For the prompt - curious
6. Here we Substitute
She could stay awake longer now. And it meant the world wasn't slipping by in a dream. Miku was there first, and Hibiki happily threw her arms over the other and wondered if she'd managed to grow up a little when asleep. Miku just laughed and said the question was flaky as she could expect from her.
Oh well. She had plenty of time to grow when awake. And it probably made more sense to do that, anyway.
Tsubasa knew. There was something behind the scenes, something nobody wanted to tell her. Or maybe Genjuuro did. The way his dark eyes followed her. The way he watched over her, watched her train until it went far beyond training and into the mind-numbing oblivion of repetition she saught. But that never lasted. The bokutos couldn't handle her strength, her agony, for long. They'd snap and jolt her out of unawareness, and then she'd have to start the whole process again.
And when the new blisters on her palms burst open and her fingers wouldn't straighten and too many muscles to count burned, she'd stop and sleep until it was bearable enough to ignore and then start again.
One day, she'd have to stop, because Kanade wasn't going to come back and there were things to do: Noise to fight, songs to sing - but she couldn't scream now. Just scream and cry and she did both of those things.
And everybody let her. They were elsewhere occupied and she didn't care so long as they left her to their grief.
Until she learned of their guest, anyway. That changed things.
Kanade died for her? She was small, weak-looking - almost waif-like and delicate and the smile on her face was so flimsy looking a tapered glare could knock it right off.
She wasn't worth Kanade. She was nowhere near Kanade. She wanted Kanade back!
She wasn't perfect. But she'd do, for now.
