CHAPTER 30
A consistent and throbbing pain of relentless agony awoke Kagami Hiiragi from her slumber the day after her violent and nearly fatal ax attack on her family. She slowly stirred and began to groan in pain. She felt the pain both inside her head and mouth, though the pain inside her mouth was proving to be dominant as she felt herself supported by a soft mattress and nestled under covers. Her whole body ached and cracked as she sat up and slowly opened her eyes.
The familiar and grim setup of Yuka Miyakawa's bedroom registered itself in her mind and she tried to piece the previous night together as she rubbed her head. The previous night was a complete blur, but she soon found that so were all of yesterday and even the day before that. Kagami felt very tired and weak as most people do when they first wake up in the morning, but she shifted her eyes to the digital clock on the nightstand and she realized it wasn't morning, but rather the middle of the afternoon.
"What…what happened…?" Kagami mumbled with a grunt.
Still trying to remember the past two days, the only thing she could remember was storming out of the intervention. Suddenly, she remembered she went to a free health clinic because of a rash that was growing and burning on her privates. She lifted the sheets and her panties and found the red mark was still there and the color seemed to have deepened but it wasn't itching nor burning anymore. The pain in her mouth began to radiate again so she began to feel her right cheek.
She felt the rows of teeth within her mouth until her fingers sank into a gap between her teeth. More pain spiked in her mouth and she yelped and jumped from the surprise sensation. She fingered the gap between her two teeth and moved her tongue upward and her tongue explored a hole in the spot where a tooth should be. Kagami instantly panicked and jumped out of bed.
"Yuka! Yuka…!" She cried and tore the bedroom door open and dashed into the living room.
She spotted both Yuka and Ryuji sitting next to each other with millions of yen stacked on her coffee table being fed through an electronic counter, as well as a scale with more drugs sitting on one side of it and the needle telling them how heavy they were. Ryuji was writing the weight and worth of the drugs in a notepad when Kagami came tearing out of Miyakawa's bedroom holding her mouth. The ailing twin-tailed Hiiragi was able to disregard the tons of cash and drugs as she had a more pressing issue at hand.
"Yuka! Am I missing a tooth?! Am I missing a tooth?!" Kagami shrieked and before Miyakawa could respond, Kagami quickly turned and sprinted for the bathroom.
She plowed the door open and looked in the mirror while pulling her cheek back. Sure enough, a sickening gap sat between two of her teeth with the spot showing a wound in the gum that was covered by a reddish-black scab. Kagami screamed when she saw the wound and started crying as Miyakawa casually approached the doorway and looked at the hysterical Hiiragi twin.
"Come on, calm down, Kagami. It's a missing tooth, not a missing arm. Missing teeth are easily replaceable and I can do that for you." Miyakawa stated calmly.
"Have you lost your fucking mind?! Do you see this?! I'm missing a tooth! What the hell happened to my tooth?!" Kagami shrieked again.
"You pulled it out yourself apparently." Miyakawa responded as she folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe.
Kagami ceased her tantrum when she heard this. "I…I what?"
To her surprise, Miyakawa giggled and sighed. "You came back to my apartment yesterday afternoon high as a satellite and out of your mind. You were tripping on that special black heroin I gave you and were hallucinating and screaming your head off. You apparently ripped that tooth out somewhere else and came back here and then you threw up, pissed yourself, and then passed out…for twenty-eight hours. And when I say passed out, I mean technically you OD'd."
Kagami once again went wild. "I overdosed?! I could've died!"
"You didn't though." Miyakawa replied sharply. "Besides, when you OD'd I injected you with my own mixture that cancels out the drugs that did it and I cleaned you up and put you to bed. You're fine now."
"I'm fine?! Look at my fucking mouth! In case you still haven't noticed, I'm missing a fucking tooth! Oh god! I look like a slutty inbreed!" Kagami screamed again and showed her toothless gap in her gum.
"In case you didn't hear me, I told you I can replace your tooth. I've done it before so calm down!" Miyakawa snapped towards the end.
Kagami still panted wildly from her panic but Miyakawa's reassurance soon found Kagami's comprehension. "You…you can replace it?"
