Chapter 20
Something inside of me slips. I can feel it like an organ being exposed, the sharpest blade slipping beneath my skin and gently prying up the layer of flesh. Bare. Vulnerable.
Pain lances suddenly through my shoulder, drawing me back with a sharpness that makes my breath wheeze and then floods out of me. I'm screaming. Screaming louder than I've ever screamed, the air whipping out of me tearing at the tissue of my throat.
I'm screaming but not from the physical pain of one of Ichihiro's knives finally sinking into my shoulder, blood spluttering and wetting my shirt. I scream because I can feel my mother's blood on my hands. I scream because that thing that - that ate my mother's life - I scream again, one wail building on top of the other until it feels like my whole entire world is shaking with it.
"It doesn't hurt that bad." Ichihiro's voice is distant, as small as a gnat.
The moss and dirt and leaves slides stiffly under the hem of my hoodie, crumpling the skin of my back as my body goes loose and I slide to the bottom of the net. I can feel the beginning of a headache lancing through my skull, burning my eyes with hot pricks. There's a tug in my chest and I suddenly feel bile burning the back of my throat.
It doesn't make sense-
Yes, it does. Don't lie to yourself. That time is done, isn't it?
God, just need some - some distance-
Stop running away.
I throw up, retching into the side of the net and half-heartedly avoiding the splatter as Ichihiro gives a crow of delight and disgust.
She exchanged - exchanged her aura - No. My head throbs and a low sob freezes my face. I feel my whole body going cold. That familiar tug intensifying in my chest. Oh god. I know what she did. I know what she did because it's attached to me now. My aura - nen - she had called it nen. My head gave another dizzying throb and the pain in my shoulder intensified to a degree that made my teeth chatter uncontrollably.
My stomach rolled uncontrollably once more and I barely had time to turn my head before I vomited up foam and saliva. Somehow that made it worse. Somehow once I reached the empty zone, my body tried to reject my very organs, gagging and coughing until I felt my eyes go unfocused and splotchy.
"God, what a fucking weakling," I heard Ichihiro whisper happily. "Are you scared, little mouse? My little mousie, mousie~"
She had tied my nen and hers to that creatures. By giving that vessel a blood sacrifice she had - she had activated some horrible, disgusting chain of events. That tugging wasn't a link. It wasn't a bond. A hysterical laugh burst from my lips, my eyes widening unseeingly at the vomit dampened moss beneath my fingers. Cold shivers racked my body, raising every hair on my body. It was a parasite. It had sucked her life up like a fine meal and it was slowly devouring my nen, chomping through my very life force like a leech attached to an unsuspecting victim.
Because I don't have enough nen to sustain it, she had said right before she had forced me to -
My muscles seized, gagging and bleating out manic bouts of laughter. I wanted to die. I blinked, choking down another giggle. God, I wanted to die. My mouth worked silently, praying or begging, I didn't know. I wanted to go back to not remembering. I wanted to not have to see her there, her blood and gore making the blade handle slick-
"PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" Another blade whizzed past my ear, reminding me of the burning in my shoulder, the tendons and muscles that the blade embedded there was still slowly snipping through with every one of my moves. Above me, Ichihiro's face twisted into an ugly tantrum, his eyes wide and feverish. "PAY-"
The roar was deafening. My insides went cold, my brain going numb. Ichihiro's eyes darted to the side and I saw the terror there for a moment before frenzied curiosity brightened them. Like he didn't fully understand how emotions worked and was clicking through them like pictures in an album.
Another roar and the net trap shivered with it.
Ichihiro's gaze leapt wildly from me and then to the left, his tongue slipping out to wet his shriveled lips, a drop of saliva dropping toward me. "I think your little friends about to be here and I don't fully want to face him. Yet."
My stomach rolled again. Stay. The irrational request made me flinch. I wanted him to drag me along with him. I would rather he cut me up, dicing through my skin like a steak dinner then meet - Minoru - I gagged again, my heart ripping open again. God. I had given it a name.
Teeth flashed overhead. "Bye, mousie."
I could feel the scramble of his body as he shimmied away and to another tree. And then… nothing…
My nose stung with the overwhelming scent of human waste. I was sitting in my own filth. And I didn't even care enough to try and scramble away. My head tipped back, blinking up at the dimming light in the sky, quivering like a beating organ as my body shook. Blood dribbled hotly from where the knife edges had sliced cleanly through the skin at my clavicle, sinking until it sliced through my trap almost completely.
I would… what would I do? What kind of creature had I shared my bed with - my life? My home? My brothers? I thought of that cold night, hungry and scared behind that wretched garbage can. Because of him - it. That thing. I would slaughter it. Hatred ignited in me, warming the chill in my body.
