10: "Something to Feel Good About"

Fear and helplessness replaced my rage and confusion. I didn't want to wear Junketsu. I thought it would take control of me completely. Its eyes were cruel and not at all like Senketsu. Pain seared through me every time another piece of the Kamui was stitched onto my skin. Ragyo's voice was incongruently soft and kind, telling me to give my heart to Junketsu. As if watching myself from afar, I heard myself screaming for it to stop. I felt Ragyo's fingers crawling over my body. I didn't want her to touch me, but her fingers were impossibly skillful. She was playing with my body and making me feel things I didn't understand. Nobody had touched me there. Nobody should unless I allowed it. I couldn't stand it anymore. I shouted "STOP!" but then my eyes felt suddenly blinded.

I found myself unaware of the real world, half-consciously focusing on the images that began to play in my mind. Were they memories? A kindly Frenchwoman held a happy infant with scraggly black hair and blue eyes—me. Then I saw myself as a toddler: smiling, clean, and dressed adorably. In reality, I had been called an ugly and angry child; Dad rarely bothered to buy clothes for me, and I always felt the emptiness of being without a mother. But the images I saw showed me walking home from middle school with Ragyo by my side and a balloon in my hand. I saw myself as a teenager in an attractive women's suit, going to church with Ragyo: the church where I would soon be married.

Last, I saw my current self, going on eighteen, wearing a wedding dress and standing at the Alter with someone—the image was unclear. I turned and saw my kind mother Ragyo, urging me on, and saying that my happiness had at last been found in the bliss of being worn by Life Fibers. Joy and euphoria coursed through me, and I had jumped into my mom's arms just as the images faded away. Had they been dreams? No. I felt sure that these were my memories as they were meant to be. If Dad hadn't taken me away, hadn't betrayed Ragyo… could I not have had a happy family?

I snapped back into consciousness to find tears of joy running down my face. The heaviness and rage had all gone from my body. Was this a dream too? I was lying on a soft white sheet, naked but unashamed, with Ragyo on one side of me and Nui on the other. Both their bodies were wonderfully soft, and when they touched me, I felt almost unworthy of such joy. Ragyo said that this was the bliss of being worn by Junketsu, and that not even Nui could experience it.

"The Life Fibers in little Nui's body reject all others," Ragyo explained as she fondled her daughter's body. "Even if she wears a Kamui, she cannot use its powers."

"That's why I decided to become the Grand Couturier," Nui said calmly and happily. "I'll just create the ultimate Kamui one day."

I felt as if threads were wrapped around me, tying me in place, but it didn't seem unnatural at all, as Ragyo's soothing voice praised Life Fibers. She explained that being worn by them is humanity's highest form of Joy. Then Nui's perfect, adorable face came close to mine and told me to try transforming; she couldn't wait to see me looking my best. I realized that I was indeed wearing Junketsu, and I activated Life Fiber Override mode like I had seen Satsuki do so many times.

The dreaminess of the scene faded, but the euphoria of Junketsu remained. I stood on the roof of one of Honnouji's buildings, with Ragyo and Nui staring delightedly at me in my new Kamui. Ragyo's assistant informed us that Satsuki had escaped, and the resentment I had felt for her for so long mingled with the euphoria of my new family and drove me even further from rational thought. Ragyo told me she would allow me to go deal with Satsuki, the one who had stabbed her own mother in the back. I prepared to leave at once.

"Um," said Nui, skipping close to me and smiling nervously. "Ryuuko-chan, do you still… want to avenge your father?"

I grabbed her chin with my white-gloved hand and pulled her into a kiss. What was the point of denying her perfection anymore? I stood there kissing with her for several seconds, and then pushed her away, in the spirit of being "wild and cool" like she admired. She blushed as she stumbled lightly backward.

"There," I grinned, "Something to feel good about!"

Knowing I would see them again shortly, I left Ragyo and my beautiful "sister" Nui behind. Using Junketsu's flying mode "Whirlwind", I flew off in pursuit of my real enemy, Satsuki.

***Break***

I remember very little of my fight with Satsuki. The psychological and sexual manipulation of Ragyo and Nui had forced me into a dissociated state where I was not fully aware of my actions or reality. On top of that, Junketsu felt like a drug that crazily amplified emotions. A little resentment toward Satsuki turned into a mad desire to kill her and destroy Nudist Beach's entire flagship. At the same time, Junketsu kept flooding me with wild euphoria, so I must have seemed seriously out of my mind.