Miyakawa nodded with a smirk.
"And did you say you've done this before?" Kagami asked again, beginning to calm down.
Miyakawa nodded again. "I'm fairly knowledgeable about human anatomy, yes…as well as a little bit of makeshift medical science."
"Will it…will it hurt?"
"No…because you'll be high when I do it." Miyakawa replied with confidence. "By the way, Kagami, you smell like something that's been passed through the system of a sick and dying animal."
Kagami frowned at Miyakawa, and then lifted her arm slightly and sniffed, making herself cringe and gag and blush slightly. "I uh…I think I'll take a shower."
Miyakawa giggled. "You do that…and I'll join you in a bit to scrub your back…as well as your other gap."
A bright red blush formed across Kagami's face and she giggled nervously as Miyakawa closed the bathroom door and rejoined her cousin on the couch in front of the millions of yen and abundant supply of drugs. Each cousin had a burning cigarette in an ashtray and Miyakawa took hers and took a deep drag on hers and exhaled the smoke while giggling to herself.
"So do you think she killed her sister?" Ryuji asked casually when speaking of Tsukasa in such a grotesque matter. "I know you've been grooming her to do that for awhile."
Miyakawa started laughing as she heard the water running in her bathroom. "I can only assume so. You should've seen the number she did on that pink-haired cunt so it wouldn't surprise me to see it in the newspapers soon. And she doesn't appear to remember any of it, just like what my drug is supposed to do. She doesn't remember pounding that Takara bitch to a pulp as far as I can tell and remember when she came back here yesterday? She was screaming about going at her family with an ax and it doesn't appear that she remembers that either. Also, that overdose did tell me one thing I needed to know. I now know the maximum amount I can give to a person without them overdosing and dying."
As Ryuji packed another large sum of money together, he also started smoking again and sat back. "And tell me again why you wanted that little Hiiragi girl dead so much. She hasn't done anything and I'm pretty sure she's not with those gangbangers that have been trying to push us out of the game."
Miyakawa began to grit her teeth in a show of rising anger and hatred as her eyes also illustrated. "I see parallels between Kagami and her twin sister. The same parallels I once saw between me and…Nagisa. Tsukasa is me…before I woke up and realized how fucked up and how truly pointless life is. But that innocence, that childlike aroma that is everything Tsukasa is now…it's powerful stuff. It has the power to take Kagami away from us and out of our world. Everything I've been doing so far has been to drive those twins apart so that I could keep Kagami forever. She once told me that her family was going to see my sister to try and help Kagami. Consider this my never-ending war against my sister. I want to keep Kagami for myself to spite my sister."
Ryuji rolled his eyes. "You've been fighting that war for sixteen years, Yuka. Perhaps it's time to let it go."
"Shut up, Ryuji, and keep packing my money and drugs. I'm going to stick my face between Kagami's legs and make her squeal." Miyakawa proclaimed shamelessly and stood and began to walk towards the bathroom.
Ryuji puckered his face in disgust at his cousin's blunt response. "That's sick, Yuka. I saw her rash when she OD'd and I know genital herpes when I see it. I've seen it happen in other girls you've recruited before so why are you still touching this girl?"
Miyakawa turned and grinned. "Life's too short. Besides…she gave me genital herpes and I already gave her Chlamydia and HIV a week ago, though that's our little secret for now. Sounds like a fair trade to me."
The depraved Miyakawa opened the bathroom door and walked in. When she closed it behind her again, Ryuji shook his head and sighed. He always knew that his cousin was reckless and dangerous but it never ceased to amaze him how truly hollow she had become over the years. He could see that she honestly didn't care if she lived or died and if she died, she didn't care by who or what. Ryuji was in his mid-twenties and he still remembered when she was a little girl and couldn't go one whole visit without smiling or laughing innocently.
