I Know You Inside Out

by Kasei-no-hime

The Hourai Elixir returns you to a "perfect" state : no pain, no marks, nothing. Yet over time, you want control over yourself. You want to be able to keep your cuts, your burns. You want proof of what you've lived through. Eternity strips you of all that. Together, Kaguya and Mokou rebel against the restrictions of Eternity the only way they still can : through pleasure and pain.

The moon is high in the sky. Red. A harvest moon, I think they call it here ? Blood moon would be more accurate. I know what they do up there.

It basks everything in a red glow. Eientei is covered in blood, tonight; the bamboo shoots, arrows that have pierced the flesh. The pond, a pool of blood. Just an illusion, though. Just the moon.

Well, it's an illusion this time. Eientei had been soaked by the blood of lunarians before, when they came for me. I remember Eirin reaching for her bow, placing the arrow on it, drawing it back with her strong arms. The arrows went flying; that one hit her eye. That one, her heart. Corpses falling to the ground with bloodstained arrows sticking out of them, reaching back up to the moon. Where they should have stayed. Bamboo under the red moonlight...

Eientei ran red that night, yet I stayed inside. Like a good little princess. I had Eirin to protect me. Why get my hands dirty ? Without me, there wouldn't be an Eientei. Yet now, I almost wish something like that could happen again. Spice things up a little. Eternity is a long time, and yet so little happens.

I stand up, and walk over to the pool. The colour is right; a dark red, almost black at times. I dip my hand in it. Cold. This is where it goes wrong. It should be warm. Not only that, but it should be moving. Spurting out at the rhythm of a heartbeat, getting slower and slower, losing power. Spilling all over the ground, covering it in its warmth, its unique smell. Not contained in a pool. It's too tame. That's why I have Mokou.

...

I have her, and she has me. Not that either of us will admit to each other that it's mutual. She's proud. Time kills pride though. Time kills everything. Except us. Her pride died, but its corps hangs onto her like a male angler fish. A fucking parasite. I could go see one of those fish for myself. The water pressure wouldn't kill me. Well, it would, but I'd come back. A cycle of pain, death, and rebirth, trapped in a pit of cold, wet darkness. Might as well one day. It'd be an experience, and I've got all the time in the world for those. If I leave Gensokyo one day, maybe. But for now, she's here.

She was proud. She viewed me as a rival, because I told her father to fuck off. Disgusting, lecherous suitors. Even with all of eternity, I don't have time for that shit. And yet she took it as a personal insult. Family ties, apparently. My family had me executed. More than once. Eirin is my family now. And Mokou isn't a rival. Unless rivals spend their time fucking and killing each other. Well, maybe they do. We do.

...

I remove my hand from the cold pool. It isn't what I wanted. It didn't have the warmth of the real thing, yet wasn't even cold enough to hurt. Mokou often hurts me. She's allowed to. She understands. Plus, she lets me hurt her. It's equal, fair. That's what a good, healthy relationship is based on, right ? We're lovers. But we are also immortals. Love died along with pride. Now pain wears its rotting carcass. It can't fool me, nor her. But we don't mind. It's still something we share. Something intimate we do together.

I look up at the moon. It, too, is wrong. Too round, too pure, unblemished. Nothing sticking out, nothing broken. Even when I ripped her eyes out sometimes, they weren't quite that round. The optic nerve was there, after all, like a reminder that the eye was just a small part of her linked to the rest. Am I a part of her ? I want to be. We tried once. Ripped reach others hearts out, and exchanged them. I could feel the last few beats inside my chest. Mokou. But then, we died, and were reborn. Immortality rejects change, along with anything else I try to do with myself. I like to believe it's still her who's beating away inside there though. It would only be fitting; she's the one who gives me live in this barren, infinity void.

The moon was wrong. The pond was wrong. The bamboo shoots were just reminded me of her, but had none of her warmth. She was fire, she was blood. She needed me as much as I needed her. Slowly, I started walking out of Eientei's grounds; I'd find her, or she'd find me. Somehow, we always knew.

...

