satsuki forced her limbs to relax as her mother laid her down into the water and positioned her arms above her head. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the horror to come.
Her mother's touch was not the same as before. Ragyo's fingers no longer drifted lightly across her skin's surface, they dug in painfully and massaged deeply. The woman brought her hand down to grasp Satsuki's breast and Satsuki was unable to supress her gasp as a spark of pleasure shot from her mother's touch.
"Human's are such frail things, are they not?" Ragyo chuckled softly as she moved her hands from her daughter's breasts up to her shoulders and finally the back of her neck. Satsuki felt the fingers trace lines up her spine with a steady pressure, and fingertips massaged an erotic rhythm into her scalp. She didn't understand why her mother's touch was affecting her so strongly, and why the overwhelming urge to run away had been replaced with the urge for more.
"When they become naked like this, they become so unbearably uncomfortable." Her mother continued in a sensual tone. Uncomfortable? Was that what this was supposed to be? Satsuki didn't feel discomfort, she felt unbearable need for her mother's touch to continue. Shame began to flood her cheeks as the minute amount of sanity left in her reminded her of the wrongness of her mother's actions. Yes, it was wrong. Why did something so wrong have to feel this way? Satsuki's breathing began to escalate, her chest heaving in uneven gasps and moans from her mother's ministrations.
"They are immediately overcome with the desire to cover themselves in the miraculous thing that is clothing. That is instinct."
Satsuki shuddered as she felt her mother's hands lower themselves again, brushing against her chest, her stomach, and finally the inner aspect of her thighs. Her mother was still talking, but Satsuki could not hear. The water was splashing into to her ears as she spasmed from her mother's touch, her legs involuntarily clenching together in an effort to either keep her mother's touch away or to bring it closer. Satsuki lost the ability to think as the pleasure escalated, and fought to keep her arms raised above her head as her mother wanted. She no longer tried to supress the needy moans that escaped her lips as she felt the cool digits dip into her and caress the bundle of pleasure hidden within. The fingers moved against her relentlessly, sparking and igniting an impossibly bright fire inside her core that she had never felt before. The fire raced a line of heat from her groin to her stomach, her heart, her shoulders, her neck. The heat raced through every artery and capillary her body possessed, wiping away the exhaustion and pain her body retained from wearing Junketsu.
As the fire escalated to an impossible peak, Satsuki stiffened violently and felt her consciousness float away on a sea of pleasure. She lay there contentedly on the surface, feeling the sea lap ripples of pleasure across her body. Then the sea spoke to her, whispering words of instinct and human desire.
Somewhere far away, she heard a drop of water fall into the sea. It rang impossibly loud, but not nearly as loud as the voice that jolted her from her reverie.
"Come out of the bath." Her mother called to her, and Satsuki opened her eyes. Gone was the sea, she was instead lying helplessly while her mother stood over her. Her memory returned, and the realization of what just happened filled her mouth with bile and gripped her heart in a cold vice. Satsuki struggled to raise herself into a sitting position.
She looked up to see her mother watching her with a pleased expression on her face. "You have served me well, Satsuki. As a Kiryuin, and as my successor." With that, the woman exited the bath and left her daughter to contemplate what just transpired.
Satsuki was unable to stop the tears that flooded her eyes.