Ryuji Katsumoto was always an independent child that never needed much attention. He was also never affectionate towards his parents, whose marriage was crumbling years before the rape of Yuka Miyakawa anyways. He always preferred to be on his own and taught himself the ways of the street and was always enticed by the culture of it, prompting him to start his life of crime years ahead of his former sweet and innocent cousin. Still, he remembered when they were kids and how much Miyakawa would light up every time he would visit her. She would always run to him calling his name, waving her arm, and laughing happily. Ryuji would never admit this, but every day it seemed to get a little bit harder for him to watch his cousin sleep with either one or multiple people or jam syringes into her veins to administer the drugs he was the master of acquiring. However, he, just like Miyakawa, was motivated by money so they always stayed in the lifestyle no matter how dangerous it was for them and also despite the fact that they knew they would both be dead before they turned forty.
Though they weren't considered a huge part of Kagami's life, Patricia Martin and Hiyori Tamura were still rattled by the events of not only the failed intervention, but also news of the dastardly attack on Miyuki Takara and they had just received word regarding the Hiiragi household incident from Konata. This confirmed for them that Kagami was responsible for the violent assault on Miyuki that left her not only in a coma, but her entire life in ruins. She was going to miss her abroad trip to France that she had talked about and worked so hard to get and she may also lose her eyesight permanently. She would also have to undergo many more intrusive and painful surgeries, as well as hard and excruciating recovery.
Still too afraid to return home for fear of an ax or something else at the hands of Kagami waiting for them, the two friends tried to pass as much time as possible at Otome Road. As always, they blew through all their paychecks and allowances in a matter of hours stocking up on the latest otaku gear and the newest manga and anime releases. With their last bit of change, the two girls decided to eat at an outdoor restaurant on the beautiful spring day.
When their order was placed, silence fell between the two girls. Though they were thinking the exact same things, they still couldn't muster the strength to vocalize them to each other. What should've been a positive bonding experience over shopping was only a long and awkwardly quiet trip between the two as each one sat at the table and watched the water in their glasses swish and splash. Why did it have to come to a point where they had to fear for their own safety because one of their friends had succumbed to a world of drugs and prostitution?
"I heard that Tsukasa is going to be seeing more of that therapist that oversaw the intervention." Patty finally spoke.
Hiyori looked up from her water. "Can you blame her? Her own sister tried to hack her to death with an ax. If the dust ever settles from this one, I think we'll all be counting ourselves lucky if she isn't in an insane asylum."
Thinking about someone like Tsukasa being driven to insanity and being forced to leave her family sent a chill down Patty's side as she sighed and she tried to redirect the conversation to a point she wanted to address for awhile now. "Remember when Konata first came to us and told us about the intervention? She instructed us to write our letters to Kagami and tell her how we truly feel about her and how she impacted our lives."
Hiyori nodded. "I remember all of that."
"There was something I wanted to ask you." Patty replied and cleared her throat. "I know we wrote ours together because we have a lot in common and all…but what did you mean when you said that you were once in a dark phase? And that you were suffering a lot?"
The long-haired girl simply sat and stared at Patty with a blank face. It was this emotionless façade that allowed her to cry and scream underneath the faux masquerade of pretentious otaku liveliness. When the golden-haired girl saw her friend gulp slightly, Patty feared that Hiyori may have more in common with Kagami's never-ending downward spiral than she did with her otaku interests.
Hiyori turned her head slightly and began with a simple statement. "I was just…I was just sick of it. I was sick of all of it. I always knew I was different…but I still wanted to make friends and be just like everyone else. I was sick of not being allowed to do that. For the longest time in my life, I felt that I was pre-determined by either nature or some sadistic deity that I was not allowed to have friends or to be accepted by others. My hobbies, my love of drawing, all of it was scrutinized because it didn't fit into what the cool kids deemed cool. It came to a point where I found myself in a position where I had to choose between friends or who I am."
Patty could relate to what Hiyori was saying for the most part. Back where she came from, most people didn't care that she was into anime and manga, but it was her fascination with yaoi and yuri that some believed was a little too bizarre so her friendships were limited. Still motivated by parallel existences, Patty replied, "So you chose to be an otaku and doujin artist."
Hiyori sighed. "Not in the beginning, no. As soon as I started middle school, I was already ready to quit and fell into a phase where all I drew was images of death and torture. I even started dressing darker and started cutting myself. Then I met this other girl who was in the same boat I was in. She also felt betrayed and beaten by the world around her and we started hanging out. My brothers took one look at her and swooped in. They, along with my parents and family, borderline held me captive in my home until I would start talking to a professional. As soon as I let it all out and stopped bottling it up inside…I felt so much better…and my family and I have never had a better relationship ever since."
