My Mutant Goldfish Ate My Flesh!
Chapter Ten
'The power of friendship!'
Azusa had worried, for a few moments, the tea would do nothing to harm 'Ritsu' as it was stone cold.
However, as Azusa soon found out, the temperature of the tea did not alter its face-melting properties. Azusa hadn't even known tea had face-melting properties up until an hour or so ago, but apparently (to certain extra terrestrial beings) it was lethal, temperature notwithstanding.
"The more you know, huh?" Azusa muttered to herself.
Azusa was going to snigger to herself next time she watched Alien. Obviously, the correct way to kill those abominations was with tea to the face. Why had nobody ever tried that before?
The poor imitation of Tainaka Ritsu, the drum stick still wedged through its eye, froze the moment the tea splattered across its face. Then, after a moment's pause, in which Azusa feared it would launch itself at her and try to bite off one of her lovely twin tails, the skin on Ritsu's face began to blacken and blister. Starfish alien zombie Ritsu sank to its knees, wailing, as the flesh began to melt off its face like paints running down an artists easel.
...Now that was a sentence Azusa never thought she'd find herself thinking.
Azusa felt a little sorry for the Ritsu clone, even if it had tried to kill her. Lumps of meat were peeling off the bone in large chunks, slopping wetly onto the floor, mixing with rivulets of more strange black blood. It looked incredibly painful. As one of Ritsu's eyes was dislodged so, too, was the drum stick. It fell to the floor with a light tok sound.
Azusa pondered whether she should pick the drum stick up or not- but eventually decided against it.
She'd have to buy Ritsu a new set. It would just be wrong playing an instrument that had also been used as a weapon against alien invaders, and had been shoved through somebody's eye socket. The drum stick was bathed in black, acrid, foul-smelling ooze and clear vitreous fluid; not a nice combination. Just looking at it made Azusa shudder.
Did that mean she'd need to get a new guitar, too?
...Probably.
Azusa would just feel unclean playing a guitar that had been used to club alien imitations of her best friends to death. Azusa already suffered quite acutely from stage fright; the added knowledge that the instrument she was going to play was also a murder weapon wouldn't have made playing Fuwa Fuwa Time to a large audience any easier.
How was Azusa going to explain her need for a new guitar to her parents, though? 'Oh yeah, me and Yui were fighting off an alien invasion?'
No.
She'd be laughed at.
Worse still, she'd be shouted at for ruining an expensive instrument for no reason whatsoever, then admitted to an asylum when she stuck by her story- 'it's true, our goldfish really did try to kill me! No, I'm not crazy! A-at least, I don't think I am, although I did get beaten up pretty bad...'
This experience was, Azusa decided, impossible to believe in unless you'd seen it with your own eyes. And, even then, Azusa was still having a hard time convincing herself this wasn't some strange nightmare born from eating too much cheese before she went to bed.
Oh well.
Azusa could worry about breaking the news to her parents about her Fender (R.I.P) when she got to it. She had more pressing matters to attend to now.
Like the zombie Sawako and zombie Mio.
Ritsu, meanwhile, had melted into a horrible black ooze that smelt a little of rotting fish. Her body was no longer recognizable as human; instead, her remains looked like some indeterminate, half decomposed corpse buried at the bottom of a trash can. It didn't necessarily look like the remains of a human, though. It could have been a raccoon or a lion; it could have been anything.
Just like Mugi's amazing melting body, Ritsu's corpse was already beginning to disappear. That was considerate, thought Azusa. Self-cleaning corpses. If only real life were that neat and tidy.
Then again, if bodies really did wipe themselves away in the real world, the rate of murder would probably skyrocket. After all, if you couldn't find a corpse, it was impossible to find the killer, right?
Azusa wondered if the crime rates were higher on the planet where Kon-chan came from.
The horrible smell still lingered on the air even when the body vanished.
"Yeah! Go, Azu-nyan!" Yui cheered, her eyes lighting up like constellations. "You really showed that horrible alien monster what for! Whooo!~ No evil aliens will mess with my Azu-nyan!~~ You're so boss!"
Azusa frowned in confusion. "So boss...?"
Then, she shook her head.
"That doesn't matter! Yui-senpai, focus! Evil Sawako to your left!"
"Okie dokie! Thank you, Azu-nyan!"
