There had been a moment, one that stretched for hours in her mind, when Nui believed she'd escaped Hell. When her family had cut her free of the shackles and set her loose to hunt down the hideous creature who started all of this, and when Mama had joined her and they tore him to pieces together. That was supposed to be it. The end. Victory, and the coming of the new age of Life Fibers.
Yet here she was once again. Trapped. Terrified. In constant agony. Staring down something even worse, something she had no words for, something that was slowly turning its head from its kill and getting ready for Mama and her next.
Earlier, she'd felt the Holy Original roar in agony, as wounded and helpless as she found herself right now. She'd felt His pain in her bones, in the deepest fibers of her being, but she had struggled to separate herself from His screams to focus on chasing after Soichiro. And then when Mama had turned up to make the job easier, and the scream settled into a constant, heavy grumble in her brain, she had kept quiet and put on her smiley face out of respect for Mama's revenge, reassuring herself that nothing could hurt the Original.
This had to be what had happened. This… this thing had spawned, emerging from the hateful hearts of those who would defy the wishes of the Life Fibers. It was the Original's devil, His enemy in existence, fated since the beginning of the universe to one day battle and be struck down by His glorious power. Every second that it continued to be brought the Original misery, its corruption and wretchedness tangling and clashing against His holy glow.
But… she, Nui Harime, was His daughter. She wouldn't let him down by dying here, or letting Mama be hurt at the hands of this devil.
The thought kept her lucid and sane even as the bladelike claws wrapped around her heart, digging and tearing at her Life Fibers as the thing on the other end opened its toothy flashlight maw and started screaming.
She tried to scream too, hoping to drown out the sound and comfort Mama's ears with her voice, but she could barely let out her breath. She suddenly felt… drained, as if she'd been running a marathon without flash-stepping. Her arms went limp, and she lost all feeling in her legs, leaving the claws clutching her heart to keep her suspended.
And then her confidence trickled down until she couldn't remember what she'd planned on doing, because the devil started to speak again.
"MURDERERS…!" Its voice was like hundreds of shards of glass grinding into someone's screaming throat, or her own skull being rubbed raw against a chalkboard. "RAPISTS! TRAITORS! YOU BROKE THEM! THEY WILL NEVER… BE WHOLE AGAIN! THIS IS WHO YOU ARE!"
Nui could no longer focus on the devil, or Mama, or anything else in the room. All she could see was blinding blood-light, impossibly red, so bright it pierced through her eyes and illuminated her frontal lobe. She was blind. She was an empty shell, a vessel for light.
She was… helpless again.
"THIS IS WHAT YOU MADE THEM FEEL!"
With a sound that could have been a snapping bone, her entire body flooded with excruciating pain. Everything from her skin down to her deepest sinew was a rippling pattern of pins and needles, each tiny dot of sensation a microcosm of agony. The bladed claws around her heart gripped tighter, and she felt each individual snap of a Life Fiber being severed and torn away.
The devil screamed into the air, and Nui felt herself being lifted higher off the ground. A split second later, she rushed back down and slammed into the floor at nearly terminal velocity, folding her legs out in crooked directions beneath her, smacking her head back into the wall and tingeing the redness with ribbons of black. When her ears stopped ringing, all she could hear were the sounds of Mama grunting and the devil screeching.
"Ma… ma…" she whispered with the little breath that hadn't been forced out of her lungs.
She was lifted again.
Slammed again.
The claws squeezed tighter.
Tighter.
Tighter…
The devil screamed once more, and the encroaching darkness and blinding red was almost drowned out in burning white light.
Am… I…?
No. Nui felt like her individual atoms were being run through microscopic meat grinders, but she was still alive and her vision was clearing up. Through the intermingling of piercing colors, she could make out shapes moving somewhere in the distance. And it might have just been her fractured sense of hearing, but she could swear there was some kind of engine running above her.
The devil jerked its body in a different direction, shoving Nui roughly against the wall. Desperately clinging to the new shred of hope, she forced herself to focus and tried to make out, if nothing else, where Mama was right now.
