Note: Gratitude given to H0saki for inspiration, and for her love of Junketsu Ryuko.
This marks the beginning of "Hajime", the first of three arcs within the story here. Each will deal with an overall theme rather than dedicating one arc to each of the Kiryuuin siblings/main characters, etc.
Dec 30, 2016 change: Entire story updated to match version on AO3. This includes name spellings, which reflect a closer transliteration to their Japanese counterparts in Romanji.
"Insanity cannot befall one who never had sanity in the first place."
Pain on pain on pain on pain...
Ryuuko screwed her eyes shut against the physical assault, flinching at the monster of a woman's touch between her inner thighs. Her canines bit harshly into her cheeks, drawing blood easily from the wounds. She wanted to spit it onto that dreadful woman's face, hopefully provoking her into potentially attacking her and stop whatever they were doing to her, but the elder gracefully moved out of her field of view. She settled on letting it drip down and bleed into the younger girl's layered dress- one last act of defiance in her most vulnerable moment. Her torso arched backwards in agony, and her fists clenched reflexively as the white kamui snaps into place around her. Nails dug deep into palms, drawing stark crescent impressions like painted moons against a dark backdrop. Her mother- no, Ragyou- gently caressed her. A mocking gesture under the guise of sincerity, Ryuuko supposed, shouting a stream of expletives when the elder's hand uncomfortably strayed too far up for her liking, the matriarch boldly tracing her fingers along very inappropriate places and very much so enjoying the sight before her.
She'd fought like a wild animal when she was caught, of course. Her pride wouldn't have let her done otherwise. But the binds stringing her, holding her aloft and spread-eagle midair were too strong, too taut, too embedded within her body. Like a fly caught in an intricate spider's web, she was helpless as the two nearby put their plan into action.
"Guh...guh... kkkkk...k..."
She sputtered as the high collar around her throat unexpectedly tightened, crushing her windpipe. Breaths came heavy and labored, each gasp lined with a thousand knives stabbing the fragile throat tissue. Junketsu wrapped tightly onto every bit of her it possibly could reach, threatening to snap her in half as it settled on her body and practically tried to meld with her skin. It undulated above her breasts, stretching and contracting as it dug into her body. Lungs burned for air and ribs audibly groaned under stress. Thigh-high boots built for Satsuki's toned legs tightened uncomfortably against hers, the band of fitted material contracting painfully.
Ryuuko shuddered. Senketsu felt natural to wear and felt no different than any other clothing she wore; Junketsu was cold and inhuman, steel on ice, perhaps. The way the thing crawled across her body made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It gave the distinct impression of an insect skittering along her skin, a roach that she couldn't crush out of existence.
"Get... it... off..." she hoarsely cried, struggling futilely against the threads which held her paralyzed midair once more. "Get it off!"
Amused, Ragyou chuckled, a low sultry laugh tainted by inhuman vocal chords, and playfully let pale, slender fingers dance on her hybrid daughter's neck, letting them linger for a second before drawing them upward to cup her cheek.
"Don't fight," she cooed in her ear. "Open your heart to Junketsu."
Nui moved beside her, humming an indistinct tune as she fingered a long, slender needle adorned with a single long red thread. Uncomfortably close as she was, the cyclops drew even closer, shoving her head between her self- described soul sister's head and shoulder. An errant flick of her fingers, and Ryuuko's pained howls began anew.
Nui skillfully sewed her older sister into the outfit, tutting mock-condescendingly as Ryuuko's fingers pleadingly grasped at her pink gloved wrists to stop. Did it bother her to literally bind human and clothing together in such a glorious marriage between the two organisms? Certainly not. Ryuuko needed to see the truth, and although her heart panged at the sight, Ryuuko would certainly thank her later. She giggled. As if her alien heart could feel remorse for what she did. She did whatever she wanted, and nothing would stop her, after all. Soon, Ryuuko would be at her maman's side, where she should have always been from the very beginning.
Ryuuko felt the kamui's distinctive bite as it feasted on her blood, practically lapping at the droplets as the blonde's needle pierced through its layering and its new host's flesh. Droplets of red were devoured as quickly as they appeared, leaving the god robe white as freshly fallen snow once more. A python ensnaring a mouse, the sailor uniform became a fraction tighter, as if it were trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of her body. Junketsu mercilessly siphoned the iron-rich liquid before the previous withdrawal was absorbed into its fibers, feeding off its new host as she continued to squirm and struggle within her bindings.
Somehow, she became aware that she was gradually losing feeling of her limbs. Her limbs shook, violently quaking where they were pinned. A deep panic spread from the hybrid's core to the rest of her body, acutely seizing her mind and whipping it into a frothing frenzy. Thoughts raced, incoherent and unfinished sentences brought to her awareness before being overtaken by others, like bubbles in a pot of boiling miso. Anxiety struck, placing a deadened weight over her chest. Her alien heart throbbed, beats skipping, coming in rapid and shallow.
