"H-Hanyū," Rika called out to me, voice quivering as she forced herself back on her feet. Her whole body trembled from the shock of the stun gun. "Hanyū…"
"What?" Shion's face contorted in cruel amusement, a single laugh escaping her. "Did that drug knock you all silly?"
Rika supported the weight of her body with her shoulder against the wall. She coughed again, her attempt to catch her breath not an easy one. She couldn't fight the tears, squinting and blinking her irritated eyes over and over trying to clean out that substance that had been sprayed in them. She gasped between the coughs, wheezing coming out of her throat every time. An easy prey to catch like this, wasn't it because her hunter had all the time in the world to watch the show first.
Rika stumbled forward to the counter, leaning her weight on its top as if her body was too heavy to carry. "Hanyū," she cried again, a guttural sound following as she tried to clear her throat.
But however much I yearned to console her, I could do nothing but watch. And feel. It was an odd sensation that I would never get used to, no matter how many times it happened. But I could feel every nerve in Rika's body as were they my own. I just didn't sustain any damage. So I knew how much pain she was in, yet had no difficulty moving myself nor any need for healing. I could distance myself somewhat from it because it couldn't affect the body I did not have, but I could still understand every iota of agony she felt. Whenever I had the time to contemplate our link, I found it strange and curious. But right now it just made me even more desperate to do something and more helpless that I couldn't.
I was useless.
I felt a small jolt of my own as Rika's eyes met mine. She was looking straight at me rather than Shion. Those pitiful, begging, terrified eyes that would make any loving mother sick with worry. I could almost taste it; the plea, help me, was on her tongue. But she withheld it. Bit her lip. I couldn't help her, and she knew that. If I could, I already would have. She wouldn't have needed to ask. She knew that, too.
"Oi, hey, you," Shion barked, seemingly displeased Rika's attention was pointed elsewhere. "Did you go blind? Eesh! Was that your plan for me?"
Rika turned her head to her. Her coughing was receding.
Shion's lips widened into an even bigger smirk. "Oh, so your ears work. Hey, how many fingers am I holding up?"
An unimpressed look came over Rika's face. She withdrew from the counter, pushing her weight into her wobbling feet. "You're just flipping me off."
Shion laughed wholeheartedly. It sent a shiver down my spine. Over thousands of years I had seen many succumb to the syndrome, but few ever enjoyed it as much as Shion did. Most were just scared and acting out of fear and paranoia. Aggression stemming from an instinctive need for self-defense, and nothing more. Shion was different though. I wouldn't be surprised to find she was genuinely getting off to all this. It was disturbing.
The last world like this one – the first in which Shion was the one to lose her mind – had had the most brutal end for Rika I had yet to witness. She had dragged her to the Sonozaki underground chamber and played around with her using several different torture devices before settling on a full, conscious Watanagashi ritual. 'Fitting for a Furude head', Shion had declared.
At first we had thought it was Mion, but a vocal slip-up had proved otherwise. When Rika had been dragged down to the chamber, we saw a panicked Sonozaki twin locked up behind bars. Crying and screaming the whole time, 'Please don't hurt Rika-chan'. Sure, the sick sister had been calling her prisoner 'Shion' as she belittled her, but the Shion we knew always addressed Rika with -chama. Shion had even let that name slip out once during all the torture too, a definitive proof of the mimicry.
Well. Old habits die hard.
It didn't make a lick of difference now though. It didn't matter if it was Mion or Shion or someone else entirely. Rika's fate was settling in. Our time in this world was coming to an end. I could only hope it would be slightly less awful than the previous run with this twisted girl. If I had been able to end Rika's life myself right now, I would have. Spared her the inevitable agony that Shion would inflict. But there was nothing I could do. I couldn't interact with her spirit until she passed.
I was useless. So. Useless.
"So your eyes work," Shion concluded after her laughing fit, now seeming almost calm – if not for her wild glare. "And you're standing up again. Interesting. It must be a slow-working drug. What the hell were you trying to give me?"
Satoko's medicine. When Rika had found out who was this world's "victim", she had been desperate trying to find a way to give it to her. I had told her not to bother. Run off. Escape. Hide out in the woods. Even if she could get the medicine in Shion, it wouldn't change anything. Yet Rika never gave up hope. I admired that about her.
"Hm?" Shion urged impatiently. "What was that drug? What's it doing to you?"
Rika narrowed her gaze at her darkly. I could feel something in her demeanor change. That was seldom a good thing. She ran her tongue over the bleeding crack in her gums where her canine tooth used to be. It felt weird and tasted awful. Then Rika smiled. "You'll die never knowing."
"Don't get cocky, Rika!" I yelled in alarm, turning my attention to Shion.
