A/N: Fair warning, Rio has a pretty foul mouth, not as bad as Ira but you get it (*^_^*)
Cure Narrative 38: My Dear Twin
Season: Kirakira a la Mode
Character: Rio K. Ciel K.
Summary: Everything becomes clear by the time you have to leave.
Bold: emphasise
Italics: thoughts
Bold+italics: flashback
CAP LOCK: SHOUT
(Giulio's POV)
"Behold! The hatred that resides within my heart is my power!"
Pointing my weapon at my chest, I sucked myself dry of Kirakiraru.
Power... more power... I needed more power to destroy the one damn thing that pushed me this far!
Sweets... Kirakiraru... those were the source of my pain. If only those didn't exist...
...I would not have come to hate you.
No, that's not right.
You played a part in this too.
You were always the brightest, the most talented, the most beloved. It was your shadow that I was forced to live in!
The shadow of my goddamn twin sister!
Living in shadows hurt. Each and every day I was tortured by the agony the darkness offered. So much so that now I became numb to the pain of forcefully removing Kirakiraru from my body.
"Stop it, Pikario!" You flew between me and the Precures.
I must admit that you stunned me a little there, "Kirarin..."
You blabbered on about how worried you were, how much effort you put in to look for me, how I was your twin brother Pikario.
"I have disposed of that name long ago," I said. I had no use for a name that suggests my identity as your younger brother.
I had no use for you pretending to love me as a sister when you understood absolutely nothing!
Ahh... how refreshing it was. Slashing at you with my newfound magic, hearing you yelp in pain...
How many thousands of strikes would it take to make you relive the amount of pain you had inflicted upon me, I wonder?
I would destroy everything you loved, sweets, Precure, and the once naive fairy called Pikario. I would destroy it all!
With this power... I could crush the Precures you look up to so much!
At least I thought so, Cure Whip showed me otherwise. She took the dark magic strikes head on, leaving me agape.
She shouted, withstanding crushing blows I continued to inflict on her, claiming that she could hear the feelings I hid in the depths of my heart, feelings that I could not bear to abandon.
You're wrong! Hate is everything I have! Hate! Hate! Someone like you would never understand!
You're no different than Kirarin! Talented, optimistic, oblivious, beloved! You have no right to speak to someone engulfed by darkness!
You know nothing! You have no right!
Shut up!
SHUT UP!
SHUT UP! DAMMIT!
"The desire for approval from the sister you love... Giulio, no, Pikario! You are the one truly suffering, suffering from the pain in your heart!"
I stopped the attack.
She... Did she really... sense my pain...?
"All this darkness stemmed from your love for both sweets and your sister!"
"No... that's not possible..."
They pulled their finisher on me, I set up a shield sphere around myself. I could not allow myself to be defeated after all this.
Cure Whip floated down from above, smiling gently like an angel. She claimed to have heard my feelings again, she claimed that I was the one who continued to believe that sweets can deliver those feelings to Kirarin, she claimed that such feelings had never disappeared since the day they arose.
I told her, no, I begged her to stop with tears running down my eyes.
Everything I had done up till this point, the future I'd abandoned for the sake of overcoming you, my hands that I'd allowed darkness to taint...
Everything... wasted.
The tears I was shedding, were tears of desperation, desperation of trying to convince myself that I hadn't been doing this, that I hadn't been hurting so many people, for naught.
But I knew, deep down, from the moment you appeared before my eyes once again, from the moment you called me your brother, I knew this fight was pointless.
Still, the darkness ate away at my rational thinking. I failed to cling onto who I had been, and who I should be.
But now, as the darkness around me gradually dissolved, so did the darkness within me, and then...
...
I felt so lost.
What was I supposed to feel now? It was true that Noir-sama corrupted me with darkness, but it wasn't entirely him. The hatred and wrath were not a fabricated lie, it all came from myself.
I wasn't expected to just let all that go, right?
(Kirarin's POV)
What had I been doing all this time? Why had I not noticed? I was your twin sister! I was supposed to be there for you, I was supposed to understand you...
And yet I was the one who hurt you the most!
I had always been enclosed in my happy little world, where I thought you had just lost your way or something and everything would be okay once I found you.
Now, it turned out that I was the villain in your story.
Now I could see it in my memories, you looked to me with hopeful yet desperate eyes, yearning to hear the words I had once said on Ichigoyama.
It broke my heart now to recall myself smashing that hope into crumbs and had you dangling over an abyss of despair and was completely oblivious that I was doing it.
Why!? Why you!? If the darkness desired a soul to reside in, it should've been mine, not yours! I was the one hurting you, I was the rotten one, why were you used by Noir and not me!?
I loathed this obliviousness! Ichika and the others knew you for at most a month, and they were able to heal your heart; I knew you since the moment I was born and I had done nothing but cause you pain.