Gunshots were ringing through the endless noise in stuttering beats, but they weren't of any consequence. For all she knew, they were the voices of forsaken souls, screaming out from within the devil's throat as they prayed for the salvation the Life Fibers could provide. Her ears were deaf to them. Right at this second, Mama was all that mattered.
… There.
Mama was close. That was good. She was bloody all over, and her limbs hung like a doll's at her sides, some at angles that upset Nui's stomach even worse than the impalement and violent shaking had. It looked like one of her eyes was bulging from the socket, and a large part of her jaw and neck were little more than meat mulch. Some of her Life Fibers were doing as they were meant to, but others lay still, gray and paralyzed in their places.
But she was close, and that was all Nui needed.
Something metal was cleaved loudly apart somewhere close, and as the white light intensified before flickering away, the devil's grip on her heart loosened for just a fraction of a second. She was already in motion as the claws started to regain pressure; she was focusing all of her energy on her next move, too busy praying it would work and preparing for the required motions to pay attention to her own state.
There was a moment, just before she blinked and closed the distance, when something in her chest gave way and popped like a water balloon. She felt no pain, and had no concern for whatever it was.
Her hands touched the devil's tendril, and she knew the Holy Original had blessed her once more.
Th-there… we… go.
- Simultaneously -
"Coming up on the mansion now," Aikuro shouted from the cockpit. "Looks like there's, there's damage to the front wall, and… oh…"
He fell silent. Just as well, because Mako had gotten tired of listening to him. She didn't hate that he'd been talking – it was just exhausting, straining to understand him through the rotors, and the distant screaming, and the unending pounding in her eardrums. They could have been flying through a hurricane and it would barely have made a difference to her.
What she'd discovered barely half an hour ago… she didn't have the will to think about it. After all of her tears were spent, the information – the confession – sank into the dark parts of her brain and nested there, thrashing and biting, unable to be pulled out. She couldn't think about it right now. What the hell would reflecting on it do, either to her or for her? So the father of her best friend, the man who'd given her shelter for so long, was one of the key faces she could point to for everything wrong in her life.
Well, in all likelihood, after what else she'd been told, Isshin Matoi was probably dead by now. Probably ripped to pieces and scattered all over the place. Probably nothing but a puddle soaking into his carpet. So what point was there?
At the proper forefront of her mind was the news, practically pumped into her skull as she was forcibly pulled into this helicopter, that Ryuko had fused with Senketsu in a rage and transformed into some kind of rogue monster racing toward her vulnerable father. She might have been able to guess that from how badly the hangar was damaged, but hearing it still made her insides burn even more than they already were, and seeing the monstrosity firsthand would no doubt do the same.
Nobody knew at this point whether Ryuko's life was even salvageable. True, she'd escaped the base without seriously hurting anyone near her, but it could just as well be a fluke as a sign of the woman she'd been. And they had no way of determining, since they were speeding along the trail of destruction so quickly, whether she'd purposefully or accidentally killed anyone between Osaka and the mansion.
Oh, and apparently she was also Ragyo's daughter and Satsuki's sister, but that was a group conversation for when she was safe and sane again.
Just more and more questions, more and more and more that made her feel like she was in an illogical nightmare she couldn't wake up from.
"What do we do?" Someone shouted, maybe Jakuzure. "What the hell do we do?!"
Mako absently glanced through the window at the sound of general panic, squinting through the helicopter's searchlight beam, and her thoughts dried up and crumbled to nothing.
There she was.
There was too much to absorb; it hurt Mako's mind to take in everything at once. She saw the burning light, like a blood-soaked wildfire engulfing everything. She saw shattered stone and wood, and something long and unnaturally shaped resting on the stairs. She saw a crooked red form, tall and muscular and angular and sprouting tendrils from its back, tendrils that were buried in the chests of…
… Ragyo was standing there, almost impaled on one of the tree-branch-looking tendrils.
And Nui was out of her cell.
Yet more boiling rage, the desire for revenge she'd mostly buried after the girl's capture, surged to the surface of her heart. She clenched one of her fists against the handrail until it went completely white, and had to restrain herself from teleporting down there and finishing Nui off herself. When she'd calmed herself down to a quiet seethe, she brushed her thoughts aside; there was only one priority right now, at least for her.