Yui spun round, her skirt fluttering round her thighs, and- with a war cry that wouldn't have sounded out of place in a Luna Sea song- smashed Azusa's Fender into Sawako's skull. Zombie Sawako gave a hideous moan, recoiling backwards from the force of the blow. Zombie Sawako now looked like a complete wreck (then again, being hit over the head repeatedly with a guitar would do that to you). The real Sawako would have been disgusted to see her image tarnished so! This Sawako looked as though she'd been living in a basement for most of her life playing video games and reading manga, what with her insane never-seen-a-comb-before hair and sallow skin. She was the spitting image of a NEET!
Except maybe a little more deadly.
Most NEETs probably didn't survive on human flesh. It would have taken too much effort crawling away from the thrall of their computers.
"Azu-nyan! We must strike while the iron is hot!" shouted Yui, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like a certain twitchy thief in a certain Final Fantasy game. "Let's go for the final strike!"
"Okay!" said Azusa. She was surprised to note her voice was just as eager- if not, more- than Yui's. Azusa had always considered herself above such hysteria, but now she felt so energetic she was sure she could've blasted through all of HTT's most popular songs in double-quick time. Her blood felt like electricity, crackling through her body with such intensity she shuddered. Azusa had never felt more alive before; apart from maybe when she was playing her guitar with the rest of her band mates.
This was perhaps a little worrying, considering she'd gained this sudden influx of energy from (effectively) 'murdering' people who bore her close friends' faces. Did she have some kind of pent-up anger issues? Was she going to work herself up into a berserker-like rage until she tore out zombie Mio's throat with her own teeth?
...Ew.
Azusa shuddered at the thought.
That sounded disgusting.
Maybe wasn't going to turn into a berserker after all. She still had some common sense, which was reassuring.
Well, that was a weight off her shoulders.
Didn't people say 'it's easier to work if you're under pressure'? Perhaps Azusa's sudden surge of energy was an example of that saying. Azusa was never normally so violent- but now her life was in danger, her qualms about attacking evil zombie alien look-a-likes of her best friends had diminished. Wasn't this human nature? Survival instinct? It had nothing to do with being a good or bad person.
It was merely a necessity.
Even so, Azusa still felt a little guilty.
This day will haunt my nightmares forever. But until I fall asleep (or die), I have to keep going!
Azusa charged towards the cowering Sawako with the speed of an antelope, her twin tails fluttering behind her. She ducked underneath Sawako's outstretched arms and- upper body turning, shoes sliding against the wooden floorboards- Azusa drew back her arms-
And poured the contents of the ornate teapot over Sawako's head.
The decaying process was rapid, very similar to Ritsu's. Azusa barely had to time to look at the withering, wailing Sawako, however, because the staggering form of Mio had just recovered from a point-blank blow to the head Yui had previously dealt. The 'zombie' (Azusa was convinced this was the wrong word to use. Mio wasn't moaning 'braainsssss' or anything) reached out for Yui. Its eyes were blank and empty as though somebody had poked two holes in Mio's face and then poured black ink into the grooves left behind.
Somehow, that thought managed to disturb Azusa more than the dissolving chunks of Sawako that began to fall apart on the floor.
There really was nothing human about these creatures.
She wasn't hurting her friends.
And, if Azusa didn't fight back- armed with her teapot of justice- then they'd kill her and Yui. Either that, or these monsters would hold them down and poke out their eyes so they became soulless and emotionless too... and Azusa quite liked having emotions, thank you very much. It made playing the guitar more sincere, trying to convey her thoughts and feelings to a crowd in a manner they would understand... and it was far easier to play music than formulate a coherent sentence.
Azusa would die before she lost her ability to play the guitar.
...Even if Yui was holding said guitar like a baseball bat.
Again, this brought up the problem that she'd have to buy a new guitar- but Azusa couldn't worry about that too much right now.
"Don't you dare lay a finger on Yui!" Azusa shouted at Mio, readying her teapot. "I don't know what you are- but you're not Mio-senpai! S-so I'm not going to feel guilty! You can't make me feel guilty!"
And then, with that, Azusa summoned up what remained of her resolve. She grit her teeth together. Her eyes narrowed.
And she poured the remnants of the lukewarm tea over Mio.
In an incredibly bizarre sequence that would take ten pages to write about properly (but we're going to condense it into a few sentences for brevity, and laziness), the burnt, scalded, disfigured remnants of the three zombies began to congregate together on the floor. The bits of sunburned pink meat, oozing black fluid that drip-drip-dripped like raindrops down windowpanes, began to move. They were being pulled along by some invisible force. The same invisible force began to merge these bits of meat and acrid-smelling black blood together, until it formed a spherical shape. From this pulsating sphere on the floor a human body began to define itself; arms and legs and a head, as the bits and pieces of Sawako, Mio and Ritsu turned themselves almost inside out to form a layer of skin over the red and black mass. Within twenty seconds or so (though, given the nightmarish scene Azusa had just witnessed, it felt like longer) the remnants of the tea-slain 'zombies' had taken on the form of a young girl with pale skin in a yukata once more.
