8: "Hey… Where's Mako?"
The following day, Mikisugi called everyone to the surveillance room and showed us what was about to happen at Honnouji Academy. Ragyo, Satsuki's mother and the CEO of the REVOCS Corporation, would attend Honnouji's Grand Culture and Sports Festival; even more alarming, she had shipped massive quantities of Life Fiber imbued clothing to the Academy. Ragyo intended to gather a mass of people wearing REVOCS clothing and offer them as sacrifices to help reawaken the Life Fibers across the world. According to Mikisugi, Ragyo had been planning this "experiment" for many years.
When I heard that Mako's parents and brothers would undoubtedly be attending the mandatory "Festival", I flipped out. I didn't care in the least about saving the world, but there was no way I could sit back and let the Mankanshoku family be consumed by their clothes. My decision had been made: I would fight.
Soon, a strong team of Nudist Beach members had rallied to go with me, led by Mikisugi and that Mohawk man. Before leaving, I demanded that Nudist Beach take proper care of Mako. Mikisugi assured me that the remaining members underground would keep her safe. However, Mako came up to us out of nowhere again.
"Ryuuko, don't ditch me here!" she demanded fiercely.
"But Honnouji's not safe—" I began.
"It's my home!" Mako argued. "I've got souvenirs for mom and dad!"
As I sat on the red motorcycle, Mako dived onto the seat behind me and once again grabbed me tightly across the chest. I muttered in annoyance, but then Mako said what she really meant.
"If Ryuuko is going, Mako is going too!" She clung almost desperately.
At last I gave in, and before long we all set off.
As soon as we arrived at Honnouji, we knew from the screaming that the sacrifices had started. Mako agreed to stay out of the stadium for the time being, but I was sure she would sneak back in eventually. I climbed aboard Mikisugi's DTR robot and we scaled the stadium walls. We leaped downward toward the main stage where Satsuki and Ragyo stood. All around us, the stadium was filled with some eighty thousand people: all the residents of Honnou-town and all the academy students. They looked like they had been wrapped in bundles of black and red cloth, and they were silent as death.
The moment the DTR landed, I rushed over with my scissor and challenged Ragyo, but it turned out I didn't need to. Satsuki suddenly stabbed her mother in the back and hurled her body onto a pillar like a crucifix, impaling and trapping her there. I wish I would have known how amazing that must have felt for Satsuki, after all the evil and abuse she had endured for thirteen years, and after all her time planning against her disgusting mother. As it was, I could not comprehend her feelings, and I simply stared in disbelief.
Not only had Satsuki betrayed her mother, but she did it for the sake of rebelling against Life Fibers, not to try to replace her mother. Satsuki explained that Honnouji was her fortress to combat Ragyo, and that's why she had enforced military rules. Furthermore, Satsuki had been only five when she heard Ragyo's evil plans from her father, who hated Ragyo after the heartless woman killed their baby during a Life Fiber experiment. Satsuki's father, like mine, had been killed after betraying Ragyo. So Satsuki had a noble goal, though ultimately driven by the desire to avenge her father and unnamed baby sister.
By the time I snapped out of my shock, the self-regenerating Ragyo had somehow escaped Satsuki's crucifix. She used "Mental Refitting" to control students by disrupting their nervous systems with threads of pure Life Fiber. Before I knew it, she must have had me under her control too. Most of my consciousness was gone and anything I sensed was like a dream; my body moved by itself and began attacking Satsuki.
"No," I tried to think. "No, Satsuki has the same purpose as us. Now I understand why she wanted me to come to the Festival. I was supposed to help her! Why am I fighting her?"
My consciousness was crumbling, but then I sensed another presence: Senketsu. I remembered then that nobody should be allowed to force my Kamui to do anything he didn't wish to do. That resolve broke through the fog in my brain, and I pulled Ragyo's damn Life Fiber right out of my head, not even feeling the wound where it must have made a hairline penetration through my skull. Ragyo stared at me in bewilderment for a second, because normal humans should not have the Life Fiber resistance to ever escape her mental threads. I prepared to transform and take Ragyo down.
Nui appeared. When she started cheerfully talking about killing my father, I decided to leave Ragyo up to Satsuki and take out the little Princess Demon. My synchronization with Senketsu was better than ever before, and felt amazing. Nui could not hide the astonishment of seeing a "normal human" so powerful. I swung my scissor at her, she parried, and we began the swordplay as we each leapt around impossibly fast.
I became so wrapped up in the fight I didn't see, at first, that Satsuki had failed to kill her mother. I also didn't see the attack coming from the sky. (When Satsuki first stabbed Ragyo, she also released the audience from the parasitic clothes, ensuring their sacrifice would not awaken the Original Life Fiber. However, unknown to me, Satsuki's comrade Iori had been ordered to attack the great Life Fiber bundle at the Kiryuuin estate. This "woke" the Life Fiber enough to send hundreds of suit-like cloth monsters to Honnouji.) Senketsu was the one who told me to look to the sky. We both stared at the cloth monsters in fear and amazement.
Ragyo said the monsters were COVERS, "beings born from the Original Life Fiber," but I didn't care what she was saying. My eyes leaped from Ragyo—now wearing Junketsu—to Satsuki, who was being held up by her hair with a bruised face and wearing nothing but underwear. For some reason, something inside of me exploded with outrage. How could ANYONE do such a thing to Satsuki, always so dignified, always sure she could conquer the world? Ragyo threw her daughter across the stadium and I wasn't sure if the impact of the fall had actually killed her or not. At any rate, she was out of the fight. Just what kind of Monster could Ragyo really be?!
I lost too much time staring at the place Satsuki's body had hit; before I knew it, life as I had so far experienced it was over. Ragyo suddenly turned on me, and with the power of Junketsu she shot her hand straight through my chest. She ripped out my heart. But something was wrong. I wasn't dying. I barely felt anything. I heard Ragyo's voice like a distant hum,
"…Your body has been fused with Life Fibers just like mine. Ah, and here I thought you were dead, daughter of mine."
The truth of those words fought with my mind for recognition, but I would not allow it. It could not be true. Blindly, I swung my blade, and it took Ragyo's hand clean off, but she only laughed as I screamed at her. She laughed because my heart was being pulled back into me and repaired, and there could be no denying it. I ran toward Ragyo for another swipe, but behind me a voice suddenly spoke.
"How extremely amusing and interesting!" exclaimed Nui, arms folded innocently behind her back as if she wasn't hiding a deadly scissor blade. "Oh, I knew there was something special about you! Ryuuko-chan, you're the greatest!"
Satsuki's final trap proved highly effective. The grand platform where I had been cornered by Nui and Ragyo exploded. Right afterward, the walls up and down the (now evacuated) stadium seats also burst into force and flame. I felt my skin burning, and my sense of gravity and space disappeared. Large pieces of rubble were falling all around me, and dust and rocks pummeled me.
Half consciously, while falling, I whispered, "Hey… Where's Mako?"
Senketsu responded to my voice like always, but earing him was terrible. "I saw her from the platform while you were frozen in shock. I'm sorry. One of the COVERS consumed her. Ryuuko, I will not let them take you."
I crashed onto a pile of rubble, felt horrible pain as several bones broke, and instant relief as they regenerated. A tear fell from my already healing face.
"Goodbye, Senketsu," I whispered. "If Mako's not here, there's no point in trying anymore. If Ragyo's right, then I can't die. Well then, Senketsu. I'm going to sleep. I don't intend to wake up. Goodnight."