How did it get like this ? I used to be a princess. Tales of my beauty spread across the land. Like a disease. The infected would come seeking my hand in marriage. Like I'd ever stoop so low. If they could see me now, they'd be disappointed; there's nothing beautiful about me any more. A shell of a person, a corps who refuses to rot, staggering about the mansion until she's had enough, she wants to feel again, she wants to fuck, she wants to kill. I could do anything, learn anything, go anywhere. That's what you'd do if you were immortal, right ? You'd use it to do what you couldn't do in just one lifetime. You'd better yourself, rise above any simple mortal. But then, you've done that. You've studied science, literature, you've learnt all the languages you can think of. You might have spent centuries doing that. Yet it's nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing, not when you've still got Eternity ahead of you, everything you've ever done, millennia and millennia of living, suffering, growing, it's not even one thousandth of a single percent of what you're still going to have to endure. It never ends. It never will end.

Immortality strips you of those thoughts of self improvement. Those are born from the ineptitude of mortals, their longing to do more than they can. But once you can ? Who even cares any more ? You've improved yourself, give yourself a pat on the back; anyone who cares will die soon, anyway. And so I stopped caring, stopped trying. I regressed, far beyond most mortals. A great lot of good improving myself did.

...

The bamboo forest is all around me, reminding me of the times I've shared with her. This clearing is still burnt, the bamboo stalks, broken. It's each other that we want to hurt, yet the only lasting damage is to everything except us. Immortality strips us of our bodies. They're not ours any more, not when we have no impact on them. They reject anything we do, to return to a "perfect" state. I don't want perfection. I want control over myself, my body. That's why we do it. Pain and pleasure. Two things we still control. When I say I've regressed, it's to those two basic feelings. After all, it's all that can make us feel alive any more. She feels the same way. So we hurt and fuck each other to show our bodies that we still own them. Pain and pleasure. I think I can't tell the difference any more. It doesn't matter.

Enough walking. I was far enough from Eientei that Eirin wouldn't hear us. She didn't like me doing this. Somehow, she's remained intact after all these years : She doesn't need to murder anyone to feel alive. She just dedicates herself to her science, helping other people out. Fucking saint. I can't stand it when she tries to stop me. It's not of her business, what I do to myself. She made the fucking elixir in the first place anyway. I could be dead, deliciously rotting the ground somewhere, or maybe burnt to an unrecognisable black mess, if it wasn't for her. But I helped her, so it's my fault too. I hate myself for that. Mokou hates me too, but she gets to take it out on me. Maybe that's also why I like it. I deserve to feel pain, to feel her anger. I wish I still had anger left, yet, unlike her, I'm completely empty. So yes, enough waiting. I'm far enough. She'll find me soon enough, but I want her now.

Raising my arm into the air, I fire a rainbow of bullets into the sky above. The colours shoot out, a splash of variety against the red sky. Variety is all I can call it now, though. Neutral description, devoid of any sentiment. I watch them fly higher and higher, arcing slowly outwards in every direction. Yes, before, beauty was something I strived for, both in myself and my danmaku. I don't think I know what beauty is any more though. Maybe it's the violence with which we rip reach other apart ? Or her red, hot blood dripping off my pale skin ? Beauty is no longer a matter of colours or shapes, beauty is what can still make me feel alive. Beauty is Mokou.

Beauty is on her way. I stand there, looking up into the red tinted sky. Seeing her coming, I feel a shiver go down my spine. It definitely wasn't from cold. I still don't move when she lands a few paces away from me. We used to greet each other, one way or another. Maybe something provocative, in order to rile the other up into a fight. At other times, fake greetings devoid of any real meaning (were we pretending to be normal, living people ?). Later on we'd greet each other with a bullet to the face. To set the tone. But we've done this thousands of times, we've said all there is to be said. Why bother any more ? Only the action counts, nowadays, only the feeling, the raw, physical feeling, we both know that. We don't need words to introduce our intentions, we have a silent understanding of each other, so instead, we...

...

I fly forward at full speed towards her, smashing my fist into her lower jaw with all my strength. I feel my knuckles against her soft skin for a split second of delicious smoothness, before I come in contact with her jaw bone : a lot less soft, a lot more resistance. Resistance is good, you can derive pleasure from resistance, far more than if I tore her apart in seconds. Small goals. Reasons to feel alive.

