Hey guys (and girls)! I'm back with another chapter, and on time for once! Get ready for some excitement, because this is where the story really picks up (I mean, come on, it only took me 27 chapters to reveal the villain). But I digress. Without further ado, Fragile Strings chapter 28, begin!
Setsuna glared down at the figure facing her. She thought she would never see that face again. Clearly, she had been wrong. Somehow, this girl had found her, and now she was going to ruin her life.
"You're rather quiet, senpai. Has my beauty shocked you into this silence?" Tsukuyomi's singsong voice held a teasing note.
"Why are you here?" Setsuna asked her. "Do you just want to make me miserable?"
"Oh don't be so melancholy. After all, you don't need me to make you miserable. That's what your little harem is for, isn't it?"
Setsuna held back a gasp and clenched her fists in anger. Tsukuyomi just kept right on smiling. Her unnerving grin might as well have been painted on for the lack of other expression she produced.
"What do you know about Konoka and the others?" Setsuna demanded.
"Well Konoka's obvious. She's your little hime, isn't she? As for the others... let's just say they got dragged in all because of their love for you."
What are you talking about? What do any of them have to do with you and me? I thought we'd settled this a long time ago, Tsukuyomi."
"Ohhh, but Setsuna-senpai, you don't seem to understand. Here, let me explain," Suddenly Tsukuyomi's image faded away and her voice came from behind Setsuna. "This isn't just about us, oh no."
Setsuna whirled, but of course the maid-girl wasn't there. Her voice seemed to echo in the vast empty space.
"This is more about you. This whole world, I made it all for you. I picked through your memories and found places that you loved, things you missed, things you wanted. I brought them all here, and I laid them out for you to enjoy," As she spoke, Tsukuyomi's voice grew louder, until it sounded like she was everywhere at once. "But of course you couldn't be happy with what I gave you. You had to go and ruin everything by confusing your poor little mind with all those undeserving whores!"
Setsuna sprawled forward onto her knees as something hit her hard in the back. She felt a wait pressing down on her spine.
"If you don't know what it is that you want, then how can I possibly make you happy? You're just making yourself miserable. My perfect world is wretched now because of you and your pack of whining, doe-eyed fools!"
Setsuna coughed as Tsukuyomi stomped her foot down, knocking the wind out of her.
"W-what're you talking about? How did you make an entire world?" the ink-haired sword girl gasped out.
"Well, I didn't make this world per se, but I did do a bit of fine tuning. It's all gone to waste though because you just had to be so soft. You couldn't have just stuck to your precious little princess, could you? Noo, you had to go and build a harem of harlots!"
Tsukuyomi drew her foot back and kicked Setsuna in the side, sending her rolling.
"Stop calling them that..." Setsuna muttered as she struggled to her knees, holding her stomach.
"What? Whores? Sluts? Harlots? Am I too brutally honest for your fragile tastes, senpai? I thought you were stronger than this. A student of the Shinmeiryuu shouldn't be associating herself with such lowly creatures as these."
As Tsukuyomi said 'these', a large section of the white floor became clear, before fading in on an overhead view of Nodoka, Sayo, Konoka, and Kazumi standing in a strangely familiar hallway. Setsuna sighed in relief when she recognized the inside of the school.
"They're safe..." She breathed.
"Ah, see that's where you'd be wrong, Setsuna-senpai. They aren't really standing in your precious 'Mahora Academy'. They're here, in the same world as you. The world I created, the world I control," Tsukuyomi strode across the circle towards Setsuna, her footsteps disturbing the image of the four girls like the surface of a pond. She swung her sword down from its resting place on her shoulder. She pressed the tip of the blade under Setsuna's chin, forcing her head up until their eyes met.
"It would be awful if something were to happen to them, wouldn't it, senpai?" The maid-girl's voice dripped with malice and hatred. She swung her sword back, and Setsuna closed her eyes instinctively, but the blow never came. Instead, she heard something that sounded like metal on stone. When she opened her eyes, Setsuna saw Tsukuyomi standing on the 'window' looking over the girls, her sword driven to the hilt in its center. Before her eyes, cracks spread from the tip of Tsukuyomi's sword, splitting the quivering image so that each of the four girls was separated from the others.
"What are you doing?" Setsuna demanded. "Tsukuyomi! What are you doing with my friends!?"
"It's not me you should worry about. Once you leave here Setsuna, you'll be alone. I'm going to send each of your little... 'friends' to a different section of my once fabulous world. If you want to save them, you'll have to go find them," Tsukuyomi giggled evilly. "Good luck!"
With that, she disappeared, leaving behind her sword. Looking closer, Setsuna realized it wasn't her rival's sword at all, but Yuunagi. She was mystified as to how the familiar blade had come to be here, but she couldn't worry about that now; she had someone to save.
Sayo, Nodoka, Konoka, and Kazumi were standing together talking one second, and the next they were screaming in fear as huge cracks shot between them. They each stood at the edge of a gaping black pit, staring in and seeing only darkness. Before any of them could react, a high screeching came from inside the hole, and four small figures rose out of it.
"Wh-what are these things?" Nodoka asked, her voice shaking in fright.
"Faeries," Konoka answered, remembering the thing that had attacked her and Setsuna when all this started. With another screech, the four creatures swooped down and each grabbed one of the girls. The yellow, flower-like fairy snatched Konoka's wrist and flew with her into the abyss; a red fairy with fire pouring from its head grabbed Sayo by the neck of her shirt and followed; Kazumi was lifted upside down by a purple, electric one; and finally, a green-skinned, fish-like fairy picked Nodoka up by her hair and dragged her, kicking and screaming, down into the black.
The crevasse flashed once with a white light, then slammed itself shut behind them.
Setsuna watched this whole scene through the shattered floor of the endless white room. Her eyes were wet with tears, and she was on her knees, her hands pressed flat against the now-empty image. After a few seconds, the swords girl managed to collect herself and stand. She wiped her arm across her eyes and drew Yuunagi out of the ground. Instantly, the sword was covered by its sheath, which appeared seemingly out of thin air.
Setsuna's eyes were hard, and the knuckles on her hand gripping the sheath were white.
"Tsukuyomi, I'm going to save them all. I'll save all four of them, and then I'm coming for you. I won't let you leave this place alive, even if you did create it. I'll kill you, because you've gone too far. I'll kill you and I swear I won't regret it."
Ohhh, Setsuna's pissed! What has happened to her four possible lovers? Who will she go after first? How has Tsukuyomi gained control of an entire fabricated world? Find out when Fragile Strings continues! HayabusaOkami, out~