Azusa was never going to be able to sleep after this.
Never again.
Kon-chan, despite her previous boasts that she was going to kill them all 'so just try and stop me!', was looking distinctly exhausted. She could hardly keep herself standing upright, and her legs trembled like pipe cleaners under the floral print of her skirts. Her head seemed too heavy for her body as it lolled downwards; her neck couldn't support it. Her eyes would continue to blink, as though she were looking directly at the sun. Her breath came out in short, sharp gasps.
If Azusa hadn't known that little girl wasn't some kind of Satan spawn, her heart would have melted.
Even when Azusa did know what that girl was, she still felt like reaching out of her hand in a show of friendship. Couldn't they make a truce?
"Azu-nyan... Kon-chan doesn't look too good," said Yui ruefully. "I think we really hurt her."
"Well, it was trying to hurt us," said Azusa defensively. "I think we had a right!"
"I know, but..."
Yui didn't need to elaborate. Azusa knew that by her 'I know, but' Yui meant 'I still feel kind of bad about it.' Azusa agreed- even though it was ludicrous to. She couldn't help it. The horror of the previous five minutes had all but vanished from Azusa's mind. She'd seen so many improbable things- the drum stick piercing Ritsu's eye, zombie Mio eating the key, zombie Sawako getting hit over the head with her guitar- that it didn't seem real. Instead, it felt like some strange dream. The only 'real' part that remained, anchoring Azusa's thoughts, was the sniffing figure of Kon-chan, who now looked like a nine year old girl attending her first summer festival (given the kimono). It felt a little bit like she should be holding a goldfish in a bag, or some candy floss.
Kon-chan didn't look too dangerous now. Had that crying little girl really attacked them? Really?
Maybe this was a trick... Although Azusa instantly felt cynical for thinking such a thing.
No, that's just what she wants you to do! She (or should I say, 'it') took this form after we beat it so we'd let our guards down and sympathize with it. Well... I'm not going to do that!
I don't like making people cry, though.
With a small thump Kon-chan's knees finally gave way and it fell- like a marionette with cut strings, or an over-used simile that probably appears in all works of fiction- to the floor. Kon-chan's knees hit the wood, head slumped, and the palms of its hands smacked against the ground. It looked truly pathetic; hardly even strong enough to pour itself a glass of milk, let alone commit murder.
"H-how could this happen?" Kon-chan muttered, its voice thick with tears. "I-I've never been beaten like this before... I-it's not fair!"
"It's not like we pushed you off the swing set in the playground or anything!" Azusa snapped back. "You tried to kill us- whilst wearing the faces of our friends! Don't you think that deserves a little punishment?"
"B-but I didn't think you were that close... You always looked so angry, Azu-nyan- always pushing people along when they didn't want to do any work... You got so upset. You acted like you really hated everyone," said Kon-chan. The tone of its voice suggested that Kon-chan felt betrayed - as though Azusa had lied to it.
Azusa flinched a little at these words. Was she really that unreasonable? To a third party person, did she look like some kind of fire-breathing dragon lady...?
But Yui put a comforting hand on her shoulder, snapping Azusa out of these thoughts.
"That's only part of who Azu-nyan is," said Yui. "She might get mad at us, but that's only because she really wants the band to succeed! She loves us, and she loves the band, and she wants to do the best for everyone! Sometimes she's a bit too serious- but isn't it good to be serious about the things you care about the most? I think Azu-nyan is a very strong, very kind person."
Yui smiled at Azusa. It was a warm smile, filled with affection. Azusa felt herself flush at this sudden attention she was receiving. It was... nice.
Did Yui really think she was strong and kind? Sometimes, even Azusa thought she was being unreasonable...
But Yui was right.
She only became annoyed because she cared about HTT so much, and she cared about the future of her band members, and she wanted them all to succeed. They deserved to succeed, because they were all- despite their faults and flaws- wonderful people, who had been so welcoming to Azusa when she first joined the light music club. Azusa wanted to repay their kindness by working as hard as she could, and keeping everybody else on the right track, too.