Recover Ryuko, or lose her forever.
Mako edged out of the way as the door facing the mansion slid open and one of the Nudists grabbed the attached tacking turret. Barely letting his clear façade of calmness break, he wrenched the crosshairs around to center on Ryuko's body and squeezed the trigger; the barrels spun for a moment, warming up from disuse, before finally letting their projectiles fly free.
There was a moment, imperceptibly short but lasting in Mako's eyes for the longest time after, when she thought she could see the paralyzing needles hanging in the air. Her eyes followed each of them as they made their way down with agonizing slowness, the air gently rippling behind them. Then the moment passed, fluttering away as if it had never existed, and Mako's eyes fixed upon the target.
The needles struck Ryuko center-of-mass… and vanished in tiny plumes of fire visible from all the way up.
Ryuko had already been staring up at the helicopter, but though her misshapen eyes were nothing more than pupil-less gobs of light, Mako could have sworn they made eye contact. Her dagger-lined jaw opened and closed silently, over and over again, almost hypnotic. Mako didn't want to look away from her face.
Do… Do you see me, Ryuko-chan…?
Mako braced herself against the open door, leaning out for a better look-
In one moment, her ears were assaulted by the sound of screams, both metallic and horribly human.
In the next, the view shifted as the craft violently spun around and around; as she was sent lurching forward, she caught a glimpse behind her and saw a tendril of Life Fibers piercing up through the floor, into the ceiling, trapping the craft in the momentum of its own rotors.
And in the next, she found herself holding nothing, crouched on nothing. The air hammered her face, and the forest floor rushed up to meet her. Recalling her abilities at the last opportune moment, she focused on the ground just ahead and teleported; mercifully, she found herself face-forward on the grass just beside the mansion's pathway, only slightly winded from her built-up velocity.
She was about to turn to check the status of the helicopter before the motion from the mansion pulled her attention away.
While Ryuko's head was aimed the same way as the retracting tendril, Nui's body weakly flickered onto the space between her and Ragyo, leaving Ryuko's claws holding nothing more than strands of bloody Life Fibers – strands that were practically sucked into Ryuko's body the instant Mako noticed them.
Ryuko returned her attention to her captives almost instantly, but not before Nui crossed the rest of the way and brought her normal-looking hand down nail-first on part of the arm. Whatever she did, it made Ragyo drop to a kneeling position with a grunt loud enough for Mako to hear it. Nui enveloped her mother in tentacles protruding from her arm stump, and they both vanished, reappearing a short distance away and then disappearing completely into the darkened trees; Ryuko was left with another clump of meaty Life Fibers that vanished just as quickly.
She had vivid flashbacks of sprinting toward Honnouji Academy with Mataro in tow, but she brushed them aside – along with her idea of chasing after them – as a resounding thump rattled the area behind her.
Miraculously, the helicopter had managed to touch down flat instead of outright crashing; the landing was horrifically bumpy, and there was severe damage to the rotors and landing gear, but the important part – the cabin – seemed mostly intact. Mako quickly glanced between it and Ryuko, who was seething motionlessly and watching the commotion, and hoped beyond hope that everyone was all right.
The first to appear through the smoky haze was Satsuki – so at least Ryuko hadn't accidentally killed her sister. She squinted with her remaining eye and found Mako, a grim look overtaking her face, and she looked back into the space behind her and yelled something Mako couldn't hear. When she started to step out, Jakuzure slipped out from behind her and got to the ground before her feet had even set down; Mako saw a grin flit across Satsuki's face as the tinier girl helped her out.
The rest of the passengers followed shortly behind; Inumuta dogging on Satsuki's heels, the scant few other Nudists appearing with cuts and bruises, Aikuro becoming visible trying to wedge the cockpit door open. Everyone was alive, and none of them injured to the point that they couldn't scramble out to face what had taken them down.
One by one, their eyes focused on the mansion, and Mako returned her attention there.