I felt it calling out to me. Mori! Mori, I'm here! I'm going to get you down.
My eyes stayed rapt, watching as the blue of the sky was eclipsed for the moment and my trap shook. I wanted to laugh. One trap saving me from another. How ironic. I must be a good meal source for it to cater to me as it did. It took my mother without even a spluttering. But me… it had chewed on me for so long now, barely burning through enough of my nen for me to notice.
The netting around me loosened, sinking down around me as the moss beneath my knees grew solid. I didn't move. Tired. Wary. Hateful.
The last of the netting finally dropped, revealing sun-dappled forests. And Minoru, his beady onyx eyes glinting in the low-light. His usual azure coat, matted, leaving the glittering swirls of red looking muddy. He was so big - almost 3 times my size. Slowly, I rose, feeling my whole body burning with pain and anger alike. That wouldn't stop me from butchering him like the insect he had revealed himself to be.
My eyes ran over him, numb. "Did you know? This whole time?"
Minoru's ears flattened, his eyes darting from me to the net and then back to me. He looked...scared. What a good actor he was. Mori… is something wrong? Did something happen-"
"HOW LONG DID YOU KNOW?!" Birds took flight, fleeing as my voice reached a near splittering octave. If possible, Minoru's ears flattened even further, his eyes widening. Spittle flew from my lips, my teeth baring with something savage and full of pain. "I know what you are. I know why you're here. But tell me if all these years-" I stopped, flinching, surprised at how much the betrayal hurt. My voice wavered and I hated myself a little more. Minoru backed up a step, looking somehow smaller, frailer. "You let me believe she died in her sleep." My voice cracked completely, hot, humiliating tears slipping down my cheeks.
Stumbling, Minoru eyed me pleadingly. I thought - you were so young. And - and you thought she had just - just passed away. Peacefully not - He stopped, looking unsure and frightened. Not-
"Not gutted like a pig by her own daughter?" I hissed, hurting myself and him all at once. "Not some awful catalyst for whatever the fuck you are."
His whole body flinches with the words and I watch as the swirls speckling his fur splutter. I was trying to protect you, Mori. You have to believe me. You shouldn't have to live-
"BUT I DO!" The scream startles even me, my voice raw and wild as it echoes all around me. "Every single second of every day - What the fuck even are you?" He starts to answer - I can feel it in the tingle in my head but suddenly that's too much. He's been in my mind for - for years. God, it makes my skin crawl. My hand reaches up reflexively, tearing the dagger from my shoulder before I can think twice about it. My whole body sings with the inevitable pain, locking up for a moment as blood gushes from the exposed tendons. "I don't care. All I need to know is how you got here and what you've been doing to me for the past year. Without my knowledge."
Those swirls stuttering, flickering from dark to light and then back again as Minoru takes another cautious step back. You can't-
"Can't kill you?" I question snidely, taking a measured step forward. My shoulder is on fire, dividing my concentration until I think I might either have to pass out or dry heave again. "I've seen you get hurt too many times for that to be true."
By other people, Minoru cuts in and I pause. His eyes glitter back at me and I want to scream in agony and hurt. I want him to stop - stop meaning so much to me. You can't hurt me, Mori. We're one and the same. When you die, I go with you.
"I've seen you get hurt." Cold sweat is seeping through my collar, dampening my hood. I'm starting to see splotches.
By other people, he repeats and I have to stumble into a tree, my knees suddenly weak. Most nen beasts are invisible but… but we're a product of our creator and you...both wanted me to be… present. Tangible. So I can speak to you. I can be seen and hurt by the outside world both physically and through nen-based attacks. But in return, I'm weaker than other beasts like me. Not as powerful with only one ability.
"In return?" I repeat dumbly, my head spinning. I'm barely grasping on to consciousness. The overexertion of remembering and getting stabbed added onto my previous injuries is making me weak. The bark scrapes through my sleeve and I realize too late that I'm falling, the impact sending my teeth clacking together.
Nen always comes at a price, Minoru whispers, not coming forward to help me but looking like that one restraint is making his life agony.
Blackness seeps into the edges of my vision and I grit back a laugh, realizing that I'm about to pass out and the only thing to help me is… is the thing that my mom sold her life for. The thing that I killed her for. That laugh bursts out now, sounding more guttural than gleeful.
"God, there's more of you." The image of what those poor bastards had to give to get their hands on something like this makes me scoff as my vision fails. Or maybe I just close my eyes without realizing. It's hard to tell anymore. Sadness tears at me, creating a confusing, polluted mess of anger and regret inside of me. "I trusted you."
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