"You might not understand this, Kon-chan," said Yui, turning to look at the sobbing festivalgoer-esque alien. "I mean, you were a fish for most of the time you knew us, trapped inside a tank. Maybe Azu-nyan's words couldn't reach you. But there was kindness behind each and every thing she's ever said. She does it all for our own good. Azu-nyan is the most un-selfish person I know."
Azusa's flushed face turned a darker red. She wasn't used to be praised like that; it was embarrassing. However, at the same time, it made her heart flutter in her chest.
She appreciates me.
She really does...
Sometimes I wonder, but...
"Y-yui-senpai..."
"Oh, silly me~" Yui giggled. "Azu-nyan is the most un-selfish person I know tied with Ui-chan. How could I forget?~"
"S-so..." Kon-chan looked up at Yui and Azusa from its (it was difficult thinking of the genderless alien as truly genderless when it looked so much like a little girl) position on the floor. "Y-you... really care about each other?"
"Yes!" said Yui proudly. "All of the members of HTT, and Sawa-chan, too... We're really good friends. It doesn't matter if we argue or disagree on things, because we'll always be close and we'll always stick together! Always. We'd even fight aliens and demons and monsters if that meant we could stay together, making music, forever. That's what it means to be a friend."
"You'd even fight aliens...? Does that mean I had no chance, even from the beginning, then?"
"Not ever!" said Yui, pumping a fist into the air. "Nobody can stop HTT! We're fuelled on music and tea and cake and the power of friendship!"
Kon-chan's eyes widened slightly at this, the dark black pin-pricks for irises becoming smaller.
"I-is this the power of friendship?" asked Kon-chan, its voice awed. "I've... never seen anything like it before... Not even after being alive for one thousand years..."
Azusa nodded. She felt strange saying such sappy things, but Yui had already spoken so much. It was her turn to say something meaningful.
"Friendship is... accepting other people, despite their faults and flaws, right, Yui-senpai?"
Yui nodded.
"Some people are selfish, but you can still love them despite that because there could be a thousand and one other personality traits they have that are actually really positive," said Azusa. Her face was flushed and she stuttered a little on her words (why am I saying something so embarrassing! I'm not a character from Sailor Moon!) but, nevertheless, she tried to remain strong. This was an incredibly important concept about humans and their relationships that Kon-chan needed to understand. "If I didn't care about my senpais so much, I wouldn't have remained in the light music club for so long. Even though they can be a little tiresome-"
"Hey!" Yui pouted, feigning hurt.
"-they're still the best friends I've ever had, and the nicest people I've ever met," Azusa finished. She smiled. "So... I guess we're fine as we are."
"You see, Kon-chan? It was kind of you to test the bonds of our relationship like that, but we don't really need it. We're fine just how it is."
"J-just how it is... Hmn... T-then maybe I… really can't teach you anything... A-and maybe I don't need to punish you…" Kon-chan looked as though it were experiencing an epiphany. Perhaps this train of thought had honestly never occurred to it before, being so convinced all humans were evil and all human relationships were based on selfish desires. But that wasn't true; anybody could tell you that was a lie. Kon-chan just hadn't known... But maybe it knew now. "Maybe n-not all humans are as cruel... as I'd once thought..."
"Kon-chan, where are Mio-chan and Ricchan and Mugi-chan and Sawa-chan?" asked Yui, her voice suddenly becoming strangely serious. It was incredibly odd when Hirasawa Yui became serious because it was such a contrast to her usual personality. It was al little like having a hot shower and then the water suddenly turned cold, or finding a lily in a bed of sunflowers. Unexpected. "We need to see them. I'm worried about them."
Kon-chan still looked overwhelmed. It was possible it had never encountered a girl like Hirasawa Yui. Well, Azusa hadn't either, until she stepped into the light music club room... But Yui had lit up her life. Maybe everybody needed a Hirasawa Yui.
…Not that Azusa would ever tell Yui that.
"I-I didn't kill your friends. I was hoping I could defeat you two, and then have a celebratory feast later..." Kon-chan's eyes lit up like this, until it really did look like a small girl at a carnival unsure of which food booth to go to first. Should I get takoyaki or dumplings or candy floss? "I was going to have a feast with all five of you! A banquet! A smorgasbord of different flavors... Uuu~ It would have been heaven..."
Azusa shuddered. "Please don't talk about eating us when we're stood right here. It's creepy."
"Well, I'm not actually going to eat you. It's hypothetical," said Kon-chan, slowly getting to its feet. The wooden zori clacked against the floor. "You did defeat me... So I suppose... T-though it's really, really annoying... I guess I need to repay you. Urgh. This leaves a bitter taste in my mouth."