I vaguely remember Satsuki wearing Senketsu but not being able to synchronize with him. I can also recall beating Satsuki savagely. This was only a ruse so that the Elite Four could close in on me, but just then Nui arrived. While she hugged me and held my face to hers, she simultaneously fended off the attackers. I launched back into action, and I think I would have killed Satsuki right then if Mako hadn't suddenly come out of nowhere again. I can't remember what she said, but she told me later she was trying to say she didn't care if I had Life Fibers in my body or not; she still loved me, and I was still myself. However, at the time I neither understood nor wanted to.

Mako would have been sliced in half by Nui, if Senketsu, now separate from Satsuki, had not pulled her aside. Then Mako ended up wearing Senketsu. Nui ordered me to kill them both. However, Satsuki suddenly cut a hole in Junketsu and told Senketsu to get inside the wound and untangle the threads keeping me attached to Junketsu. I felt him trying to enter through the wound. Mako was right there too, so to me it felt like she was being pulled into my mind along with Senketsu. This caused me to go, once again, into a state of half-consciousness, where Junketsu showed me strange images like memories or dreams.

I saw myself in the church again, eighteen and getting married. The man beside me had a slightly clearer form than before, but instead of having a face, his head seemed to be made of Life Fibers. That's right, I thought: this wasn't a man. I could never be attracted to a real human male. Rather, the figure beside me symbolized my beautiful unity with Life Fibers. However, my dream wedding was crashed by Mako, as she burst through the double doors wearing Senketsu. One of the broken door handles flew by me and knocked over the Life-Fiber-Man as if he were only a paper dummy. Mako looked more passionate than ever, with her light-brown eyes now looking almost golden and dancing with an urgent, severe fire.

"Ryuuko-chan, I came to get you!" she cried.

I remembered that in the outside world, the real world, Senketsu and Mako had been trying to remove Junketsu from me. My scissor blade appeared in my hand and I faced Mako in a fighting stance. My eyes burned with rage.

"I will KILL anyone who tries to destroy my happiness!"

Mako stuck her face just inches from mine and exclaimed, "How can you call this happiness? You and me were happy, weren't we? This stuff—this isn't like you at all!"

I told her to shut up, and became suddenly aware that my body and the church was almost completely white; only Mako was in color. Infuriated, I threw her off, only to have her jump onto me, clinging like she used to. Again I threw Mako down and again she and Senketsu clung to me, with Senketsu telling me to snap out of it. I lifted my blade, ready to bring it down in a deadly slicing hack.

"Fine, kill me!" shouted Mako, taking just a step backward. "If you're going to stay trapped in here forever, then kill me, and prove that you're not Ryuuko anymore!"

I brought my blade down, hard. It opened a ghastly line all down Mako's torso, and blood spurted out like water from a fountain. Mako could not even shout because of the shock. She stood staggering, wheezing, with her eyes wide in horror. Senketsu fixed me with a terrible gaze: "Look what you have done." And the horror began to overtake me, too. Surely I had not done it. I could not kill Mako. I loved Mako. The blood seemed to be turning into a stream, and my eyes were clouded by the red. Slowly, the dream world of Junketsu was fading away. Before it all disappeared I screamed,

"Mako! Don't leave me! It was you! It was you! You were my happiness…"

When I opened my eyes in reality, it was like waking to a storm. A river of black, sparkling Life Fiber Energy poured out of me. I saw Mako—the real Mako, still alive—being swept away by the wave. In a moment it cleared, and I tried to catch my breath after everything that had happened. I hadn't killed Mako in reality, but I had come too close. Wind began to stir in miniature cyclones around me, and pieces of the ship's deck were torn off and sent flying. I looked over at Nui and threw my scissor blade into HER, the one who actually needed to die. Gushing blood, Nui turned her head to face me with the question written on her face: What had happened?

"You don't get to do everything just as you damn well please!" I roared at the little Demon. "How DARE you force me to wear something I don't want?!" I began to tear at claw at Junketsu like an animal, even while I bled. "Screw it! I've had enough!"

"Matoi, stop!" Satsuki shouted. "If you try to take it off by force, you'll die!"

"Dying is fine by me if I can't get this off!" I screamed in reply, as blood poured from me like a sea. "I MUST get this thing off, even if it means risking my life!" I lowered my voice. "Because otherwise, I'll never be able to wear Senketsu again. …and I'll never be able to protect Mako!"

At last, I had come back to my senses. The nightmare had ended. All that remained was to survive and to kill Nui. I thought I began to understand Satsuki's history with the little Demon. Whatever strange love had been between Nui and me, it had all been mere illusion—no, deception. Nui's smooth young body and soft lips, Ragyo's love, and the "joy" of being overpowered by Junketsu—it had all been deception.