Shion was momentarily frozen. Then she broke into another laughing fit. "What!? What the hell is this, a comedy show? Are you going to curse me, or are you just trying to kill me with laughter?" She howled, her free hand pressing to her stomach.
I'm not sure what the record for the longest continuous laughing was, but I felt like Shion wasn't far from it. Rika watched her patiently all the while. I just tried to push down my ever growing anxiety.
When Shion's laughter finally died, her smile loosened slightly as she narrowed her dark eyes, her voice gone raw. "That's the Furude way for you, huh? Cursing people that bother you. Tch. How despicable. Weak. But I was cursed from the moment I was born. Your threat means nothing to me."
Rika shrugged. I could feel her throat was still ragged, her eyes stung, her bruises ached, but none of it showed right now. "Curses. Fate. What does it mean, really, and does it actually matter?" She pondered out loud with her eyes closed. She let out a heavy sigh and looked at Shion again. "Nah. I won't curse you. It wouldn't make a difference. As you said, you are already very much cursed."
Shion studied her carefully, hand clenching around the stun gun. Rika took a step forward and reached her hand at something.
I felt like I'd gone pale as a sheet, had I had any blood flow. "Ri-Rika, what are you doing?" My lips parted as fear came over me.
Rika picked up a chef's knife lying on the counter.
"Don't, Rika, you can't fight her. Shion is stronger than you. Rika, listen to me. Rika! Rika!"
She didn't pay me any mind. Her attention remained fixed on Shion, her eyes dark as she pointed the knife toward her.
Shion grinned, a new spark of excitement lighting up in her. "Aw, you still got a little fight in you? Good, I was worrying this would get boring. Come at me, then. I'll let you have the first charge." She steadied her stance.
Rika huffed. "Sorry, but I'm not stupid enough to fall for your taunt. I know I can't do anything to you in this state."
"Ri-Rika, what are you doing," I breathed in anguish.
Rika ignored me. "Don't make the mistake assuming you're winning, though."
"What?" Shion chuckled, raising her shoulders and lowering her head in intimidation, ready like a tiger about to pounce. A very eager and excited one at that.
Despite not standing here physically with a body of flesh and blood, I felt like the temperature in the room dropped. The atmosphere went several degrees colder as cat and mouse faced each other in a lopsided standoff.
Rika's lips curved into a devious smirk. "You want to know where Satoshi is, don't you?"
Shion's smile dropped and her eyes widened as fury boiled up in her in a split second.
"R–Rika!" Panic coursed through me. "Rika, stop, what are you doing!? Don't make this worse!" I couldn't believe it. Rika knew she was defeated. Agitating Shion could only make her inevitable end more painful. "Stop! Please stop!"
I kept begging as Rika went on, my plea falling on deaf ears.
"You want to know what happened to him?" Rika egged on, voice cold and slow. "You want to know what is going to happen to you? To Keiichi? You want to understand the curse of Oyashiro-sama? You want to know how we punish disobedient little kitties like you, snooping around in sacred places you don't belong?"
Shion watched her in stunned contempt.
"See, I'm really sad you had to go and get Keiichi involved. He was really trying this time. Really trying. You have no idea how good his odds were. He was my Ace in this deck. He just wanted to make everyone happy. Even you. And he trusted you. How could you do this to him? Sweet, naïve Keiichi. He deserves forgiveness, don't you think?"
"Where's Satoshi-kun?" Shion made a deep, guttural noise I never thought a human could make.
Rika sighed in apathy. "Yes, that really is as far as your one-track mind got, isn't it? Sad."
"What did you do to him?"
Rika watched her in cold silence, looking almost bored. I wanted to throw up despite how it was physically impossible for me to.
"Tell me. Now." Shion's dark glare intensified. "Or I will fuck you up. Piece by piece. Limb by limb. Digit by digit. I'm not joking."
The image of Rika gradually getting chopped up into little dice starting at her fingers and toes while conscious was a little too clear in my head. I really wanted her to shut up now before that became reality. We knew nothing about Satoshi's whereabouts. I had seen many of Rika's horrible ideas, but trying to piss off Shion at her worst was just peak stupidity.
I simply couldn't comprehend it.
I feared for her life – not for the loss of it, for that I knew was unavoidable – but for how it would come to pass. And simultaneously I felt like I was watching a dumb child walk right over to a mother bear to hit her cubs with sticks despite knowing better, and I almost, almost, wanted to say 'I warned you, natural selection is just doing its thing, at this point it's your own fault, you get what you deserve'.
Of course, I loved that dumb child far too much for such thoughts to be anything more than fleeting.