Her jaw cracks. So do my knuckles. It hurts us both, and so I try to smile at her. She tries to grin back, spitting up a glob of blood first. "Calling me here, and striking first. You must really be in the mood today, huh ?"

"Must be the moon. It reminds me of you." Am I in the mood ? Is that something I still feel, or had I been stripped of that by Eternity, as well ? Do preserved corpses such as myself have to capacity to "be in the mood" ? I want to hurt her, to hurt myself. To feel her warmth. That's all I can say for sure. I'm thinking too much. This is no time for that.

"It's my turn, OK ?" It was a statement more than a question. We both hurt each other, but after a while, when your missing limbs or eyes, you stop being able to inflict, and can only receive. Both are fine; there's some sort of link between us that shares our pleasure and our pain, so that we get to experience both sides of it at once. I like to believe that that link is love. Tonight, I wanted to inflict.

...

"Hmm, y'know, I'm pretty sure it was your turn last time. You think I'm just gonna let you have your way with me again ?" Bullshit. Hands in her pockets, a cocky smile on her face, a wink. Bullshit, and she knows it. She's inviting me. We understand each other so well after all this time. Yes, I love her.

A quick step forward, and I grab her throat with one hand. My muscles wake up; I own them, they're mine. Applying pressure. Her skin is soft, it yields around my fingers. It'll bruise. Bruises are when small blood vessels break, leading to bleeding under the skin. A convenient method of marking someone, yet even on mortals, it fades fast. On us, everything does. How are we meant to reclaim our bodies if the damage doesn't even last ? I can destroy solid walls, manipulate time, yet I can't even give myself of Mokou a simple, lasting bruise. Fuck this.

...

All we can do is content ourselves with the feelings. Right now, she can feel each one of my fingers pressing into her neck, brusing the skin, blocking the airflow, making her anywhere from dizzy to dead. I'm strong. I've killed her right from the start like this; she just gets right back up, after all. Not today though. I want the bruises to stay as long as possible, the sensation of being deprived of air to carry on after I let go. Which I do.

She laughs, chokes. "Yup, looks like I was right. You need me. You've needed me a while now, haven't you ?" A grim smile is in her face. We never really have genuine smiles any more. Maybe because we don't have any genuine emotions. They describe emotional pain as a sharp blade, sometimes, don't they ? Maybe other emotions as being "sharp" or "piercing", too. Time dulls blades, so it's only normal that Eternity dulls emotions.

"Shut up. It's just been a while." Stupid words, meaningless. "A while" is nothing in Eternity. Excuses. Excuses to be with her again. Now, a cocky smile on her face, as she passes her hands on her bruised neck. She knows it's just excuses, too. "Shut up", I repeat, slamming my fist at her face. She blocks it with the back of her arm. Onto phase two.

...

We start trading blows, sometimes attacking, sometimes blocking. This is an important part. It wakes up our bodies, letting us exerce our strength, lets us feel each other's power. It gets us ready for what's to come; if we just tore each other apart, it'd be over too quickly. Foreplay...?

She gets some hits in, mostly to my face. I could avoid anything, but I want to be able to feel what she's feeling as well, to feel her. Her hands are so warm against my skin. More than warm, burning. On fire. Fire causes burns, which result in scars that usually don't go away. I wish they'd stay on my skin, too. I want her to burn all my skin off, to reveal what's underneath. Like a butterfly breaking its way out of a cocoon. I'm sick of this perfect shell around me. Rip it off, burn it off, I don't care, I just don't want to be trapped like this any longer.

I manage to hit her in the stomach; she doubles over. Soft. I take advantage of this to crack my first into her skull. Hard. She has everything I could need.

...

She's on the ground. Under the moonlight, it's already red, yet we haven't even started yet. At least her shirt is white; it shows up better, thanks to that. She could still fight back, we both know that, but that's not the point, is it ? So I pounce on her, both arms around her throat, pinning her against the ground. I let her rise her head up a little sometimes, in a mock struggle intended only to let me fight back harder, so that I can slam it down again. There aren't many rocks around here. Shame.

