There was nothing. She was alone in the unending darkness and immutable silence. She was a thoughtless, bodiless, slowly fading consciousness without a name. Her mind couldn't function, she was everything and nothing. Satsuki felt herself slipping away, and in a desperate attempt to regain her sanity, she viciously jerked her arm. The sudden stop at the wrist, the searing pain in her shoulder, and the barely perceptible vibration of the bed beneath her for a single moment gave her a handhold on her thoughts.
She knew where she was. She knew that the small black space where she now lived wasn't real. She cursed herself for allowing the simple padding binding her eyes and ears to take her mind away. She knew she was lying on her back, limbs cuffed to bedposts. There might have been a sheet over her, but the perpetual lukewarm stillness had robbed her of her ability to sense it. She shifted her hips as much as she was able, and was satisfied by the scrape of cotton over her skin. Soon, though, the stillness returned, and the sheet disappeared from her consciousness.
She was falling back again, going to become a timeless nothing. Satsuki jerked herself again. Why couldn't she think? She had always though her mind a castle, something apart from her body, but here, where she couldn't see or hear, where there was nothing to smell, feel, or taste, she began to understand her own piteous dependence.
She felt a whimper rise in her throat. Muzzy, she wondered if she had made a sound or not.
If someone screams in a forest, but nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Ehhhaha. She hated herself for mentally chuckling at that poor excuse for a joke. Satsuki had never been good at making jokes.
A sudden touch set her nerves into a jumbled frenzy. A finger dragged down her lateral line from clavicle to pelvis, taking the sheet with it. Normally, such comparatively innocent contact wouldn't make her so much as blink, but here, in this black empty place, the touch was like fire, burning down her body in curlicues of rediscovered sensation.
Her mind had never been less her own. It belonged to the box now. And here in the box there was nothing except for the invisible hands, tickling and tearing at her nerves. Her thoughts were jagged, breaking off into shards of panic. She couldn't tell if she was being pleasured or tortured, and it confused her. She would have given in, would have let her spirit crumble right there and then, if it hadn't been for one single thought:
You are better than this. Better than her.
The furious spinning of her thoughts froze suddenly, though her body still trembled under the hands now lightly scraping across the dip between her hips. She took a deep breath. Satsuki knew she couldn't exist inside the box, so she went to live somewhere else. Somewhere she had already been.
Her memories were often not pleasant, but at least there was light there. Leaving (as she often did when with her mother) her body to its own devices, Satsuki withdrew into her earliest memories.
xxx
"Please, Mother, let me hold her!"
A very small Satsuki bounced on her toes as she gripped the armrest of the sofa, gazing fervently at the baby in her mother's lap. Ragyo turned and appraised Satsuki coolly, one snow-white eyebrow raised.
"Please? I promise I won't drop her!" Without saying a word, the little girl's mother scooped her up with one arm, making her gasp in surprise. Ragyo gripped the baby firmly in one arm and her oldest in the other, holding Satsuki close to her face to scrutinize her. Satsuki fidgeted under the gaze but held firm. "Please?"
Ragyo suddenly smiled, her face softening, and kissed Satsuki's cheek before depositing her on the couch. Carefully, she laid the sleeping baby into Satsuki's eager arms. Ragyo stood and turned to go.
"I'll be back in a few minutes." her voice hardened suddenly as she continued to speak over her shoulder, "Remember that you promised not to drop her, Satsuki." The little girl nodded firmly and turned her attention to her prize.
For a long while, the baby slept, and Satsuki gazed adoringly at her.
"Hi, little sis. I'm here for you. I'll always take care of you and we can play together sometimes if you ever learn how, okay?" To her great delight, the baby opened her great big eyes and cooed at her. Satsuki gasped and carefully lifted the baby up to kiss her. She went to lay her back down, but her sister had grabbed a large fistful of her soft black hair and was pulling mercilessly.
"Ow. Hey. Sto - OW!" Satsuki stood and pressed the baby to her body to try to trap the tiny arms against her body to stop them from their insistent yanking. Somehow, her sister's other hand had managed to catch hold of more hair. The baby chortled at this new amusement as she pulled harder.
Satsuki bit her lip. She was too small to climb back onto the couch while holding the baby, and she needed both hands to even hold her up. Tears of pain welled in her eyes as she held her sister helplessly. There was a sharp rip and the baby gazed in wonder at the chunk of torn hair she held in her fat fist. Satsuki almost dropped her then, but at the last minute she clutched her tighter.
No, I promised!
Satsuki stood there and cried as her sister gleefully ripped chunks out of her hair. Blood was seeping down into her collar and she breathed in ragged sobs, burying her face into the baby's soft neck as disproportionately powerful hands wreaked havoc on her hair.
I won't drop her. I won't. She's my sister. I promised I would take care of her.
Then her father was there, wrenching the baby from her grasp and scooping her up, comforting her. Satsuki grasped his shirt gratefully, wiping her face against the rough fabric as he held her gently against his chest. The baby was crying, deprived of her new plaything, but her father ignored her, only picking her up to hand her silently to his wife as he passed her in the hall. Satsuki looked over her father's shoulder as he carried her to the door, and she thought she saw the ghost of a smile play over her mother's face as she rocked the baby in her arms.
She never asked to hold Nui again.
xxx
Ryuko slammed the door to Nonon's office open so hard it bounced off the wall, springing back to crack her in the face if she hadn't caught it, splintering the wood beneath her grip.