Patty nodded. "Hiyorin…I know I never say this because I believe I may have made the mistake that others pointed out at the intervention for Kagami-san, but I'm really glad you're my friend. I know we don't say these things to each other or often enough, if not for the only reason being that they're implied and that nothing else needs to be said, but I still want you to know that now. I'm really glad you're my friend and I also want to help you whenever you need it."
Hiyori smiled and felt happiness and euphoria for the first time today since she and her friend went shopping together. "Thank you, Patty-chan. I just wish that girl I once met could've gotten out as well. Still, she put an interesting perspective on things and made decrepit lifestyle sound appealing. My reason for bringing that up is because I wonder if Kagami is using the same justifications for her downfall in lieu of her sister's death and Kusakabe-san's death."
Patty tilted her head. "What did she say?"
"I'll never forget this speech. She told me, 'only the depraved will completely rid themselves of fear. The fear of disapproval makes one strive to be a good person and a fear of being helpless gives one the motivation to seek out strength themselves. Fear is a driving force and a creator of order in the civilized world. However, the amount of fear that exists in the world far exceeds the amount of actual danger. Still, the actions of people are still motivated by fear. Fear of being caught, fear of being ostracized, fear of shame, everything you could imagine. Once you truly let go and give into the darkness, only then will you truly rid yourself of fear and know true freedom and power.'" Hiyori recalled.
The golden-haired girl couldn't help but gulp upon hearing a speech given by a person who truly had no heart or regard for the world around her or the people in it. "What was this girl's name?"
Hiyori slowly shook her head. "I wish I could recall it, but the amount of dedication my family showed me when I was going through my dark phase was enough to push her out. Still, when I heard everything about what Kagami was doing, it reminded me of that girl and what I believe she wanted to persuade me to do at some point."
"Like I said before, I'm glad you're my friend, Hiyorin." Patty said with a smile. "And I'm glad you are the girl I know now. You're perfect the way you are to me so don't ever change again."
Hiyori blushed slightly and giggled. "Thanks again, Patty-chan."
Later that night, Teasers closed early for what was labeled as repairs to the club, which was a lie. Miyakawa and her cousin and favorite girl wanted a nice place to stretch out and continue their sordid existences. They not only used the empty club to get high and revel in the cash they were raking in from the drug trade, but tonight Miyakawa planned on fixing Kagami's oral problem. She took a piece of quartz and polished it down to the size of a human tooth and was able to sand it down into the shape of a crown and fastened it to a piece of copper wire that would wrap around Kagami's other teeth to hold it in place. The wires would sit like dental floss in-between her other teeth, which would take some getting used to.
When the fake tooth was ready and the wires were ready to be set, Miyakawa turned back to her cousin and Kagami. Ryuji was able to get Kagami high on crack cocaine, heroin, and narcotics to take away the unbearable pain she would feel if she wasn't high. The decrepit Hiiragi girl's face illustrated a grim portrait of a person on their deathbed from the drugs and she looked like she could overdose again at any second. Her pupils were severely dilated, showing how out of touch she was with her surroundings.
"How you feeling, Kagami?" Miyakawa asked as she sat down next to Kagami and rested a tray of medical supplies next to her as she sat in a cushioned chair.
Kagami's retort was slurred at first until she was able to utter while looking at the center stage where the main pole was. "Does anybody else see Christian Bale making out with that giant Teletubby on the stripping pole?"
Both depraved cousins turned their heads to the center stage to see the pole standing alone amidst the slow flashing lights and fog machine making a layer of smoke hover on the ground below it. The two cousins turned back to look at each other.
"I think she's good to go." Ryuji observed.
Miyakawa smirked and pried Kagami's mouth opened and used a small flashlight to see the wound. She used a plastic mouth guard used in dentist offices to hold a jaw open for x-rays and Kagami's mouth was lodged open. Miyakawa took a deep breath and exhaled bluntly to relax herself. She had pulled countless teeth before for either trophies or for torture on other people but she rarely reattached fake ones so she knew she was rusty on this procedure. One wrong move and she could cause irreversible damage to all of Kagami's mouth and other teeth.
