Chapter 38: Break a thing, mend your luck
"Is that seat taken?"
Tohru Adachi´s facial expression changed to a fake friendly smile. `A new victim...´, he thought happily.
Yes, Tohru Adachi had found many new `friends´ during his time in prison which he´d gathered around himself. They all had fallen for his friendliness and his slightly idiotic naivete. Adachi laughed inwardly if he though about how this dumb fassade of him - his second self -, which he´d created back then in Inaba to deceive everyone living there, was now helping him to survive in prison. His `friends´ who only got to see that warm-hearted good side always helped him against the bad guys - or to be more exact, the people Adachi just couldn´t stand and wanted to get out of the way. Only for his enemies did he let the true Tohru Adachi out to play for.
Some may call him schizophrenic, but Adachi knew better: He had both his sides under perfect control and could switch from one to the other in mere seconds. He was like a puppeteer who was manipulating the people around him like puppets.
`Hilarious...´, Adachi thought, remembering how hard it had been for him to act like a total doofus the first time he had introduced himself to Ryotaro Dojima at Inaba´s police department. He´d nearly choked the detective to death after having to obey the man´s every command for a day, like a servant.
`But acting like that is not a problem anymore... I´ll get them all wrapped around my finger...´, the former police officer thought and looked up to the person who wanted to sit next to him.
"Of course that seat´s no--", he started, but stopped, like he got paralyzed.
"Thank you very much.", the newcomer - Taro Namatame - said, smiled and sat down next to Adachi who was staring at him with huge eyes. "It´s been a long time, Adachi-san."
"Y-you... But... you´re dea--"
"I´m sure we´ll be best friends from now on."
Dojima sighed for what he thought was the hundredth time while going over the curricula vitae of the potential nannies for Nanako once again. He would be transferred to Tokyo very soon to help the police there catch the murderer targeting all those children, but he just couldn´t find the right nanny.
Every single one of those curricula vitae seemed to be almost perfect, but the reality was far from perfect: The candidates consisted of old women that acted like they were some colonel at the military or crazy eco-loving chicks that were trying to make him and Nanako worship the `Holy Cabbage´, like some female version of Adachi.
Dojima sighed again. Well, there actually was a person who had behaved around them perfectly and whom Nanako had also seemed to really like. But... Dojima sighed anew while remembering all those rumors about that woman: Sex-crazy, perverted, addicted to alcohol, not reliable enough... that list could be continued endlessly. Yet still, Noriko Kashiwagi just hadn´t seem to be that way when she´d arrived to her interview with Dojima and Nanako. He hadn´t smelled any alcohol on her, she hadn´t tried to make a single move on Dojima, and to top it all, Nanako had started calling her `Noriko´ at the end of the interview.
There had been only one incident during that interview, and that had been that damn snowball´s - Dojima still hadn´t found a way to get rid of that thing - fault. It had probably knocked over something in Nanako´s room, and Kashiwagi had jump up in horror and jumped in his lap, the contents of her cup of coffee landing in Dojima´s face.
"Ooops!", Kashiwagi had shouted and had hurriedly returned to her seat again. "What was that awful noise?"
"Uh... That was... the... the cat!", Dojima had lied.
"Oooh! You have a cat? How cute!", Kashiwagi had squealed. "I´m sure she´s a really sweet pussy, right?"
"Uh, excuse me?"
"A-a really cute kittie, right?"
"Oh, uh, yeah.", Dojima had answered.
"May I see it?"
"Um, she belongs to the neighbors, not us!"
"Oh..."
If Dojima looked back to that conversation, something seemed strange to him, actually...
`Nonsense!´, he finally thought and shook his head. `Me thinking like that is just because of all those rumors about Kashiwagi-san! Today´s youth merely has no respect for the elders! No, no! Kashiwagi-san is the perfect nanny for my Nanako!´
Naive Dojima... If only he knew what he´d done to poor Nanako with that decision...
Darkness was surrounding Yukiko who was lying on her bed in her room at the Amagi inn, staring at the ceiling.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah", she could still hear the screams of pain from Chie and the others after they´d been hit by an especially strong spell from Izanami. She could still hear the screams of the Shadows they´d killed... could still smell all that blood... Again and again... every night she was haunted by all those memories, even months after their adventures inside the TV world had ended...
Shaking, the black-haired girl stood up and went to her commode to look at herself in the mirror.
