Before you read this, I feel like a warning is probably in order, beyond the one I gave at the start of this story. This chapter contains depictions of bodily disfigurement and mutilations far more extreme than anything I've ever written previously. All this transpires after the second line break (not the one that comes after this warning), so if you think this is gonna bother you, I recommend skipping that section. I'll most likely upload part two of this tomorrow where we return to something a bit less edgy.

Take care, and thanks for reading.

"So, uhm, what did you think?"

"About the movie?" MC clarified. "Like I said before, I liked it a lot. Real groovy!"

As he was pushed out of the bathroom on the wheelchair he'd gotten just a slightly bit more comfortable with during these past three days, he heard a rather distinct giggle from the otherwise quiet girl steering him.

"What's so funny?" He asked bemused, trying to twist his head backwards to catch a look of her face. Seeing Yuri's smile always felt like gaining a few more years of life expectancy.

"Oh nothing, it's just you using that particular word, and not even realizing its relevance to- ah!" Yuri said, stopping herself mid sentence. "No, I really shouldn't say, it's a big spoiler for the sequel. Just… wait, and you'll understand exactly why it's so funny and perfect, coming from you."

"Looking forward to that, then." He said, receiving another beaming, life-prolonging smile from her in return. "Hey, by the way, did that tree really just…?"

"Ah, yes, that scene… well, you must understand, it was a very different time back when it was made." Yuri explained, chuckling awkwardly.

"I see. Just really caught me off guard."

He really appreciated the small-talk. Aside from it just being a swell way to enjoy her company, the light-hearted banter also served to somewhat normalize all the embarrassing situations thrust upon them during these nightly hours. Well, as much as you could normalize your girlfriend needing to literally spoon-feed you Natsuki's soup dinner, anyway.

"Here we are." Yuri sighed, positioning the wheelchair by the side of the bed. "Thank you once again for watching the first Evil Dead with me. I'm happy the new Proto-Arrangement allowed us this opportunity together."

"No problem. Sitting still and watching movies is kinda all I'm good for these days." He replied, hoping he didn't sound too bitter. "I'm just happy you can still endure spending time with me after all of this. I mean, with you having to brush my teeth, washing my hands and… well, everything else, really. Must make you see me in a whole other, annoying light…"

"Nonsense." She waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about me doing any of that, okay? I actually find it to be an oddly enjoyable activity, helping you. I'm unsure as to why exactly, it's… almost as if some dormant maternal instinct within me just kicked in upon seeing this state you're in."

Her sentence hung in the air for approximately three whole seconds before she frowned, looking mortified.

"W- w- wait, no. That s- sounded really weird, didn't it? I- I didn't mean t- to imply being your m- mother…!"

"I know, it's fine." He hurried to reassure her. "That is basically what all of you are to me at this point, isn't it? Four mothers taking care of their utterly helpless man-baby."

"Hmm." She hummed considerately before replying, much calmer now upon hearing she hadn't messed up with her verbal slip. "…well yes, I suppose one could look at the situation in such a way."

"Wonder what Sigmund Freud would say about it." MC smirked. "I've just inadvertently become the poster boy for his Oedipus Complex!"

"Nowadays that man has a lot of critics who don't subscribe to those theories of his." Yuri smiled. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."

She awkwardly snuck her arms underneath his body, hoisting him up from the chair to place him in the bed, leaning him against the propped up pillow which allowed him to sit in a more upright position.

With a gentle hand movement, she reached up to brush away some of the hair that'd fallen over his eyes, looking at him with one of the most kind and caring expressions he'd ever seen.

Upon looking at her like this, MC got an idea. A terrible, awful, and potentially really funny idea.

"Okay. I won't worry then… Mommy." He said.

Seeing Yuri's reaction was almost worth it.

Almost.

Her eyes widened in shock before tilting downwards, away from his own. Her face nearly glowed scarlet as she nervously began stroking her long, purple hair.