"Does that mean we've won?" asked Azusa, hardly daring to hope. This situation was so bizarre, she wouldn't have been surprised if Kon-chan morphed into Chernabog from Fantasia (a movie so filled with nightmare fuel the six year old Azusa had been unable to sleep for a week after watching it) and clawed her face off like plasticine.
"I keep my promises," said Kon-chan.
Wow.
What an honest alien being from beyond the stars.
Cthulu would never be this lenient.
Then again, Cthulu didn't make itself manifest in the body of a nine year old girl, either.
"Besides... it would be no fun if I kept fighting. If I used my full strength it would be impossible to defeat me- and that would become so tedious, having a string of victories one after another. It's more fun when you leave life up the roulette of chance," said Kon-chan. It smiled a world-weary smile that didn't belong on the face of such a young girl. "You probably won't understand... but being alive for so many years becomes quite boring. So I like it when people challenge me. And... I don't mind losing occasionally, either... Especially to people like you. I don't think I've met any humans with such powerful bonds of friendship. I'm a little jealous."
"Aww..." Yui sniffed, wiping tears away from the corners of her eyes. "T-that's so sad..."
"Yui-senpai, it tried to kill us!" Azusa said, voice affronted.
"But Kon-chan has seen the error of its ways, I'm sure of it!"
"...You think too highly of people."
"Azu-nyan..." said Yui, her voice dropping in volume, as she took hold of Azusa's hands. Azusa shuddered as though a volt of electricity had gone through her body. Yui was staring into her eyes so intently her gaze seemed to burn. All of a sudden, Yui looked a lot older; more mature. "Don't you think it would be really lonely to spend your whole life cut off from the rest of society? It's not Kon-chan's fault it's an alien... but people didn't understand that. And I'm sure that would make anybody a little twisted. You don't want to be alone, do you, Azu-nyan?"
Yui's words stung Azusa; cutting through the icy front she displayed to most people. She was forcefully reminded of the impeding future she'd tried to blot out. Yui and the others were going to graduate. Then... she really would be alone.
"N-no... I don't..." said Azusa.
Yui smiled. "Then maybe we shouldn't judge Kon-chan too harshly."
"I only took a small bite of the others," said Kon-chan helpfully, hands clasped at its front. "Really. I just knocked them unconscious. They're in the store cupboard."
"Kay!~" said Yui. "Where's the key?"
"Wait a moment..."
And, with that, something rather disgusting happened. Kon-chan lifted its pale, milky white fingers in the air...
And stuck them into its mouth.
Ew... I guess it really isn't human at all.
Kon-chan's mouth split apart, fissures running through its face like the lines made in broken glass. Its mouth continued to split open wider and wider, until it looked like a black hole- and more of Kon-chan's fingers were forced inside its opening mouth. The fingertips... then the whole finger... the wrist... almost up to the elbow? Was such a thing possible? The noises made by Kon-chan's search inside its body were hideous; a cracking, ripping, tearing sound...
Azusa had seen a lot of vomit-inducing things that day, but she had to turn around and put her hands over her ears at this.
It was a little difficult trying to defend such a horrific creature. Kon-chan wasn't human; therefore, it was reasonable to assume Kon-chan's mind did not work with human logic. Yui thought she had taught Kon-chan a lesson about 'friendship'- but maybe it was impossible for such a creature to understand the concept. It was like a French person trying to teach a German Italian; it was too easy for the lines to get crossed in communication, especially if they didn't speak the same language. Whilst Kon-chan could speak Japanese fairly well, the concepts Yui was talking about might not have made any sense whatsoever.
Maybe it was a wasted effort.
Then again... Azusa didn't know. Was it wrong to make such assumptions about a creature merely because it wasn't human?
After about a minute of cracking and crunching, as Kon-chan's fingers continued to dig around inside its body, Azusa heard a jubilant cry of "I've got it!"
Azusa turned around slowly, her fingers splayed over her eyes in case she saw a sickening sight. However, her eyes were greeted by Kon-chan holding a ring of keys. The keys were drenched in black bile, and the smell clinging to them made Azusa feel nauseous, but the scene before her was not so horrific she had to look away.
Kon-chan walked over to the storage cupboard, sleeves of its yukata fluttering slightly, and put the right key into the lock. It twisted it round, there was a small clink- and it pushed the door open.
There, lying on the floor, were the bodies of Mio, Ritsu, Mugi and Sawako.
a/n: Hmn, lets see... The next chapter will probably be the final one, then an epilogue, then an omake. Yay ;D
~renahhchen xoxo