[A/N] Last we left our heroine, she was still imprisoned by Insane Black Rock Shooter, the pain of the warrior's injuries forced upon her. Meanwhile, Yomi and Dead Master continue their fight. Yuu has received a mysterious notebook on accident in their absence. The battle continues…
Insane Black Rock Shooter looked at the stump of her left arm, mildly amused at the gushing of blood from it. She was going to murder that Yomi Takanashi for hurting her. Her flame flared high, as if in agreement. Yomi Takanashi would pay. Pay dearly.
BLACK ROCK SHOOTER XI
Black love.
The ground rumbled beneath Dead Master's feet, shaking dust from the ceiling. Yomi was safely within her. Dead Master decided to give her a mental breather. She stood with her scythe at the ready, her remaining skull, Kuro, joining her by her side.
The ground burst open, revealing I. BRS, still missing her arm, followed by several chains. Dead Master raised her eyebrows in surprise. She thought she was the only one with mastery of chains.
Dead Master charged, her wounds having mostly healed during their respite. She ran along the walls, dodging the barrage of bullets fired at her. She sliced at I. BRS's stomach, leaving a wide gash. Kuro slammed into her chest, cracking the black chestplate. Some purple blood ran from the bottom of it, suggesting shrapnel puncturing her chest. Dead Master smiled. Her adversary had not recovered from her wounds, but she had.
She slashed again and again, purple blood splashing over her and the stones. I. BRS's stomach was a mess of blood and gore. Yet she remained standing, not even faltering. Dead Master got a strong smash in the side from the cannon. She slid across the floor, bouncing in the dirt.
Kuro charged again, smashing into Insane Black Rock Shooter's head. She reeled backwards slightly, then smashed the skull, causing it to explode. A black cloud surrounded I. BRS, debris from the skull cutting into her. Her eye ignited the smoke, causing it to burst into turquoise flame.
Dead Master looked up from the floor and smirked at the sight of the burning I. BRS. "What's happening?" Yomi's voice came.
"Just set her on fire. She should be weak enough to give her whatever cuddling your heart desires, my little lovebird."
"...Can I see...?"
"Trust me, you don't want to."
The figure of I. BRS was obscured by smoke and flame, only the tip of her violet flare visible. The fire began to fade. Dead Master looked at the smoke expectantly, waiting to see I. BRS fall to the floor, writhing in pain.
The smoke cleared, and instead I. BRS was still standing, her face not showing any sign of pain. Her purple flame pulsed with flame.
Dead Master cursed to herself. Why wasn't she incapacitated? Her skin looked horribly charred and blackened.
"What's going on?" Yomi asked again, "Can I hug her yet...?"
"Mato's taking all the pain."
In her little world, Mato was battered and subjected to horrific pain after pain. Her stomach had been attacked, her breasts subjected to stabbing pains and her skin felt like it had been boiled off. She sat in her little sphere, now a midnight purple, and cried. She curled herself in as tight a ball as she could, wishing the pain would stop.
She looked at the other nude girl that she had accidentally pulled out of the haze after her shoulder started hurting. Her eyes were blue, like Mato's and they were wide open. The girl seemed to be unconscious or dead. Mato wondered if she'd die there. She cried bitterly, wanting to leave this world. She used the indigo mist several times to numb her skin from the pain, each time coming up shivering.
Nana sat in her bedroom, panicking. She needed to record her observations somehow, and Koutari in the Appendix. Worse, she was calling out to herself, wounded. She had been attacked by Strength. It was almost as if she was trying to evade identification.
An idea struck. There was only one place more important than her notebook that this information could written with dignity. Herself.
She went to her desk and grabbed a pen, putting her left hand in front of her. She neatly wrote "Koutari=Strength" backwards, despite the uncomfortable scratching of the pen's tip on her skin. She wrote the rest of the day's observations on her left arm and stomach, pulling her shirt down and sleeves to conceal her writings. She wrote one observation on her left foot.
"Pain can have control over anything, it seems. Pain is king."
"What?" Yomi shrieked, "We're hurting Mato? We tore off her arm! We set her on fire!" Her voice was hysterical.
"Yes, regrettably, Mato probably feels like dying about now. Poor thing. However, we can't not fight! We'll be killed!"
"Let me take the pain," Yomi said, "It's only fair."
"But—"
"Let me do it."
Dead Master shifted the pain to Yomi, which was met by shrieks of pain. "Still want it?"she asked, keeping her eye on I. BRS, who was slowly advancing.
"Y-yes..."
"Very well."Dead Master sent chains to tangle I. BRS up, raising her scythe.
Mato tried to awaken the other girl, but to no avail. She was utterly alone. The world seemed to be getting darker. She was scared. Scared to be consumed and scared to be hurt again. Her skin was unblemished, but it still burned in some places. Her shoulder still throbbed painfully.
"Help," she whispered to nobody.
Yuu stretched and changed into her nightclothes, feeling lonely. She glanced at the notebook she left on her desk, unsure of what to make of it.
She sat down at the desk and pushed the notebook aside, grabbing a binder labelled, "Roster." Flipping through the pages, there were logs of each player's status, made about once a week. Each had their photo clipped to them. Most seemed to be in good shape.
The last page had a picture of Mato. Unlike the other images where the players posed, Mato's picture was taken while playing a game.
"What am I standing around for? What does my face tell you? Take a picture that shows you what I can do!"