Miyakawa took her first scalpel and slit the scabbing wound open again, making Kagami grunt in uncomforted feelings but Miyakawa shushed her softly and told her it was okay and to remain still. The blood dripped out of the open wound and Ryuji was there to mop it up with a rag when Miyakawa pulled back. She placed the scalpel aside and grabbed a dental hook and went back into Kagami's mouth and peeled the rest of the scab off and removed it from her gums and also disregarded the hook and scab as Ryuji mopped more blood.
Next came the step to add the fake tooth. With the wound open again and providing the fresh hole to house the faux crown, Miyakawa took another hooking tool and dug it into the open wound and expanded the bloody hole. She stretched it open as Kagami continued to squirm slightly and groan in weak agony until the hole was wide enough. Miyakawa nestled the customized rock into Kagami's wound and pushed it further into the gum. When it was in as far as it would go, she fastened the thin copper wire threads around two surrounding teeth and the operation was over.
Miyakawa sat back and breathed another deep sigh in relief. Last time she tried an operation like this, the customized quartz rock broke in the missing gap and rock fractures got into the open gap and she couldn't get them out. It caused an infection that was so horrid and painful that the girl committed suicide. As always, the girl who took her own life was another innocent soul gone awry by the uncertainties and unfairness of life and Miyakawa as always was there to capitalize on her already existing suffering and recruit her as a dancer and prostitute for her business ventures.
"You did great, baby." Miyakawa said softly and kissed Kagami on her lips, though the twin-tailed Hiiragi barely noticed as she was still high and her senses were numb. "You're gonna want to stay like this for awhile because you will be in serious agony until your gum can heal around that new tooth. Don't worry though, we'll keep popping narcotics into you like they're Tic-Tacs."
"…Yuka…did Santa Claus go to rehab yet…?" Kagami stuttered in a dazed mess.
Miyakawa giggled slightly. "Yes, dear, yes he did. No more presents for the little bastards of the world for awhile but that's okay; we have drugs."
Ryuji nudged Miyakawa's shoulder and she glanced to see him a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass.
Miyakawa took both items as she knew what to do next. She poured the whiskey in the shot glass and held it to Kagami's lips while instructing, "Here, drink this. The alcohol will kill any bacteria and help prevent an infection."
Miyakawa tilted both Kagami's head and the shot glass back and the brown liquid splashed in her mouth and set the wound on fire, making Kagami cringe again. She uttered, "That…that's the worst…chicken noodle soup…ever."
Still amused by Kagami's drug-induced cluelessness, the two cousins kept laughing at her and with the operation a foreseeable success, they started to enjoy the rest of the night with the entire strip club to themselves. Ryuji sat at the bar and called several people on his cell phone while writing notes in another notebook, probably setting up more deals with innocent people, the same way he first addicted Kagami to drugs. As he kept pounding the pavement and totaling the numbers, his psychotic cousin practiced her dance moves on the center stage pole. All the while, they simply left the dazed and nearly unconscious Kagami in the same chair Miyakawa operated on her in. She could've overdosed again and none of them would notice.
Within an hour, the high Kagami was feeling started wearing off and she could feel pulsating soreness in her mouth. She started to hold her pulsating mouth and she groaned loudly, catching Miyakawa's attention as she hung upside-down from the pole. Ryuji gave a quick look over and saw she was still alive so he resumed his work. Miyakawa however slid down the pole and waltzed over to Kagami as she gripped her mouth and tossed in her chair.
"Yuka…Yuka…it hurts…it hurts so much…" Kagami whimpered as she cried from the pain and Miyakawa sat down next to her and held her in her arms.
"There, there, sweetheart, I know it hurts, but don't worry…everything will be okay." Miyakawa whispered affectionately.