Ryuko was standing frozen in her position, a shimmering red statue dead center in the mansion's foyer. The Life Fibers that formed her body flashed by each other at imperceptible speeds, creating a vision like static from an old screen. As her form began to gently move to a rhythm that seemed like breathing – even though Mako doubted this version of her even needed to breathe – a deep red liquid like bloody sludge oozed down in gentle rivers from her skin, and began to trickle onto the floor until her heeled feet were immersed in it.
Mako glanced at the cautiously approaching group, and finally gathered the energy to stand. Ryuko's head instantly twitched to face her, but Mako held her eye contact and breathed as calmly as she could. She called out in a voice she wanted to sound forceful, but which echoed as little more than a whisper. "R-Ryuko…?"
"She isn't attacking us anymore," Satsuki said as she reached Mako's position. "Does she recognize us now?"
Nobody moved closer than where Mako had fallen, because none of them could be sure of the answer.
At last, the root of the poison is found. Our body begins to push it away, digging it from where it fell and returning control to us. Already, our movements have become easier, more fluid, more correct.
The faces of our assailants, the ones who kept us from fulfilling our duty, are absorbed by our mind in a fraction of an instant. With the burst of newfound power our targets have allowed us to absorb, our memories have become rattled, but we are slowly piecing them back to their proper state as the energy floods our body.
We begin to remember a slender, long-haired woman with a sword. We see faint images of her bringing the sword down on us, dragging it through our throat, trying to murder us. We see us biting into her cheek as she pins us to the ground, fire in the sky beside her. We see her nude, bleeding, shoving us away in anger.
We remember a shorter girl with unnatural hair. We see her staring with contempt at us from the dark, hating, kicking us with her expression alone. We see her in flight, firing missiles down… somewhere.
We remember… a brunette, not as tall as the first but taller than the second. We see her snarling. We see her hands on us, remember our former body going into internal convulsions at the sensation.
She is the worst of them. Her body is no longer that of a girl, but a haze of almost-Fibers, of something worse, something that did not spawn, caught between life and artificiality. She is, if not Nui Harime, then something just as dangerous and no doubt just as hateful.
These are enemies, interlopers. More soldiers of REVOCS sent to break us down and stop us from avenging the ones we must avenge. We have clashed so many times in the past, and they intend to finish us here.
But they are not who we must punish, not them who must be forced to know our rage.
Not yet.
"Her… eye," Aikuro whispered, pointing.
Mako had been preparing to talk to Ryuko, to try and break through to her senses, but she stopped as she heard the tone in Aikuro's voice. Immediately, her focus went to where he was pointing, along with everyone else's.
Something dark and round was starting to poke through the angular, glowing mass that was Ryuko's visible eye. It looked almost like a pupil. Was it? Was this her transforming back into normalcy, keeping anyone from having to lay a finger on her?
A hopeful smile flitted across Mako's lips.
Then the shape came further, and started to glint metallically in the moonlight. It started to… protrude. And as Mako realized that it wasn't part of her – realized what it was – her heart sank.
"But… But I saw…"
Satsuki gritted her teeth, bracing for the worst. "One of them must have made it through. A lucky shot. She wasn't standing still at all."
And just as she said it, the tacking needle fell from Ryuko's eye and clattered soundlessly to the carpeted floor.
For just a moment, time stood still. The air hung in its place, the stars did not twinkle, and Mako felt awash with bone-chilling cold. The moment passed, as many others had, before she knew what was happening.
Then a scream echoed out, a scream so loud it bit and clawed at Mako's eardrums until one of them gave way, and with it came a wave of light and pressure that overtook everything.
…
And just like that, it all stopped, leaving Mako staring up at the sky. As soon as her wits were about her again, she clambered to her feet and looked around.
Ryuko was gone. The foyer was empty.
Except for what was on the stairs.
When she glimpsed the man lying on his back against the staircase steps, pinned down by a Life Fiber limb already graying and crystallizing, every thought vanished from Satsuki's mind. Her priorities froze, and any plans she had for dealing with Ryuko's situation, for finding Ragyo and Nui and finishing them off, sparked and died.