"Jakuzure, I - "
"What the hell, Matoi!?" Nonon screeched, jumping up and shoving Ryuko out so suddenly that she fell back, tearing out a chunk of the doorframe in her attempt to stay upright. "Harime's already been here once and I'll be damned if I ever have to see her creepy face again." Ryuko held her breath, blushing furiously. Resisting the urge to whimper out a pathetic 'what did she tell you?' she stood and dusted off her jacket, sneering.
"You shoulda said something to me before assigning me to that interview, you little snake. It's your own damn fault."
"How was I supposed to know the little pervert would get the hots for your scrawny ass?" The reporters working in the main office had stopped to stare, and at that comment several mouths dropped open. Still the color of strawberries, Ryuko defiantly set her arms akimbo.
"The alley. Now." She turned on one heel, her non-pivoting food swinging out to kick over a wastebasket in a gesture of utter nonchalance. Nonon groaned and followed her.
"Get back to work, you floozies," she called squeakily to her aghast subordinates, "before I fire the lot of you." She slammed the door behind her.
"Matoi." Jakuzure hissed, breath misting in the fall air. "You are literally on a paid vacation. I am paying you to not come back here. What the hell are you doing?"
"My dad's dead." Ryuko intoned flatly, abandoning what little tact she had in her. "Murdered. Blood everywhere. My house exploded." She shoved her hands into her pockets and rocked back onto the heels of her sneakers to lean against the brick wall behind her, looking away. Without saying a word, Nonon went back into the building, but she was back in less than a minute, carrying her coffee thermos.
"Here," she muttered, tossing the thermos to Ryuko. "I'm sorry."
"I don't want any -"
"It's vodka." Ryuko's eyes widened, but she hastily unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Sucking in air between her teeth with her lips pulled back, she looked at the tiny pink thing before her and considered how to formulate her request. She and Jakuzure had been working together for several years, and it had always been rocky between them. They disputed everything constantly, from style to office-appropriate behavior, but Ryuko had no other leads and her involvement with the Kiryuins had very recently become very personal.
"Jakuzure," she started, "I know you have an in with the Kiryuins. You have to give me information." Nonon raised an eyebrow, puffing out her cheeks as she held her breath. Ryuko sighed, bumping her head against the brick behind her. "Look, it's not just my weird little fetish anymore. Someone killed my dad and it was probably Nui, and I have nowhere to go from here. She has to go down and I can't do it myself. I know you can help me."
"How exactly can I help you, again?"
"You obviously have connections with those psychos! How else could a shitty paper like this get exclusive interviews with the most powerful clothing people on the planet?" Nonon deflated, letting out her breath in a sigh and slouching slightly.
"I'm just friends with Satsuki, Matoi, okay?" Nonon curled a finger around a lock of her bubblegum-colored hair. "We grew up together. We help each other out. If that's what you call an in, then, sure, I got one, but that doesn't help you."
"Yeah, it does!" Ryuko's eyes burned brightly and she grabbed her editor by the shoulders suddenly, making her squeak in surprise. "Right after I found my dad..." Ryuko closed her eyes to shut out the memories, forcing steel into her spine as she fought back sudden tears. "She called me. She said she was coming to get me, and that I needed to do something, but then I lost the call... She can help me, and you can get me to her!"
"She didn't call you back?"
"No. I called her back about a hundred times, though. I must've left thirty messages."
Nonon suddenly turned and started pacing, breathing raggedly as she raked her hands through her hair, sending her hat flying.
"Matoi, this is bad, this is really bad."
"Eh?" Ryuko grunted, confused, her chain of thought abruptly broken.
"Ryuko," for the first time, Nonon used her given name, "Kiryuin Satsuki lives her day-to-day life in the presence of very dangerous, very unpredictable people. I'm surprised she's still alive, honestly. I don't know what goes on in that house, but whatever it is, it's seriously jacked up. If she called you and then just hung up and didn't call back, it means something went horribly wrong." Nonon started biting her nails, worry and stress threatening to fill her eyes with tears. If there was one person she loved in the world, it was Satsuki.
For now-selfish reasons, she wanted to help Ryuko. She knew that if they were going to make any headway, they would need information. Nonon knew an Intel guy, but at the same time, she wasn't willing to jeopardize her friend's ten-year plan just because she went into search-and-rescue overdrive. A sudden spark lit up Nonon's eyes as she remembered a distant event.
"Hold on, Matoi," she said gently to a now very jumbled Ryuko. "I think I can help." Again, she disappeared and returned, this time with a business card. "Here. I worked with this girl a long time ago. She's a disaster. She's unpredictable and ridiculous and an outright slacker, but she is one of the most talented hackers I've ever met. If you can get her to take your case, she can get you more ins with the Kiryuins than you'll have time for."
Ryuko took the card examining it carefully. It was covered in stickers of cats and glitter and was the most atrocious color imaginable.
"Keep me posted, Matoi," Nonon called over her shoulder as she turned to go back into the building. "And try not to do anything stupid."
Ryuko turned the card over to read the name on its back.
Mankanshoku Mako
xxx
Sorry for the short chapter. I have a tendency to go into troll-mode when I try to write about torture. "They bet you up and raped you and the dark lord gave you the posion," am I right? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Oh well. I'll try harder next chapter. Feel free to send any suggestions my way.