Maybe it was still the drugs in Kagami's system, but she suddenly felt better and comforted and memories of being comforted by her mother popped into her head. Kagami could see herself as a little girl and even though she was tough even at that age, she still loved to be comforted by her mother. The memory of a stormy night when she was six years old flashed in her mind as she rested in Miyakawa's grip. Tsukasa was having trouble getting to sleep and Kagami watched with envious eyes as her twin sister was rocked and sang to by Miki. Kagami inched closer and closer hoping to be noticed but her mother's attention was completely dedicated to the crying Tsukasa, who hated thunderstorms. When Miki was finally able to get Tsukasa to sleep, Tadao tip-toed in, scooped his youngest daughter in her arms, and carried her to bed, leaving only Miki and Kagami alone together. When Miki saw Kagami and what she wanted, Miki giggled and opened her arms for her. Instead of rushing to her, Kagami became embarrassed and blushed heavily. She tried to look tough but her blush and sweat drops on her serious face only made her look cute. When another thunderclap echoed outside, it sent Kagami running to her mother, who held her close and started rocking and signing a lullaby for her until she too fell asleep.
"Kagami…you know I'll always take care of you…" Miyakawa whispered with a sinister smile. "Those people who cast you out are horrid creatures, not your friends and family. I'm the only friend, family, and lover you'll ever need…"
"Yuka…thank you." Kagami whispered. "Please help take the pain away."
When Kagami made the motion in her lips, Miyakawa slowly lowered herself down and connected hers with Kagami's. She instantly deepened the kiss when she could still taste the blood in Kagami's mouth and she felt her body temperature rise as she rolled on top of Kagami.
The three lost souls inside the strip club were too busy indulging themselves that they didn't know a black van was rolling to a stop outside. They had company. As Miyakawa and Kagami made out and Ryuji continued his phone calls with potential new clients, the van opened its side door and the people inside announced their arrival.
"Payback time motherfuckers!" A young man's voice echoed across the deserted neighborhood.
Just as the voice outside caught all their attention inside the club, Hell itself was unleashed. A merciless explosion erupted outside and the front side of Teasers was violently struck by bullets. It was an ambush from the rival gang with automatic rifles as they continued to pelt the building relentlessly with endless fire.
Ryuji threw himself to the floor just as the bullets broke through the walls and covered windows and started destroying the inside of the club. Kagami started screaming instantly and Miyakawa leaped off Kagami and also threw herself to the floor and began crawling as glass and sparks rained down on top of them as the bullets kept coming like a river of hot death. The two cousins had been through ordeals like this before and had plans in place.
Ryuji crawled behind the bar and slid a large silver revolver to Miyakawa and she nodded back at him, putting their plan into action. Her cousin nodded back and reached under the bar again and fished out a shotgun as a means of retaliation and crawled to the nearest shattered window next to the bar and aimed the weapon out. When he pulled the trigger, a deafening blast tore through Kagami's eardrums and it only deepened her panic. She curled tighter into a crying ball behind the chair she was once in and kept screaming and crying, though her wails were buried by the barrage of gunfire.
Miyakawa finally made it into the backroom where she was safe from the gunfire and she put her strategic movement into play. The fact that Teasers was built literally across the street from the pawn shop where Kagami first sold her mother's possessions was no coincidence or accident. It was for strategy in an event such as this. Miyakawa bypassed all the dressers, lockers, and makeup tables for the dancers and went to a door that stated "RESTRICTED" on it. She opened the door and revealed a giant vertical drop straight down into darkness and a ladder that would allow her to climb down. She snatched a flashlight hanging from a nail in the wooden support beam and climbed down.
She was now underground and used the light to illuminate a tunnel that led under the street and would lead her to a trapdoor under the pawn shop where she would reemerge from and ambush the ambushers from across the street. Wasting no time, Miyakawa used the flashlight to guide her down the narrow and filthy tunnel and past squeaking rats and dripping sewage water until she could hear the continuous gunfire above her, telling her she was under the middle of the street. She remained unyielding and eventually made it to another ladder leading her upward and she climbed it and burst through the trapdoor and was in the pawn shop's backroom.
Miyakawa dashed to the front door, unlocked it, and slowly opened it as she cocked the hammer on her revolver. She could see two people in the front seats and the passenger was easily exposed. She raised her weapon high and fired, sending a large and powerful round into the window and it made contact with the passenger's head, making it explode like a confetti popper and sending panic in the van. The driver was coated with his the contents of his passenger's head, prompting him to floor it and the van began to take off.