"Uhhh…" She began in a miniscule voice.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry." MC said, chuckling despite his immediate regret. "Bad joke, shouldn't have said it, I just couldn't resist. Please, don't tell Monika I said that. She's been badgering me to call her Mommy during our 'scenes' for literal months."

"…you're worse than Natsuki sometimes, you know that?" Yuri sighed, shaking her head before smiling weakly again. "It's fine, but… perhaps we could just cease the mother-talk for now?"

"Don't need to tell me twice," MC agreed, feeling his own face growing hot with the conversation. "Honestly, got very awkward surprisingly quickly. Probably a bad idea to keep it going now that you're about to undress me."

"In- indeed." Yuri said, blushing even deeper herself. "Are- are you ready?"

"I don't think I'll ever be fully ready for this part." He sighed. "But yeah, sure. Let's just get it over and done with."

"Alright." Yuri nodded once before lightly placing her hands on the legs of his jeans and with very gentle hand movements began to strip him.

As usual, she started with his pants, preferring like him to get the most awkward part out of the way first. She quickly slid them down his legs, neatly folding them together and placing them on one of the chairs in the room. This was an extra special service Yuri provided contrary to Natsuki and Sayori who mostly just discarded his clothes carelessly on the floor, and Monika who just kinda… took the clothes along with her when she left for her own room, with just a small chance of her eventually returning them.

After this, Yuri hurried to bring forward the long, thin pajamas pants which she proceeded to slide on, concealing his exposed legs from view again. With the "challenging" part done, she allowed herself to exhale in relief before getting started on removing his hoodie, unzipping the front and lifting his immobile arms to unwrap them from the sleeves.

"Ah…!" She then paused briefly, releasing a light gasp.

Turning his head in concern, MC saw her looking downwards, her eyes transfixed in concern. He followed her gaze, landing at his own bare, pale arm laying numbly on the mattress.

His heart sank as he immediately spotted the source of her distress, taking the form of the four long, white scars stretched along his flesh.

Faintly, he heard Yuri's screams of the past echoing in his ears, yelling, crying and begging him to stop, all of it ignored as he lowered the pocket knife to his own arm…

Idiot! Should have realized! He silently yelled at himself, feeling the guilt swelling up inside him.

"Yuri, I'm so sorry-" He started, and she blinked, shaking out of her trance upon hearing his words.

"Huh? Oh, no no, it's me who should apologize." She dismissed him, getting back to folding his hoodie the same way as she'd done his pants, and placing it on the chair as well. "I really need to get over myself and start getting used to seeing… those. Especially considering it's my own fault they're even there."

She grabbed hold of his useless arm again, flipping him over in order to start the exhaustive and highly humiliating process of dressing him with the pajamas shirt, covering the scars.

MC felt his insides churn horribly at hearing Yuri blaming herself, his guilt magnifying tenfold.

"That's not true." He argued. "It wasn't your fault, it was my stupid idea. I was way out of line back then, and I shouldn't have ever done something so extreme…"

"Enough. Please." She interrupted him while leaning over to button up the pajamas. She wasn't meeting his eyes. He shut his mouth.

"You did what you thought was best." She said, continuing buttoning. "And as a result, there have been no further incidents on either of our parts ever since, so... it worked, didn't it? That's all that matters, so let's just stop talking about it, okay?"

She looked up, finally meeting his eyes again. It was clear as day to him just how uncomfortable she was with the topic.

"…of course." MC sighed, knowing he'd crossed the line.

The atmosphere was awkward as Yuri got started on the final steps of her "tucking in" routine. She adjusted his pillow, lifted the cover just below his chin, and made sure to double check that all his limbs were neatly packed inside. She then brushed some of the hair out of his face.

"Are you comfortable?" She asked.

"Yes." He replied.

"Do you need another trip to the restroom?"

"No, thanks." He answered resolutely.

"And you are completely certain that you're good to go for the rest of the night like this?"

"Yes, Yuri. Thank you so much."