The image was a close-up of her making her first dunk. Yuu looked at the page. The status of this week listed her as, "Absent due to unusual circumstances." Kohata had scribbled, "Freaking missing," next to this, with a sad face.
Yuu sighed and turned to the administration section. She glanced at Arata Kohata's page. Above her name was "Super Cool Coach Kohatchi". Despite her melancholy, Yuu smirked at the title. Her own page had "Super Manager" written on it, scribbled in Mato's childish handwriting.
Yuu looked at her status. "Heavy stress, consider taking this week off." Kohata's comment was, "Yuu, you work harder than me. Take a break or I'll look bad!" Yuu frowned. She couldn't rest. The team needed her, and her only, what with the incident two weeks ago.
She flipped to the section labelled, "Other important people". This mostly contained friends and family of the team to contact should things go wrong. Yomi was listed as, "Close friend of Mato," with Kohata's dry remark, "Whatever happens to her happens to Mato, so keep an eye on both of them."
Yuu tore out Ayame's page and crumpled it, tossing it in the wastebasket. She huffed and shut the binder, her attention drawn back to the notebook.
She wondered if any of those girls looked like her. She scanned the pages before finding two that looked vaguely like her. One was captioned, "Unknown," and she wore a dark dress with a hammer for one arm and an axe for another, both ridiculously oversized. The other was listed as "Strength", who wore a hood and had two enormous metallic hands, along with a metal tail.
Yuu didn't think she liked either of them. She figured the artist must have created these odd characters by modelling them off real people. She shrugged, curious as to when she'd ever seen this girl. Things were getting too surreal lately.
Yuu yawned and rested her head on the desk, closing her eyes.
Insane Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master threw chains at each other, trying to suffocate each other. Both sustained terrible wounds, their blood forming coloured puddles on the floor. The hallway was extremely battered and looked unstable. Dead Master's onslaught was unable to be deterred; with no pain, she was able to stand up and fight with no hesitation.
Meanwhile, Yomi curled into a ball and continually wiped tears from her eyes as points of pain erupted all over body constantly. She sobbed but forced herself not to scream. She was doing this for Mato.
Outside, Dead Master hacked at her adversary's legs, trying to slice them off or damage them so I. BRS couldn't stand. Despite repeatedly getting batted away, Dead Master finally severed something important, because I. BRS buckled to her knees. She fired once more, blowing Dead Master back yet again.
Nana padded downstairs in her nightgown, yawning. The other children from her section greeted her halfheartedly. Nana ignored them and sat at the cantine table away from them. She looked disdainfully at the napkins, which had printed on them, "Izuriha Sanctuary for the Mentally Unstable".
"What's on your foot?" one of the attendants asked her.
"Nothing. Go away." Nana glared at the attendant, who wisely backed off. If only her reflection was here! Then she would be free. The only satisfaction she'd had from being there was hearing that the bastard who owned the place's daughter had an accident and was in the hospital with a concussion. The daughter looked familiar though. She'd need to have her notebook and the daughter there to confirm, though.
She took out a pen and made a note to herself on her thigh to do that.
Mato shook the unconscious girl again, wincing as pain kept returning to lash at her body, tears running down her face.
"Wake up!"
"Give me control," Yomi said "I need to bring Mato back myself."
"If you insist. Less work for me." Yomi was suddenly in control, holding a scythe as she looked down at the mess of blood that was I. BRS.
Hesitantly, she wrapped her arms around the being, the warm stickiness of violet blood wiping on her. She pulled her tightly to her. "I'm sorry, Mato. Come home. Stop fighting me."
"I'm sorry, Mato. Come home. Stop fighting me." The voice came. Mato stopped, her body still paining terribly. There was a pleasantly warm feeling for the first time in a while, making her sphere wider.
"Mato Kuroi...Black Rock Shooter...come home...!" Yomi shouted, hugging her tighter, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of blood on her skin.
The girl's eyes widened. Mato Kuroi. She was Mato Kuroi! Her memories flooded back. How she ended up in this place, what Yomi had done, how upset she was...
"Mato! Please!"Yomi's voice surrounded her.
"Yomi! Get me out of here! It hurts!" Tears came to her eyes. Yomi had come to rescue her. "I love you!" she shouted. The red haze dispersed further.
The other girl's eyes opened. She blinked, her long black hair getting in her face. Mato recognised her immediately. "Black Rock Shooter!" Mato hugged her, causing her shoulder to ache. She winced and looked at BRS with a pained expression.
"Shh, I'll take the pain away."Mato felt her pain ebb away as BRS grunted slightly, shaking.
"What's happening? Why are you here with me?" Mato asked fearfully, her eyes wide and anxious.
"I don't know...something's happened."
"I hear Yomi! She came to get me!" Mato was crying and shaking BRS, "She wants me around!"
BRS smiled at her other self. "
We're a bit trapped...it seems..."Her speech was slow and laboured.
Mato frowned. "We need to get out! Yomi! Yomi!" she called. The answers got fuzzier until her voice vanished.
I. BRS just stared at Yomi, her flame flickering. It went out for a brief few seconds, then came back in full force.
I. BRS lunged forward suddenly, taking Yomi by surprise, and ran her through with the point of her weapon. Yomi gasped as green blood sprayed from her wound, the pain spreading through her body. Green tears ran down her face as she went down. She had failed.
"I'm sorry...Mato." She crumpled to the floor in a heap.