"Aren't you... being a bit soft on me ?" her hand raises up against my cheek, gently strokes the burn marks. They're fresh, so it's painful, but the gesture is tender, loving. Go all out, she's saying.

I understand. I place my hand on hers, pressing down on it. To show her I love her too. To make the burns hurt more. It's not fair if only she gets to feel pain, after all. How else am I meant to break this "perfect" prison, without making myself feel pain ? I then lift her hand off my face, to rub my cheek against her arm. Cats do something similar to show their ownership. Mokou is mine, I own her. But she owns me back. Linked by immortality, there's no way we can ever separate ourselves. So instead, we try to be as close to each other as possible. In any way we can think of. My head turns, I look into her eyes, and my teeth bite into her skin. They bite hard; her soft flesh breaks under my teeth. It's a delicious feeling; your jaw muscles get to be used to their full potential, you feel resistance, lots of resistance, until it breaks, and the taste of blood fills your mouth. They say blood is the essence of life, right ? So it only makes sense that we spill it, that we share it, that we end up covered in each other's blood. Mokou is the essence of my life, so I want to take hers.

She barely winces in pain. We've gotten used to the small things. Is immortality on its way to kill pain, as well ? Please, no. It's almost all we've got left. She lets me bite until my jaw tires, and I let go, my pure white teeth stained red with Her. Yes, it tires your jaw after a while, makes your teeth ache. So fuck you, immortality; that's not a perfect state any more, is it ? Small, temporary victories are all we've got.

...

Where do I go from here ? Our love is freeform, boundless, unrestrained by death itself. We've killed each other in so many different ways; our bare hands can crush the life out of each other just fine, other times, we get help from ropes, knives, or even her flames. It all has the same end result, anyway. The only thing that counts is the pain that reminds us that we can, even briefly, take ownership of our bodies, and the pleasure we take in that pain. Pleasure... I look at Mokou, a question in my eyes. Yes, it's time, hers answer.

I start ripping her shirt off. Underneath, her skin is pale, unblemished. After everything we've done together, there's not a single trace of our love, not even a fucking scar after all the times I've torn her skin apart. She's asked me before to carve into each other, as deep as possible, to try and make a difference. Yet it never did. We don't own our bodies, they're not ours to change, to do as we please. Fuck that. Fuck it to hell and back. I can't make a single difference. Do I even exist ? The only influence I still try to have in this world gets erased a few minutes later. An artist of invisible ink, painting on the most beautiful canvas, yet nobody will ever see the results. Fuck Eternity. It makes me frustrated whenever I see her perfect, untouchable skin. No, all I can do is carve into her mind, make the pain strong enough for her to not forget it. It works for now. Sort of.

I finish taking out my frustration on her clothes, leaving her lying on their remains, her pale, naked body taking on a red hue from the lighting. Fuck the moon. It's my job to stain her red. Don't try and take this from me too. I stop a second to look at her. Fucking beautiful. But it's no longer her body, so who cares ? All that still matters is the sensations I can make her feel. I want to remind her she's alive. But most of all, I...

...

I dig my nails into her, scratching four red lines from her collar bone down to her stomach. I scratch her hard, I'm angry, I want the marks to stay but I know they won't. I scratch again, with my other hand this time, and again, alternating, shredding her skin until a multitude of red, bleeding marks line the front of her body. Her skin gets under my nails, stuck under there. Is this a way to get her to stay as part of me ? It's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough, we can only make do with the pain. This is why she doesn't stop me as I claw her skin to shreds. In fact, she places her hands on my cheeks, then lowers them slowly, caressing my body. It wasn't just a tender caress, though. What use would we have for those ? They appease the body, which we don't even own. I should know: we tried the usual things, hugging, kissing, they had their phase. Maybe before, it would have worked. But now, they disgust me. They remind me that my body isn't mine, that I can't do anything about it, that all those years ago, something was decided about how I'm meant to be, how "perfection" is supposed to look like, and from then on, I've never been allowed to do anything to it. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. No, it's not my body, and anything that draws attention to it without causing this excuse for a body pain, or ripping pleasure out of it, disgusts me. That's why when Mokou passes her hands over my body, they're on fire. They sear my skin, burn through my clothes. It hurts, even after having been burnt so often, burnt to death, the pain is still deliciously present. It hurts, and I can feel it, I can inflict it on this body to show it I still hold some power over it. Fuck you. Fucking burn.