"Do you, uh-" She began, surprising him as she usually didn't ask further questions during her routine. Judging by her blushing face, it seemed as if she wasn't entirely prepared for this turn of events either.

"…would you like for Mommy to read you a bedtime story?" She asked at last, her face twisting up into a downright uncomfortable attempt at a smile.

He stared at her in disbelief, unsure about whether or not he should be laughing.

"Uh, Yuri…?"

"Please, don't." Yuri muttered in a tiny voice, tilting her head in shame to stare at the floor. "I mistakenly thought myself capable of dispelling some of the lingering awkwardness by calling back to an even more awkward joke. But I realized as soon as I said it that this clearly wasn't the case. As with you and Monika, I hope I can ask you to keep this embarrassing moment in strictest confidence and never tell Natsuki."

"Mm-hm, yep, sure thing, you got it!" MC nodded vigorously, still trying to keep his mask. Though her joke had backfired miserably, the success of her intentions couldn't be denied. The uncomfortable atmosphere from their discussion regarding the scars had indeed been totally forgotten.

Although he guessed she probably didn't feel so positive about this "victory" right now herself, so he decided to keep quiet about it.

"Thank you." Yuri gave a slight bow, keeping her beet-red face locked to the floor. "I'll take my leave now and try to repress this moment from my memories forever. I'll be back in a few hours and move you over to prevent you from getting bedsores. Good night, MC."

"'Night, Yuri."

With hasty steps, she exited the room, flicking a switch on the way to turn off the light.

Under the cover of darkness, MC allowed himself to smirk slightly at what had just transpired before closing his eyes, and going to sleep.

MC opened his eyes, squinting at the surrounding darkness. It didn't seem like he'd been sleeping for very long, judging by the thin beam of moonlight shining through the window.

He blinked groggily, faintly wondering what had awakened him. Some kind of dream, maybe…? He really couldn't remember. Probably wasn't even anything important. He should just try getting pushing the thoughts from his mind, close his eyes again and go back to sleep. He supposed a good thing about this paralysis was how he was no longer able to grab his phone at night and mindlessly scroll through social media, ruining his eyes and making him tired in the morning. Sleep was important, after all.

"Haah… Haah…!"

His steadily descending eyelids burst open again at the unknown sounds, and he looked all around him, wide awake now.

There was something- no, someone in the room with him.

Someone breathing.

"Haaahhh…!"

He gasped softly when he finally spotted the figure, wondering how on earth he could have missed her.

Standing by the foot of his bed, partially illuminated by the pale moonlight, was the unmistakably feminine features of… a woman. A very thin, tall woman.

She was standing at an angle, facing away from him, in a slightly bent over pose. But even with that, he could tell from her towering figure that she at the very least had double the height on him, easily making her the tallest woman he'd ever seen.

She was wearing a simple, white dress, the material of which being so thin, it was nearly see-through. Upon closer inspection, he could see that the parts of her skin not covered by the dress was unnaturally pale, chalk-white even, giving her a vaguely ethereal look.

She shifted slightly, crumbling further forward, allowing her long hair to fall into view of the moonbeam.

It was purple.

Yuri…? MC immediately thought, staring at the figure in disbelief.

What was going on? Why was Yuri standing in his room at the middle of the night, and… why did she look like that? He'd never seen that dress on her before, her skin wasn't that pale, and most puzzlingly, she appeared to have grown at least a full meter since he'd last seen her a few hours ago.

He tried whispering her name, wanting to get to the bottom of this, but found that his mouth felt extremely dry all of a sudden, allowing no sound to come out.

"Haah… haah… haah!"

Yuri's breathing was ragged, strained even, coming at shorter and shorter intervals. There was something about it that made the hairs on MC's back stand at an end. It was almost as if… she was crying. Whimpering.

She sounds like she's… in pain. He realized dimly upon listening to her labored breaths. He tried saying something again, wanting desperately to comfort her in her time of obvious distress, but it was as if his tongue had been glued to the roof of his mouth, forcing him to keep watching in silence.