"What... happened to me...", she choked out and stared at those dark rings around her eyes. She began sobbing and lay down her head on the commode.
She was a wreck, having reached the end of her powers...
"Just look at yourself, you loser!", she could hear someone cackle and looked up at her reflection in surprise. Its eyes were glowing yellow now.
"N-no..."
"Yuki-chan, what´s wrong? Was that all a bit too much for you, princess~?", her dark counterpart asked. "So much violence, blood and dirt just isn´t becoming of royal blood like us, isn´t it? Kukuku~!"
"Please... stop it...", Yukiko cried and hid her face beneath her hands.
"Just take a look how much we´ve given to our friends!", her dark counterpart continued. "We´ve conquered our or fears for them, even though we just couldn´t take all that violence, all that chaos! And now that we need them the most, they´re not there for us! They´d only have to take one good look at us and they would notice that something just isn´t right with us!"
"Stop..."
"And especially that Souji! He´s far, far away from here now! He could leave this shithole! I bet he doesn´t have any worries or fears at all! And you?! What about you?! Is that supposed to be fair?!"
"Silence!"
"... Yukiko?", her mother´s slightly worried voice could be heard from the hallway. "Is everything all right?"
"Um... Yes, I´m okay!", Yukiko hurriedly said. "The neighbor´s dog is just barking so loudly. And I have to take that important test tomorrow!"
"Oh... okay.", her mother said and went back to her room.
"Hypocrite...", Yukiko´s Shadow hissed. "She doesn´t care about you at all! She´s just pretending!"
"N-no, you´re wrong... She... She loves me.", Yukiko protested weakly.
"She loves the talented girl who will take over her inn one day, yes!", her Shadow corrected her. "But she doesn´t love the insecure, poor little girl that´s hidden beneath all that perfection!"
Yukiko plugged her ears.
"There´s an easy way to end all of this, Yuki-chan...", her Shadow continued. "Just look at this beautiful mirror, little one."
Yukiko stared at the mirror, like in trance.
"Isn´t this quite a beautiful mirror, Yuki-chan?", her Shadow said, smiling.
Yukiko nodded, her face blank.
"Do you know the saying `Break a thing, mend your luck´?"
The black-haired girl nodded again.
"Well, you can think of that saying in a different way as well, you know."
A questioning look.
"One simple punch, and the mirror will fall to pieces, little one. One of those shards could end all of your pain, Yuki-chan. One scratch at the right place of your body, and you´ll have eternal peace...
"I..."
"Come on... Pretty please? We both just want it all to end, don´t we?"
"N..."
"No? Oh, come on! Don´t be a party pooper, Yuki-chan!"
"I... I..."
"DO IT ALREADY, YOU STUPID BRAT!!"
"NO!!!!!", Yukiko yelled, ripped the mirror off of the wall and threw it out of the window where it was smashed to thousand pieces.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!", Yukiko screamed, shot out of her bed and fell to the floor, right in front of Chie´s fight.
"Yukiko!", Chie said, worried, and kneeled down to her best friend. "What´s wrong?!"
"I-I...", Yukiko stammered and looked around in the room: She was in the lounge she and Chie shared at Tanaba University. "A... nightmare...?"
"Hmm... Yep, seems like it.", Chie said, staring at her. "Yukiko, you´re eyes..."
"Hmm?"
"You´ve got some really deep dark rings under them.", Chie explained. Yukiko´s eyes widened, near tears. "Normally, i´d say `Get back to your bed and get some sleep´, but with that nightmare you just had..."
"Could... Could you lie down together me?", Yukiko pleaded with her friend like a little child that wanted to sleep in her mother´s bed.
"Of course.", the brunette said, heaved her friend back to her bed and lied next to her.
"Thanks...", Yukiko mumbled, silent tears running down her face.
"Hey, that´s what friends are for.", Chie said while Yukiko slowly fell asleep again, this time protected by her friend. "Please, Yukiko... Please get better soon..."
Author´s note: Writer´s block... Ugh!
Well, we´re about 10 % through the story now, maybe even less, for those of you who want to know.
Also, I still keep receiving mails about the story´s pairings, so I´ll just write them here. If you don´t want to know, just stop reading now!
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SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!
- failed Kou x Chie
- failed Yosuke x Ikas
- Yosuke x Chie
- failed Souji x Naoto
- Kanji x Naoto
- Akihiko x Mitsuru
- Wishful (on Kashiwagi´s side) Dojima x Kashiwagi