...

I stop scratching her, and she stops burning me. Enough of that, we need to move on. Even mortals can enjoy inflicting and receiving pain. We do, but we can also go a step above that. You're going to force us to live forever, to be constantly healed, renewed, erasing whatever we've lived though ? Then we'll abuse the fuck out of that. We're both breathing heavily, taking a short break, maybe wondering how to proceed. I look around me : everything seems redder than before, as if a mist of blood had settled into the area. Bamboo sticks. Bloody needles. The blood red moon still hangs in the sky, judging us, yet giving me ideas. Up there, life, death, and anything related to them, is labelled as "impurity". It slowly destroys a lunarian's body, reducing them to no better than a mortal. I want to destroy my body. I revel in impurity, I want to be filled with it, to feel alive. Are you watching, from up there ? Mokou and I are going to cover ourselves in impurity, we're going to make our bodies ours, even if it's not for long. So fuck your rules and your purity. Impurity is the most beautiful thing I have left. Mokou is the most beautiful thing I have left.

I stand up, and so does she. We stare at each other, admiring : I was scarred, smouldering, and she was red, dripping, staining the ground with her inexhaustible life. I notice my hands are covered in blood, too; I press them against my face, letting it mix with my wounds. This gets a laugh from Mokou. "You know you can do better than that, Kaguya." I knew. Of course I knew, after killing her so many times. But tonight, I decided that I'd let the bamboo forest itself inspire my actions, the way I was going to kill her.

"Of course I can do better." By now, we're both longing for the same thing. The thing we'd been wanting for over a millennia, but that we could only taste for a few seconds. To kill, or to be killed, at this point it didn't matter; Mokou and I have become one, and it was as if we could feel what the other felt through their actions. One of us would die, the other would be the killer, yet we both got to taste the power, the release. The protest against immortality.

"Get up", I order. She silently complies. Centuries ago, she'd have put up some kind of resistance to that, but by now she knew there was no point. Fiery Mokou, reduced to silent obedience. Eternity has stripped her off even her base personality, extinguishing her flames. I hate it. Yet it lets us get on with the killing faster. Telling her to follow me with a gesture of my hand, I walk over to a place where two bamboo shoots were growing side by side, about an arm's length away from each other. They're still young shoots, they still have a lot of growing to do, a lot of change to go through. Fuck them. I snap both of them in half, exposing the hollow circular shape of their insides. Like empty veins, reaching out into the blood red sky to find some kind of artery they can link up to, a purpose. Well don't worry. You'll have one very soon.

...

Tonight, I am angry. The red light basking everything in the colour of blood had already made me want to hurt Mokou, but now that I am with her, that I can see how fucking perfect she is after all these years, how she reminds me that I, too am the same as ever, that I'm some kind of image of beauty despite feeling disgusting right to my core, it angers me. I grab Mokou's wrists, my fingers gripping tight around them. She can feel my anger. It's her anger too. How could anyone not be angry after losing everything, right down to their own bodies ? Fucking piles of flesh that supposedly define us, and yet just serve to restrict us, imprison us. We're not perfect. It's the opposite. "So then do it, Kaguya. Rip me apart. Show me how you feel." I love her. I fucking adore her. That's why as I move her wrists to place them over the broken bamboo stalks, I pull her in for a kiss. A violent one, forcing my way into her, biting her lips, but she reciprocates, and for a few seconds we lie to ourselves, convincing each other that something so normal as a passionate kiss could be enough for us. But it isn't. I break the kiss, our lips bleeding, our breathing slightly faster. Her wrists are above the wounded bamboo now. She grins, knowing what's coming next. "Do it."

...

Bamboo grows at an incredible pace, and even if it's been broken, it'll just keep on reaching for the moon. It grows fast for a plant, but not fast enough. When you have the power to control time, to accelerate time itself, though...