In and out, in and out the needle weaved. The metal ran red with her blood with its entrance and was cleaned upon exiting by hungry cloth. The no-star's eye twitched. In and out. In and out and in and out and-.
"Stop..."
When did she become so pathetic?
In and out. In and out...
She can't think… Something's wrong inside her head. There's a gnawing deep inside her brain, a twitch in her muscles, a feral feeling hard to describe that's poking at the edges...
This was just like when she fought Nui for the first time.
"Stop... "
Only this time, there was nobody to save her.
"Stop... it..."
...and in and out and in and...
The delinquent no longer cared to maintain any semblance of dignity as whimpered words tore free from blood coated lips. Pressure built behind her eyes as tears started to gather, uncomfortable aches and pains from Junketsu's feeding and Ragyou's perverse ministrations too much to bear.
"Stop it!"
A bright flash obscured her vision, and when it disappeared, everything vanished.
Her body temporarily seizes at the sudden over-stimulation, hips bucking into empty air as a pleasurable rush hits deep in her core. When it fades to a comfortable afterglow, the seventeen year old then realized she was floating, her body free of both pain and markings she obtained while enduring damage from uncountable, easily forgettable battles. She relaxes, bliss taking over her senses. Far away from the earthly troubles of the mortal realm, the recent memory of her assault slips past her mind, of the battle of wills going on without her knowledge at the moment. An unbordered expanse of pure white lay before her, the space intermingling with unfathomably long strands of life fibers that bobbed and twisted as if they had a consciousness of their own. Nothing else existed in the void yet, not even sound.
The noisy chatter in her brain precipitously stopped, leaving her mind curiously blank. It felt difficult to conjure images or think of anything. Occasionally, something would flit before her eyes, but they were too muddy and obscured to divine an answer more complex than what she saw from them. A brown-haired girl with an atrocious bowl-cut laughing at something. An abnormal red blade meeting its twin- long-separated Geminis? Something leaping out at her like a lion going in for the kill. A girl with hair as long and free as the wind's unearthly caress. An imposing building with a dead man clothed in nothing but shadows bound between two towering pillars- a Samson from another time? A wreck of a house. And fire. So much fire. A rapid series of stills assaulted her, each burning themselves into her mind, searing into her memory one right after the other. In time, they mixed together unhappily, forming a monstrous conglomeration of snapshots that painted a surreal, terrifying picture of her past.
For the first time in her life, Ryuuko was terrified beyond measure.
The silence was deafening. No movement she made procured any noise. Her heartbeat, usually relentlessly pounding in her ears, was absent. When she opened her mouth to shout, the expanse snatched them from her, placing an ethereal kiss on her lips in its wake.
Unbidden, a memory flashed before her eyes, and its pull snatched her away before she could resist. The void disappeared, and with it, the last remaining vestiges of herself as she was.
"You're getting to be a big girl now, Ryuuko," a man in a lab coat gruffly muttered as he adjusted the toddler's clothes and discarded the spent syringe. "You have to wipe your own tears now."
Ryuuko looked up at the man with unshed tears in her eyes, rubbing at her hurting arm than following her father's advice. It smarted sharply from where the clear liquid was introduced into her system. In her other tiny hand was Kiyoshi-chan, her faithful stuffed pig, worn from years of love and indeterminable hours of play. It used to belong to someone else that Isshin loved, someone with a blue bow in her hair most days and an elaborately constructed ribbon the other days. The aforementioned stuffed animal seemed to mournfully glare at the doctor, its cloth eye silently watching all and passing judgement.
Suddenly overcome with guilt, Isshin took one of the girl's small hands and kissed the back of it. It was short but tender, only slightly marred by the remarkable beard.
"I'm sorry, Ryuuko, but it's for your own good."
"But why, dad?" The first tear fell. The second soon met its twin on sun-kissed lips.
Isshin flinched. 'Dad,' she said. Not 'daddy', like she usually would.
"I want to protect you, Ryuuko. From all things that want to hurt you, both inside and outside."
"Inside?" the toddler puzzled, placing her hand and Kiyoshi-chan over her heart for emphasis.
Isshin grimly smiled. "You'll understand when you're older. But I hope you never have to. Not now, not ever. But regardless of what happens, promise you'll never forget me. Never forget-!"
"Forget? Why would I forget…?"
The scene changed unexpectedly, as if someone had ripped a running film reel out of a projector and hastily fed in a new one. Unlike the harsh sepia tones of the previous memory, the area took on a subdued grayed tone.
Ryuuko paused, wracking her brain.
Previous memory? Already, she was starting to forget.
She tried to remember, to recall any scant details, but all her mental search rewarded her with was "It's for your own good."