She stepped numbly into the mansion, her shoes plunging into pools of blood that made distant splashing sounds. Jakuzure followed her unquestioningly, as did Mako shortly after; she assumed the assorted footsteps after her were Inumuta, Aikuro, and the few accompanying Nudist soldiers.
But they were all merely registrations in the logical side of her mind, ignored by the rest as the corpse slowly came into view.
She reached the stairs.
Recognized the lab coat.
Climbed up a few steps, enough to see for sure, and stared down at her feet.
Stared.
Stared.
Stared until what she was seeing was processed by every part of her brain, at which point the neurons sent out a chemical signal that made her feel… something. An emotion between shock, crippling depression, and the faintest possible spark of satisfaction. Her limbs started to buckle, but she held herself still with practiced poise until she managed to brace herself against the banister.
She'd expected her father to be dead by the time they arrived. It was the most likely eventuality; after all, he was Ryuko's father too, and Ryuko had transformed in murderous rage directed at him. The idea alone stirred up complicated feelings inside her, but she'd braced herself for the worst and would have been ready to deal with what she found.
What she hadn't braced herself for was the face that stared up at her now. It wasn't the face of Isshin Matoi, the bearded old man who started a rebellion and raised Ryuko to be who she was now.
It was the face of Soichiro Kiryuin.
The face that had smiled down at her so many times when she was a little girl, that had encouraged her and educated her and laughed when she laughed. The face that had talked to her about Junketsu and what she would have to do years in the future, merely days before he departed Kiryuin Manor for the last time. The face she'd so often imagined, whether coerced to by Ragyo or just quivering in her bed at night, shattering and burning as an explosion devoured him.
It was imperfect, and she realized immediately exactly how Ragyo or Nui must have reversed his plastic surgery and stitched his face back together. His hair wasn't quite natural, and he still wore the eyepatch. But… it was the closest thing she'd gotten in almost two decades.
Realizing the others were on the stairs with her, she started to explain. "This i-is what he looked like before. Um… he, they m-must have…"
She felt Nonon's arms around her long before she felt her voice sputter a stop, or the silent tears starting to roll down her cheek. Grimacing, she held a hand over the side of her head and tried to dry her eye, even though she knew it was pointless.
Everyone was silent, and she didn't know whether it was out of respect or because she was so obviously breaking down.
"This isn't the face I wanted to spit on."
Satsuki blinked several times, raised her head, and saw Mako step up to the crystalline tendril. She placed a hand against it and closed her eyes, concentrating; seconds later, the entire object started to turn to dust from her touch outward. Soon, all that was left were gray clumps on the steps and the gaping hole in Soichiro's abdomen that matched the damage beneath his body.
"I know how it feels, Satsuki. I'm sorry." With her work done, Mako stepped around and made her way up toward the second floor. "I'm going to grab some of Ryuko's and my things, whatever I can carry when our evac comes. The rest we can come back for. Nobody's going to want to stay in this house again, right?"
She ascended to the landing and disappeared into the hall.
Aikuro sighed, showing little emotion toward his fallen leader other than disgust; it seemed the accompanying Nudists shared his sentiments. "Right. The men and I are going to… going to take stock of the study and laboratories, see what we can carry out right now that's useful, I suppose. I sent out the signal, so since we were already on high alert, our rescue should be here shortly."
He too departed, descending the stairs and disappearing down the adjacent hall with his soldiers trailing behind him. All of a sudden, the foyer felt even more dead and empty.
"Lady Satsuki?"
Satsuki had almost forgotten Inumuta was standing beside her, so absorbed by the corpse and Jakuzure's silent embrace. "Yes?"
He looked down awkwardly and slightly shifted his arms. "Do I have your permission to comfort you, or would you rather it be solely Nonon?"
"You… I'd appreciate it, Houka."
She continued to stare down at her father as Inumuta's arms slid around her shoulders, wrapping her in a soft and nervous hug. She'd somewhat expected Jakuzure to snarl jealously, but her lover was completely silent save the sounds of her breaths.
Satsuki's heart rose and she almost smiled, but she knew what needed to be done, and as much as she loved and cared for these two, she had to do it alone.