I needed no talent, I needed no dream. All I wanted now was a normal future with you, where you would be happy, beloved, blissed... For that, the darkness can take anything from me, whatever it wanted, be it my aptitude, my mind, my love for sweets, anything...
"I HATE you!" you insisted, "Just look!"
You started mixing batter for waffles in front of me, Ichika and the others. Though your skills were flawed, they were not half-baked.
All those sweets you made before, those which I casually criticised... you poured your heart out into making them...
"See!?" You finished the waffles, completely devoid of Kirakiraru, "From the moment Noir-sama granted me power, I became a being of darkness. My hands are tainted, there's no going back!"
"M-my... this... this was my fault..." I trembled, "I pushed you this far... I'm sorry... I'M SORRY!"
Noir appeared before me, offering me darkness, just like how he had you in his hands before.
Perfect timing... this will be the perfect penance for me, even though you may never forgive me...
I'll let myself drown in darkness... then I'll be by your side...
You'll never feel abandoned or alone anymore...
So I accepted.
Pikario, for your sake, I'll give up everything...
(Pikario's POV)
Once, I had given up everything to surpass you.
Because I thought I hated you.
Why am I always like this? Dishonest, so much so that I deceived myself.
I had let myself be convinced that I hated you.
I came to learn my true feelings in this dimension created by the darkness in your heart.
When you said you had decided to cast aside everything, when you made the resolve to forgone all your dreams and talent for me, I felt enraged.
I said it was because there would be no meaning in surpassing you like this.
I lied.
The statement was true, but it wasn't the reason. I just couldn't tell you that I actually genuinely supported your dreams, I couldn't tell you how much I admired your serious countenance when making your favourite sweets.
I was the only one who truly witnessed every single ounce of effort you gave to fulfil this dream.
I could never allow you to throw it away so easily.
Cure Whip saw through me, and suggested that I express feelings I couldn't speak with sweets.
It was impossible for me, but there wasn't much of a choice.
I had to stop you from sinking any deeper.
I had to stop you from suffering like me.
"You will really become unable to make sweets!" I warned, showing you my gray-coloured waffles.
You were never meant to live in darkness.
"Don't cry..."
You slowly took a small bite. "Delicious," you whispered.
What!? There's no way...!
"Giulio, you made this for the sake of someone precious to you after all," Cure Whip smiled as she explained.
To think that creating Kirakiraru had always been this simple... I... just what have I been doing all this time!?
"Thank you, really," the black aura dissipated from you as your eyes shone like always, "And... I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault," my voice softened, "At this point, there's nothing to apologise for."
"Still, I truly want to bring smiles upon people's faces with sweets," a dream you and I both had once, now it became yours alone.
As a light enveloped you, we all could tell what was happening.
You now grasped the dream we had had since so long ago, while I had reached a different dead end.
But it was true that you weren't to blame, only me and my weakness were to blame.
Now that I realised I could create Kirakiraru again, there was nothing I wanted more than being a patissier with you, or maybe even running the patisserie alongside you.
Because even though it was painful standing in your shadow, I also felt so proud being able to stand next to your light.
So I decided.
I'll forgive you, and if you also forgive me, I want to walk the same path as you once more.
Alas, I saw, to my horror, Noir-sama aiming his arrow at you.
He is going to kill you!
No... NO! PLEASE! I won't let this happen!
I still have things I need to tell you, apologies I need to make, I can't let you go before you listen to them!
Perhaps I was being dishonest again, making excuses again, I realised as the arrow pierced my sternum instead of yours.
All I had in mind was how I wished to be your strength even now, how my desired future was by no means as important as your dream. You had come so far, how could I allow anything stop you now?
My true feelings...
"PIKARIO!"
I won't be able to say it now, will I?
"Don't worry... about me..." I coughed.
To Ichika... and the other Precures... I thank them. For understanding me, for healing me, for showing me that I can still create Kirakiraru, for retrieving my future for me. But I'm sorry that I had to give that future up so soon, so rashly.
And...
"I knew it! Kirarin really is amazing!"
"KIRARIN! DO IT! BECOME A PRECURE!" my tears overflowed as I mustered up the last of my strength to shout.
To my beloved and admired sister, Kirarin... thank you. You never stopped loving this crappy brother of yours... Thanks to you, I'm Pikario once again.
Although, for a long time, you were kinda crappy too... haha...
But, at this point, I'm happy, proud even, to see you brimming with a Precure's light, to see you convert my darkness into dreams and hope, into your power.
Most likely, we will never see each other again, my fading body seems to tell me so. Then I am sorry that I once again missed the chance to tell you I truly love you so much.
For now, I'm satisfied with just saying this.
"In truth, I understood-pika. This was never your fault, Kirarin. It was all because my heart was too weak," I stole a glance at Cure Whip as well, "I'm sorry."
Now allow me to close my eyes, my senses are failing me...
Goodnight, dear sister, goodnight...
End of Chapter 38