"It's... for my own... good?" she quizzically repeated. "It's… for my own good… It's for my own good."
"Yes," a quiet, coy voice seemed to seductively whisper into her ear. "Indeed, it's for your own good, and the good of the world before you. Relax, and let yourself be cleansed of the world's filth. Relax, and let yourself be... purified..."
Her mind buzzed, tickled at the breathy contact. Euphoric jolts ran down her spine, each more intense and toe-curlingly pleasurable than the last. Decision hastily made against her nature, Ryuuko decided not to question it, not when it was doing that.
But a different part of her mind rebelled, refused to be subjugated. A fire burning from deep within, it roared at the very notion of submission, of willingly handing herself over without just cause. It clashed horribly with the ghostly entity, intent on forcing it out or die trying in the process. And it hurt. She whimpered as agony unbridled clawed at her in response. She tried to tell herself that she wanted this, that she needed this. But it didn't listen, didn't relapse, and the pain of a thousand speeding trains slammed into her again and again.
In due time, a baby swaddled in white cloth soon appeared before her in her mind's eye, forcing attention away from her own suffering. Nothing but a beaming smile and a tiny bang of impossibly colored hair poked out of nested cotton, the picturesque serenity the infant possessed soothing her nerves.
The bundle morphed into a shy, young toddler donned in rain boots, a fisherman's hat, and a short dress, looking towards something Ryuuko couldn't see. She seemed to give her a knowing smile, unadulterated joy twinkling in her youthful eyes. Then the toddler became a young adventurous girl scaling the tops of trees with her mother's awed approval, a five year-old exploring shops as part of a mother-daughter day out, a wishful girl blowing out candles for her sixth birthday, varying degrees of a schoolgirl going through the motions of first days and graduating, then a young teen interning at the Kiryuuin conglomerate, until finally…
The world neatly ground to a halt. Her acuity sharpened greatly as the turbulent motions of the memories calmed. A church stood before her, small and tranquil. Bells rang in the near distance- and when she peered up to look at them, the sight before her took her breath away.
Before her was a duplicate of herself dressed in a delicately exquisite wedding dress standing beside a tuxedo-clad figure facing an altar. It fit her body perfectly, as if tailored by nothing less than expert hands.
The bells tolled again, and suddenly she was that Ryuuko, gazing at her groom lovingly. It felt perfect, as if she knew her exact place in the universe and everything made sense. The feeling inside… it was purely impossible to accurately describe how awesome and weightless it felt. Her head still hurt, but it had dulled considerably as a delightful buzz took over in its stead.
"Yes! That is your happiness- the good fortune of being worn by clothing!" a different voice appeared, and she turned to see her mother below her, gloriously immaculate in appearance.
The pain disappeared instantly.
Indeed, the glory of the god robe now luxuriously swathed upon her body bathed her form in its wondrous afterglow. No longer tight and crushing around her midsection, it undulated freely, rippling pleasantly above her flesh and sending jolts of mind-numbing pleasure down her entire being. Ragged lips parted to allow a throaty moan past, and with one final breathy sigh, she allowed herself to relax completely and let this new sensation wash over her, mind finally freely submitting to its presence.
Ryuuko remembered now! She remembered that everything shown before her was what she had forgotten- the perfect childhood she shared with her mother that millions of people would kill for, the endless sea of love and understanding her mother had provided her with, and the role she had in spreading the love she felt now to the less fortunate. And it was only thanks to that traitorous backstabbing "sister" of hers that she had forgotten in the first place!
"You understand, don't you, Ryuuko?"
She was a monster. Bestial in nature, even. An inhuman freak in human clothing. The result of an experiment combining two species in the misguided belief of fostering intimate relations between them in the name of the betterment of mankind. But her mother loved her anyway and gave her a normal life, taught her that what she was wasn't evil or something to be reviled and ostracized for. Her mother was her rock in the sea of turmoil, a path to green pastures in the wasteland of the world. She would do anything for her, and her mother would do the same.
Ryuuko understood perfectly.
"Yes mother," she cried as she dove off of the building, casting aside all inhibitions and entrusting her safety to the paragon of truth and love. But even in the land of bliss, a flash of sepia flitted between her vision, and the delinquent was graced with a brief head-splittingly painful headache once again.
"-Promise you'll never forget me!"
She gasped. The connection severed, and the white void returned with a vengeance, blending unpleasantly with elements from the real world.
"-Never forget-!"
The final echo wracked her body. Limbs seized dangerously before the energy spike abruptly left and she relaxed. Her tired body overcome with exertion, collapsed into four waiting arms, where she was held gently, lovingly almost.
"I won't forget you… mother…" she whimpered, going limp in the hands of her former captors turned rescuers.
The tears she held in for so long finally fell.
End of Chapter 1