No longer imploring Rika to stop, I simply watched in silent horror.
So, so very useless.
"Fucking tell me you little bitch!" Shion roared, taking a step forward. The hatred in her eyes betrayed how she longed to maul Rika, barely restraining herself for the promise of much-desired information.
A twisted smile then came over Rika's lips. "Nah. It will be as I said. You'll die never knowing."
Within the course of the next few seconds, things happened faster than I could process. Shion howled and charged at Rika. I wailed Rika's name helplessly. Rika spun the knife around and directed it at herself and before Shion could reach her, she pushed that knife into the center of her throat. The excruciating pain hit me before any coherent thought did, my hands flying up around my own neck in response. The taste of iron overflowed in my mouth. The sight confused Shion and she skidded to a halt just a meter from Rika, motionless as she observed her. Rika pulled out the knife, blood pulsing and sputtering out of her, dotting Shion with red all over. Rika's eyes intense with fear and agony.
Yet Rika pressed the knife into her throat again, this time the blade horizontal. And pressed. And pressed. And pressed, the tip of the knife coming out at the back of her neck. Then she twisted the blade around, twisting her destroyed windpipe with it. Strange, garbled gurgling came out of Rika. Demented, euphoric laughter burst out of Shion.
By the time I unfroze and my mind allowed me to process what I was looking at, it was already far too late to say anything. Rika was killing herself, in an absolutely grotesque horrorshow of a manner. I could do nothing but stare in shock, enduring the very pain she did.
"Rika?" I cried helplessly. I had witnessed her death several times before, but never her suicide. It devastated me, every bit as much as it would any parent, my sole, unique comfort that I would see her again soon. Only, this moment felt like it lasted forever.
Shion's laughter etched into my skull, the worst sound that could possibly accompany this sight. I loved every one of Rika's friends. But not this monster. I knew, deep down, that Shion was every bit as sweet and kind as the rest of them, but I rejected the beast this sickness made her. I felt nothing but hatred toward the creature that stood here, enjoying herself so thoroughly with the blood of her prey plastered all over her. Her prey. Rika. My Rika.
I wanted to flee, but I couldn't leave her in her dying breath. I had to stay. I had to be by her. I had to be ready to embrace her spirit when it finally escaped the prison of its tormented body.
Rika pulled the knife out and it fell out of her hand. She could barely stand. Shion had seemingly forgotten all about that supposed information she alone had, simply entertained by the unexpected twist in front of her.
"What the hell?" Shion managed in between laughter, all out of breath. "What the fucking hell? What a performance," she threw her stun gun to the counter to clap exaggeratedly. "Splendid! Such a fitting dance for the Furude princess! What an honor to behold it!"
Adamant, Rika still tried to end herself, raising her hand to dig her fingers into the gaping hole in her throat. But her strength was fading, fast. She collapsed to the floor with a thud and a splat, the pool of her own blood spattering up around her as she landed in it. She wheezed – in vain as no air would ever make it to those blood-filled lungs again – and her body twitched as her muscles spasmed.
I could only stare. I was useless. So. So. So so so so so USELESS.
"I'm sorry, Rika," I finally broke down crying uncontrollably. "I'm so, so sorry."
~ x ~
Rika sat herself up, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to gather herself, rubbing her throat. We were hiding from the others in the dark little shed behind the school. Once again, I had brought her back in time, though not as far back as I would've liked.
I considered whether my own emotional state affected my powers and how far we could go back as I watched Rika come to.
The memories were coming back to her. She opened her eyes, found me sitting on my knees next to her and stared at me with an exhausted gaze. "When is this?" She asked the usual question, but lacked the usual strong and demanding attitude.
I tried not to let my concern show, calmly explaining her stage. "September, 1982. It's sunny outside. You're playing hide and seek with the others. I think Mion is 'it'."
Rika sighed, leaning herself against the wall. "Previous-me picked a bad spot to hide, then. Mion will find me pretty soon."
We both fell quiet. Rika closed her eyes again, absent-mindedly running her tongue over her canine tooth. She looked worse off than I had ever seen her, as if her fatigue from the previous world still lingered.
I studied her for a while. Part of me was just happy to see her alive and healthy. But I couldn't ignore that heavy pressure the previous world had instilled in me. I swallowed, speaking softly. "Please never do that again, Rika."
Turning her head to me, Rika looked at me with new discontent. "Rather that, than whatever that sadistic freak would do to me otherwise," she groaned, still rubbing her throat. "If her shit is going to be a regular thing, then you better get used to it."
Thank you for reading this little thing! It was a piece I have wanted to do for a long time.
Feedback always deeply appreciated, whether it's positive or constructive criticism!
- Xanquine