"Haaah… haaah…"

He saw her raising a thin arm into the light, as if to inspect it. It was just as white as the rest of her skin, but there was something else about it that gave him pause. Her fingers seemed… abnormally long, stretching out into misshapen, claw-like digits, almost like a grotesque parody of Yuri's normal, beautiful slender hands. And furthermore, the hand appeared to be shaking violently.

"Ngggh-" Yuri groaned, grasping her wrist with her other, identically malformed hand. Whatever pain she had to be experiencing, it seemed to come directly from this limb of hers.

As the hand kept shaking, her breathing picked up even more intensity until she started hyperventilating, her whimpering and moaning becoming even more pronounced. As MC watched all of this unfold before him, he got the distinct impression that this was all building to something. Something he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to see.

He appeared to be right, as Yuri's moans finally reached something of a peak. She released a long, shuddering highpitched scream, clutching her wrist so tightly it was as if she wanted to pinch off her whole hand.

And then, it happened.

MC watched in horror as the marble skin of Yuri's outstretched fingers split open, forming long, painful-looking gashes all the way down to her palm. Blood started pouring down her hand in rivers, the red of the liquid being so much more intense and pronounced against her snow-white skin.

It was nauseating, but MC couldn't look away. It was as if he needed to keep looking at the flesh continuing to peel away from the hand, all the while Yuri continued screaming in pain.

How can this be happening? What is going on? Why can't I speak?!

His confused, rapid-fire thoughts came to a sudden halt when he saw what happened next.

The red gashes along her fingers had widened even more, to the point where strips of mangled flesh were dangling loosely from the tips. And then, from somewhere within the bloody depths of her hand, something… came out.

Something long, metallic and sharp.

Five blades slid out of Yuri's opened fingers, glistening wetly in the moonlight with red droplets of blood dripping off them. They kept extending, growing longer and longer still, their measurements completely illogical considering the amount of space that must have been available within her arm.

In fact, he realized as he stared at the blades, each now well over half a meter long, there was nothing even remotely logical about this entire situation. Nothing about it made any sense.

The blades seemed to have finally stopped extending themselves. The marble-white Yuri released her death-grip around her wrist at last and slumped over forwards with an exhausted sigh. Her arm collapsed to her side, and MC heard the blades scratching against the wooden floorboards. He wondered if whatever was going on was over now.

Then, without warning, Yuri snapped her head towards him, making his heart leap up into his throat.

Her face was structured identically to Yuri's, with the notable exception of the same white skin as on the rest of her body. He might have even considered her beautiful, if not for her eyes. Or rather… the lack of them.

In the place of the bright, expressive purple of Yuri's irises, this… creature only had two, sunken in black holes where its eyes should have been, completely emotionless and empty save for a thin trail of blood flooding past them and down her cheeks. The monster tilted its head to the side as if considering him, making MC finally realize the truth.

Okay, not Yuri, NOT YURI!

He'd learnt from his last encounter with the Nightmarish Sayori. He might not be able to talk, move, or do anything to defend himself, but he could still do what he should have done the moment he saw her fingers split open. The only means of protecting himself he still had available.

He closed his eyes, shutting them tightly, refusing to look at the tall, thin demon his mind had conjured up to haunt him, refused to listen to her ragged, heavy breathing, refused to acknowledge the slow, heavy footsteps as she seemed to be coming closer.

Not real, not real, not real, not real, NOT REAL!

He kept repeating this simple mantra in his head, desperately hoping he would manage to convince himself soon, preferably before the monster reached him.

He heard a long, heavy exhale, and thought he could feel some of the air brushing past his face. A foul smell of blood and decay hit his nostrils.

It's just a nightmare, she can't hurt you. Wake up. She's not real, just your mind playing tricks. An illusion, a trick of the light. Wake up. Yuri's fine, this thing isn't her, JUST WAKE UP ALREADY.

And then… silence. Deafening, total, absolute silence. No ragged breathing, no footsteps, no clanking of metal blades colliding with each other. No audible sounds except for his still pounding heart.