I place my hands on the stalks, and they shoot up at and incredible pace, ripping right through her wrists. Like needles from the ground, the whole top half is stained in her blood as it grows right through her body, crucifying her, nailing her in place. Eternity's martyr. This finally got a reaction from her, an actual cry of pain. It did tear right through her bones, after all. Her hands hang limp at the end of her arms, barely even attached due to the bamboo growing to almost the size of her wrist. It's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. Simple damage would always be healed, whilst complete destruction would result in complete reconstruction. And yet killing her feels good. Being killed feels good. So fuck it if everything we do gets erased. At least we try, at least we stand up to Eternity's curse.

The bamboo had lifted her slightly into the air; her feet didn't quite touch the ground, thanks to a little dip between the shoots, right underneath her. Perfect. By now we're not thinking any more, we're just pure emotion, pure anger, pure desire for pain and pleasure. Now that she's hopeless, I put a hand around her neck again. No holding back. My nails dig into her skin, piercing it, my hand chokes her, stopping any oxygen from getting into that beautiful little head of hers. She won't be needing any of that soon, anyway. I don't want to think about anything anymore. I just want to lose myself in her, the only thing I still want to live for. So I stop thinking, and start biting. It's still so soft, so warm. No restraint, piercing her skin on her face, her neck, biting down into her shoulders, filling my mouth with her blood, her taste, her life that still had meaning thanks to me. My free hand travels down between my legs, finding its target. Pleasure and pain. No more thinking.

...

She's red, red with scars, bite wounds, covered in her own blood. I want to be covered in her blood, too. I want to cover up this horrible excuse for a body with something I love. I could still see that she's smiling. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we still are capable of genuine smiles. Only when were together like this, then. I think I smile back. Blood is dripping down her body, collecting in a small pool by her feet. I kneel down, dip my hand in it. Nothing beats the real thing. I start covering my face in it, covering everything, as my other hand carries on its work, getting faster and faster. Fuck. I love you, Mokou. I felt almost happy, her blood covering my face. Like I'm wearing a new skin, one that I actually chose, one that isn't some stupid fucking idea of perfection but a hideous, bloody skin of my choosing, made by her. It symbolises our love, our unique link. It's beautiful.

I stand back up, running my bloody hand over her body, resting it on her stomach. "Well ? What do you think ? Do I look good ?" She chuckles though the blood in her mouth. "You always know how to impress me, Kaguya. You know me well." Her blood. Her pain. My pleasure. My destruction. It's time to find release from all that. "Oh Mokou. I know you inside out." At that, I punch her. Punch through her, right through her stomach, out the other side. I feel her like no one else ever could, I feel her warmth around my arm, her organs, the pulse of her heart. I pull her for an embrace, the arm piercing through her holding her tight, digging its fingernails into the skin of her back. "I love you, Mokou", I whisper. "I love you too, Kaguya." My pleasure reaches its climax right as flames engulf the both of us, and I everything was replaced by the intense, searing heat of my partner's death, her love.

...

...

I'm lying on the ground, in the midst of burnt grass and scorched bamboo shoots. I'm looking at the sky : it's still red, as if demanding more, as if unsatisfied. I wasn't hurt, I had no burn marks on my skin, no blood covering me. I was as pure and untainted as the moon usually was. I want to be red, though. I want to be scarred, burnt. Why would a corpse need to masquerade as anything else ? Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Mokou standing up. She's horribly, disappointingly perfect. Where are my scratches, my bite marks ? Where's the huge fucking hold I punched in her ? Gone, all of it is gone. Erased. Like it never happened at all. A big middle finger from Eternity. Fuck everything. Silently, she walks away, then flies off. Not even a look at me, not even a goodbye. The love had been extinguished along with the pain and the flames. I understand. I wouldn't want to look at me, either. Everything about me just reminded us how powerless we are to make a difference. We don't own our bodies. We just borrow them from Eternity for a few minutes, just long enough to lie to ourselves, to enjoy ourselves, to have some kind of twisted romance, until we're ripped screaming back into reality where we can't make a difference, where we're fixed, unchanging, powerless. I let my head rest back down on the bloodstained ground.

I start crying.