"Thank you both… more than I can express at the moment." She gently shrugged off Inumuta and gave Jakuzure the gesture they agreed meant 'I need to be alone right now.' "Would you allow me a moment of… of privacy?"
Both of them immediately stepped away and nodded.
"Inumuta, you should help the Nudists sort through my father's materials. Help them decide what would be most useful to them."
He nodded, zipped up his collar, and quickly descended.
"And Nonon…"
She met Jakuzure's eyes for the first time since they'd stepped in here, and she saw that they were clear of tears or emotional weakness. She was simply ready and willing to do absolutely anything for her, as long as it would make her happy again. The sight almost made Satsuki want to call this off and recuperate with her, but she knew it was necessary.
"… Just wait for me."
Her lover nodded, planted a soft kiss on her cheek, and paced away to occupy herself.
Satsuki was left alone at last. Alone with the mutilated body of the man she'd spent a lifetime thinking was already dead, who she'd spent just as long dreaming of talking to one last time, idealizing what she'd say and do.
But this couldn't be further from the dreams, and she didn't want to waste too much time when Ragyo, Nui, and her berserk sister were all rampaging somewhere likely miles away. Thus, her breath rattling in her throat and her heart hammering out of control, she knelt down and faced him.
"You left me."
His eyes were cold, lifeless, and yet somehow understanding.
"Everything I am, everything that I've suffered… All because you left me behind with her. You left me after she demonstrated to you that she didn't care about her children, that I would be nothing but a toy to her if it weren't for your presence. No matter what might be on your confession tapes, I can never forgive you for that."
His mouth was slightly slack; Satsuki imagined him sighing in regret.
"I know you loved me, and I understand that you must have had your reasons. Maybe it was panic at getting Ryuko to safety as quickly as possible, maybe you needed me on the inside to be sure I could take Ragyo down, or maybe the logistics of getting both of us out of Kiryuin Manor without us all dying were too unfeasible. I would understand all of those reasons, and more."
She placed a hand on his heart, feeling its nonexistent beat, remembering the way it sounded when he hugged her close.
"But… my life was not a life worth living until very recently. I was used like a doll, and I'll always bear my scars because of it. I grieved for a father I thought was a hero, and a sister I thought I would never get to see grow up alongside me. There were times early on when… when I honestly contemplated taking my life after Ragyo and the Life Fibers were defeated. You had your reasons for doing what you did, but it feels like you cared as little about hurting me as you did Mako's family."
What would he say right now? I'm sorry, Satsuki. I'm sorry, baby girl. I'll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. None of it sounded right. It was her voice, not his.
"… And yet, I have to thank you. Your efforts have put Ragyo and her forces on the brink of defeat, more so than even my actions could have. You fought your war well, even if you didn't get to see it through. And… And you might have estranged yourself from Ryuko when she was young, but you did the best job you could of raising her when you reconnected. She wouldn't be the woman she is today… the woman she will be again when we save her… if it weren't for you."
I love you, Satsuki.
She lifted her hand away and gingerly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, lifting him slightly, ignoring the coldness and the incessantly dripping blood from his wounds.
"I loved you, Dad. Goodbye."
She set him down with equal care, slipping his eyepatch off with a smooth motion as she did. It didn't seem bloody, but she wiped it down against her arm to make sure, and she would disinfect it when she returned to the base for safety's sake.
Regardless, she stripped off most of her gauze patch and laid it before him, keeping the chunk of gauze itself in the socket. The eyepatch was more complex to put on, but she realized with a lump in her throat that it fit her head surprisingly well. The dark patch pressed tightly and securely against her head, like the welcome scab over a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.
It just felt… right.
She took one last look at her father before stepping down into the foyer. It wouldn't be substantially longer before the evacuation team arrived, and she still had to get everyone stabilized, map out the advance strategies for finding and rescuing Ryuko, and killing Ragyo and Nui... not to mention burying the body somewhere suitable.
With a deep breath, she became the Satsuki Kiryuin people looked up to again. The "Lady Satsuki" that inspired hope and confidence with her presence alone. The one who would never give up on her work, no matter what.
And there was a lot of work to be done.