Warnings, disclaimers, wtf was canon thinking?
A/N's -
- Five years of torture, and the only canon effect was that Yukina recognized and was scared of the Toguro bros.? Sure.
Purge
Yukina spotted the bottle while out shopping with Shizuru. It was tiny, barely half the size of her palm, and sported a stylized eye in two colors. She didn't know what impulse made her slip it into the cart... maybe it was the red and blue eye, or the teardrop shape. Maybe it was the caption about relief.
If the taller girl noticed the small addition to the cart, she didn't say a word. But she might not have seen; she'd been lighting up a smoke when the cashier scanned the bottle, and didn't glance at the receipt.
That night, when Yukina woke to a silent, too-hot room, a gasp escaping when she realized she wasn't sitting up, wasn't there anymore... she slipped the bottle out from under her pillow. The directions were simple enough to follow: a drop in each eye, though Yukina quickly discovered that it was easiest for her to hold the nozzle at the outer corner of her eye and tilt her head.
The first gem to fall cut at her heart, a welcome lance of almost-alien chill through a spot of emotion she'd thought dead. The second and third wedged that spot open, violation tinkling onto the floor and rolling away, waiting to be picked up.
Only they weren't. No thick fingers scrabbled greedily for the shining spheres... only...
... only...
... slim fingers.
Yukina found herself collapsed by her bed, a hand shaking on the nearest stone.
No pain.
No grief.
No tears.
Just the faintest pressure of her own hand, on a tiny bottle of human eyedrops, and the stones... not quite right, but close enough... were there. And nobody knew.
She snatched up the other two stones, nearly crushing one in her grip. Nobody knew. Nobody could take them. Nobody would take them, or sell them, or force more.
They were hers. Her choice. Her decision. Her bottle. Yukina's. No one else's. She could make them, when she wanted, how she wanted, if she wanted...
If she wanted. And never if she didn't.
Yukina felt her lips curve painfully upwards, a smirk so unlike her sweet smiles that she'd forgotten she could do it. She clutched the three hollow gems to her breasts, shoving herself to her feet to find a keepsake box.
Mine.