In the midst of the driver's panic, he accidentally struck the curb, making one of his gunmen lose his balance and he fell out onto the street as the van continued to speed away. The gunman stood and readied for a fight but before he could figure out where Miyakawa was, she fired again, striking him in his right side and knocking him to the ground and he lost his weapon.
Aside from the attacker's cries of agony on the street, silence now returned to the Aku District. A dog barking in the distant darkness of the night added to the ominous quiet and Miyakawa slowly stepped out of the pawn shop and began walking across the street with a satisfied grin on her face. Still gripping the powerful magnum revolver, she began to walk towards the groaning and bleeding attacker as Ryuji also unlocked the front door of the strip club still gripping his shotgun and Kagami was latching onto his arm as they walked out.
As Miyakawa walked to the middle of the street, her boots kicked around spent bullet casings on the cement, making them ring and clang as they rolled until she stood above her soon-to-be latest victim. The attacker was not a government agent with years of training or even a professional assassin. The attacker was a young boy with facial features that rivaled even that of Tsukasa's in his frightened and innocent look. His baby-face melted Kagami's heart instantly when she saw him bleeding and crying on the cement but Miyakawa stood above him and slowly sat on his stomach with a grin on her face.
"Are you looking at my boobs you pathetic little maggot?" She asked in a taunting tone as she lowered them so he had no choice but to look at her. "I bet you want to do all kinds of dirty things to me. I bet you want to penetrate me. How about I penetrate you?"
Miyakawa suddenly curled two of her fingers into the boy's gunshot wound and began digging deeper. He screamed an ear-piercing cry of pain that made Kagami cry out as well as she watched Miyakawa torture him. She kept curling her fingers tighter and tighter and began to rip his skin open like wrapping paper, only deepening his cries for mercy and for her to stop, which only pleased her.
"Yuka, please don't do it! Please stop! Let him go! He's just a boy, look at him! He's scared and hurt! We need to get him to a hospital and—" Kagami cried but her pleas were instantly silenced.
Ryuji took a step away from her, turned, and slapped her. It wasn't a light one. He put all his masculine strength into it and struck Kagami on the side of her face with remorseless vigor. The strike was so hard that it knocked her off her feet and she fell to the cold cement and felt her eyes water. The full realization of what Ryuji did to her was confirmed for her when she looked up with moistening eyes at him as he rubbed his hand with an angry stare.
"You…you just hit me…" Kagami whimpered and turned to Yuka, who was still planted atop the boy and watching the scene between Kagami and Ryuji. "Yuka…did you just see that? He hit me! Ryuji hit me!"
Miyakawa narrowed her eyes at Kagami and to the twin-tail's horror, Miyakawa disregarded it and turned back to her prisoner. She hissed angrily, "I want to have a little chat with you."
With Ryuji's help, Miyakawa dragged the crying boy into the bullet-riddled strip club and down the stairs where the rooms were that were used for the prostitution ring. Instead of dragging him into one of them, Miyakawa took him to the furthest one down the old corridor, the one Kagami had never been in before. Kagami had no choice but to follow every step of the way despite being attacked by Ryuji. She feared the attackers returning so she scurried behind them and felt herself go numb with sickness and fear when Miyakawa opened the door and dragged the boy inside.
It was a room painted black with a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling and a wooden chair was bolted to the floor in the center of the room. The wooden chair was stained in a dark red liquid, as was the floor around it. There were several tables lining the wall that held power tools and metal devices foreign to Kagami. She had no idea she was standing in a room Miyakawa reserved to torture rivals of her drug business either for information or for entertainment.
Miyakawa strapped the bleeding boy in the chair as he continued to cry and Miyakawa whispered to her cousin. Ryuji nodded back, grabbed a stovetop pot from the table of tools and approached Kagami, who still stood frozen in fear in the doorway. He bluntly pushed her aside and he walked upstairs to fill the pot with water while Miyakawa plugged a hotplate into the wall and sat in another chair before the crying boy.
"Now then…who sent you to kill us?" Miyakawa asked with haunting intrigue.