Had he done it? Had he managed to wake himself up through sheer willpower? He had no real way to be sure, it wasn't like he could slap himself in the face or anything like that. He only had one, surefire way to check, and he wasn't sure if he could risk that.

And yet, the silence was speaking volumes. If… that thing… was still there, you'd think it would be making its presence abundantly clear. That was what these monsters did, right? They were just figments of his imagination, ceasing to exist whenever he stopped believing in them. It wasn't like they could play dead. If he couldn't hear it, then he had no reason to think it was still there with him.

Heck, the fact that he was even able to think about it with this much lucidity was probably all the proof he needed. He was safe. He had to be.

He slowly opened his eyes… and was face to face with the two black, bleeding eyesockets, staring blankly into his eyes, inches away from his face.

It took all his effort to refrain from screaming, terrified of making even the slightest sound that might set her off.

She on the other hand, didn't exercise the same self control.

Recoiling away from him, the monster rose to its full height, towering above him. Her mouth was wide open, far wider than should have been possible, as if her very jaw had unhinged, all the while a terribly loud, pained shriek rang all around him.

Continuing her scream, the horrendous distortion of Yuri raised her arm, displaying the long, bladed fingers protruding from its mangled hand. MC stared at the knives in a wild panic, knowing he would be done for if she plunged just one of those things downwards. There was nothing he would be able to do. This was it.

But then, instead of stabbing him, Nightmare-Yuri did something he hadn't expected. She twisted her hand, pointing it away from him and towards herself instead, the blades now lined up straight against her own chest.

No. No, no, no, don't do that, please don-

Her hand shot forwards, piercing her upper left torso.

He'd never heard a worse sound in his life. The monster's scream cut off into a choked gasp as the blades sunk deep into her flesh, cutting through the thin dress like wet tissue paper. It wasn't long before the red started spreading all around her torso, flooding past her hand and staining the white surface of her body.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a choked rattling, as well as even more blood running past her lips.

And still, she drove her hand deeper within herself, the blades disappearing inside her chest cavity.

Finally, she ceased penetrating further, letting her hand rest motionlessly inside herself, letting the blood continue oozing down her front as her whole body started shaking. MC could only stare, his brain completely devoid of any kind of thoughts except for a silent prayer for the horror show to finally be over.

It wasn't.

Starting to scream hoarsely again, Yuri began pulling out her hand, the bladed fingers slowly retracting from the wound they'd made.

But this time, it seemed like there was more resistance than there'd been on the initial entry. There were groaning, wet sploshing noises as she rummaged within the flesh, horrible cracking sounds, most likely her ribs splintering apart. And of course, an even larger cascade of blood emerging down her front.

When she at long last managed to fully retract her hand, MC could finally see what had caused the extra difficulties. She hadn't pulled out empty handed. She'd brought something out.

Something large, bloody and moving was currently lodged tightly between her overgrown silver fingers. He had an idea of what it could be, but the very thought of it was so horrible, he couldn't even make himself articulate it in his mind.

He wasn't allowed the plausible deniability however, as the by this point violently shaking Yuri brought down her arm in front of him, dripping wet blood on his face as she presented the item in her hand to him.

What the fucking fuck?!

MC couldn't help it. His mind felt like it was on the verge of breaking, and he released a loud scream at the sight of the glistening red, still beating heart in front of his face, wedged between the sharp finger blades.

"Am… I good enough… for you now…?" The monster whispered in a weak, exhausted voice, somehow audible over his scream. "Am I… fixed?"

oof, that's gonna leave a mark.

Thank you for your review of the previous chapter, 54godamora. I am so sorry about your grandfather and the bad memories I inadvertently caused you. My goal with this story was never to focus too much on stuff like the Dokis wheeling MC into the bathroom, I just needed a sufficiently awkward note to end the chapter on. But I completely understand if this has become too uncomfortable for you to keep reading now. In that case, no hard feelings, and thanks for sticking around for as long as you did!