It took several attempts but the petrified boy was finally able to tell her. "Our…our boss sent us. He want…he wants you and your cousin out…if not…there'll be a war."
To his horror, Miyakawa only smiled at the concept of a street war. Ryuji soon returned with the pot full of water and placed it on the hotplate as Miyakawa added more. "How old are you, boy?"
"I'm…I'm sixteen," he confessed.
"Sixteen years old and you're already shooting up strip clubs and pushing drugs on the streets. What would your mother say?" Miyakawa asked, still taunting him.
"My…my mama…she raised me and eight other kids on her own." He added as he deepened his cries. "I never wanted to hurt anybody! I'm only doing this for the money! My mama…she's sick and I wanted to buy medicine for her! Hell…my oldest brother even told me he'd whip me within an inch of my life if I ever got into the drug game! I don't know who to fear the most now!"
As Kagami watched from the doorframe, she couldn't help but feel even more sympathy for the bleeding boy. She could see a bit of herself in this defenseless child. It was obvious he cared deeply about the people in his family, as did she for hers, but circumstances in life pushed them further away from them and now she truly began to see the error of her ways. Seeing a real-live version of herself strapped to a chair crying for a parent or a sibling was the beginning of a wakeup call for her as the water on the hotplate began to boil. As the water boiled, Miyakawa touched on the boy's fear reference by giving a speech she once gave to a friend of Kagami's, though of course none of them knew that.
"Only the depraved will completely rid themselves of fear. The fear of disapproval makes one strive to be a good person and a fear of being helpless gives one the motivation to seek out strength themselves. Fear is a driving force and a creator of order in the civilized world. However, the amount of fear that exists in the world far exceeds the amount of actual danger. Still, the actions of people are still motivated by fear. Fear of being caught, fear of being ostracized, fear of shame, everything you could imagine. Once you truly let go and give into the darkness, only then will you truly rid yourself of fear and know true freedom and power." Miyakawa stated with depraved confidence. "Once I learned how to let go, that's when I felt true freedom…but don't worry little boy…I'll give you freedom today, too."
The boy gulped and formed a small smile in the midst of the tears soaking his frightened face. "You're…you're gonna let me go?"
"Even better. I'm going to give you an eternity to sit in darkness and think about your sins. In the end, what I'm about to do to you is what you get when you fuck with Yuka Miyakawa!" She exclaimed and began laughing at the end.
Miyakawa stood and propped the boy's mouth open with the same device she used on Kagami during her operation and the boy's mouth was held wide and open. Miyakawa turned to the hotplate holding the large pot of boiling water and Kagami and the boy put it together. She slowly returned to the boy and Ryuji held the boy's head back by his hair and his cousin stood above the crying gunman with the pot. The last thing Kagami could hear him scream was for his mother to save him. She slowly began to tilt it until a waterfall of the boiling liquid rushed out and landed in his mouth. He screamed and gargled as the searing liquid scorched dissolved the inside of his mouth and down his throat it went, where it began to burn the flesh from the inside-out.
Kagami cried herself at what she was watching until all the boiling water fell out of the pot and down the boy's throat into his stomach, where it continued to melt away his insides. What made Kagami want to throw up the most was the fact that despite the fact that boiling water was in his body, he was still alive. The flesh covering his lower jaw was gone and Kagami could see all his teeth and red scorched flesh and Miyakawa threw the pot across the room and the two cousins exited the torture room.
Miyakawa closed the door and locked it with her keyset and turned to the sickened and crying Kagami who also had a glowing red handprint on her cheek. "Don't worry, Kagami, he'll be dead by morning. Until then though, he needs to sit there in the darkness and think about what he's done. Now smelling all that boiling water has made me hungry for spaghetti. Let's go back to my place."
Miyakawa and her cousin walked down the corridor and back upstairs to the main building of Teasers, leaving Kagami alone next to the locked door. Still crying and feeling sick, Kagami gulped and wiped her tears away. She pressed her face against the cold metal door and whispered, "I'm sorry…"
With no choice but to follow them, it seemed that reality had finally come home for Kagami as her intuition was telling her.
Oh God…what have I gotten myself into…? I need to get out…