World's End Shrine Maiden and the Wish for (Self) Destruction
Goodbye.
On one end of a blasted concrete wasteland, an eternal shrine maiden stands, perched upon the crumbling roof of an abandoned shrine. In her hands, propped against her shoulder, was a staff that bore the sign of the crescent moon. A tall and stalwart protector—proud that it existed at all.
On the other, a disgraced Lunarian Princess, hobbling out from a thick veil of fog. So severe were her burns that she appeared from the fog as a shade. She was a ghostly apparition, only defined as a person by the flecks of gold that peered from the darkness—a golden open eye, and a knife in her hands.
And when their eyes met, they saw the same sort of monster. Reflected from one end to the other, like a shimmering image in a lake.
"Toyohime." Yukari stood up. She looked down her nose at the former Princess. Her blood ran cold.
"Yukari." Toyohime called back. Her voice was raspy and weak—gritty and hollow. Like it took all of her strength to push a single name from her torn throat.
"Stop this. Now," Yukari said. She took one step forward—and then let herself fall to the ground. When she hit the concrete below, her form left a cracked impression at the point of impact. She stood up and looked Toyohime in the eye. "... Don't make me ask twice."
"We both know we can't. Even if you and I wanted to, we could never." Looking at Toyohime's expression in search of any tell of her true intent was as impossible as it was unsettling. Charred beyond recognition and veiled in shadow, the only thing that could be seen was the subtle, perhaps imagined glow of her remaining eye. She extended her hand, feverishly wrapped around a golden dagger covered in curses so packed and chaotic that they seemed to swim in Yukari's vision, and continued. "... Too many people have died. Too many things were lost. Would it be right? To leave things like this?"
As Toyohime continued to step into the light, Yukari gasped. She took one step backwards before drawing Mima's staff in a readied position. Before her was not so much a person as a shade. Toyohime, her body obliterated below her waist, was not held up by her own legs, as Yukari initially thought. Instead, writhing columns of shuddering flesh, like so many worms in the mud, shuffled forward in a synchronous march.
"Gensokyo, Mima, even that little cat that used to follow you around…" Toyohime frowned. "... I'm sorry, Yukari. I know you loved that cat."
Yukari lunged forward with her off-hand, from which a ribbon flew. It snapped around Toyohime's arm, binding the two together. With a vicious tug that barely masked the true extent of Yukari's righteous fury, Toyohime fell forward and collapsed on her hands and knees.
"... Is this all a joke to you?" A bitter laugh escaped Yukari's lips. "Get up."
"Just the opposite." Toyohime shambled back onto her feet. The hand in which she held her knife was firmly latched onto by a ribbon that seemed to glow with an unbidden energy. She might have recognized this specific artifact, as it had appeared in her own visions in the past. Indeed—one year ago, wrapped around the wrists of her beloved Koishi Komeiji—a shackle meant to seal supernatural ability.
"I've done all sorts of horrible things to you. To everyone. Isn't it natural to feel remorse?" There was something different about Toyohime buried under all those layers of measured calm. Maybe it was the sudden change in tone, the sudden and uncharacteristic clarity, the relative docility in her body language. Whatever it was, it inspired more fear in Yukari than the prospect of fighting did.
"What is this..? What is this act?" The ribbon between the two contracted at Yukari's will, bringing the two of them just a little closer to each other. At no point did Yukari dare to put her weapon down or take her eyes off of Toyohime. "Did killing you inspire a change of heart?"
"Would it matter if it did?" A sad smile danced on her charred lips.
"... No. It wouldn't." Yukari's eyes narrowed.
"I thought so. Forgiveness is not for people like you. That's what it means to be a hero." Toyohime held her knife close to her chest. The blade, pointed back at herself, hovered over where her heart was. Her eyes wandered Yukari's form until they stopped, firmly focused on her hands. "For what it's worth, Yukari… I forgive you."
"You've taken everything from me. You have the gall to forgive me?" Yukari's feet shifted in place, filled with an explosive nervous energy. Her eyes were glued to Toyohime's weapon and her mind raced in a desperate attempt to figure out Toyohime's strategy. When she spoke next, she couldn't help but let some of that strained vitriol seep through. "You should be on your hands and knees, begging for your worthless life. What could you possibly be forgiving me for?"
There was a flash of something terrifying in Toyohime's eyes. Terrifying, and pathetic. It was the realization of someone who had finally seen the end—and realized just how many irreconcilable regrets they had. Piled up in heaps, overflowing the ditches and craters they, themselves, dug. But it was just a flash. In a moment, it was buried under a smile. A cold, serene smile.
"Let's find out together."
Absolute silence.
The rain had long since stopped. The rubble had settled. In the empty city, even the world itself seemed to hold its breath as its last two residents stared each other down, weapons in their hands and the same wish inside their hearts. Yukari could hear the blood rush through her veins, the mechanical pumping of her heart—and through the ribbon that locked the two together, binding them to the same fate—feel the same pulse run through Toyohime's wrist.
Yukari yanked her left hand back and, with a massive step and an overhead swing, brought Mima's staff to strike. Taken off her guard, but not nearly enough for the fight to end right then and there, Toyohime weaved out of the way of the crushing blow by no more than an inch, letting the staff strike the ground with an impact that shattered the concrete tiles.
Yukari heaved the staff upwards and lunged forward in a thrusting motion, striking Toyohime square in the chest with a blow that she could hardly avoid or block. With a weapon as limited as a dagger, pitted against something as overwhelming as a polearm, she could hardly do anything but take the hit. As the blow drove the air out of her, Toyohime couldn't help but let out a little yelp of pain. She stumbled backwards on the constantly shifting mass of golden limbs that replaced her legs—almost tripping over herself in the process.
Pathetic and weak. That's all Gods were when you peeled away the surface. They were—they are—everything wrong with humanity, bestowed power they do not deserve and allowed to act on their worst impulses. But not Yukari. She didn't become weaker when you reduced her to a mere human—she became stronger. And her infamous will, feared and respected the whole world over when she was nothing but a lowly shrine maiden, would surely see her through. An ending, thousands, millions, billions of years in the making—she alone would have the will to know the conclusion.
Yukari flipped her grip, and swung her staff upwards in a vicious attack. With the pointed end of the Crescent Moon flipped upwards, she looked to end it right then and there, by impaling Toyohime in the throat and through the mouth. But at the very last moment, with a decisive end so near to the Lunarian Princess, she ducked her head. Down and to the side, scraping by the makeshift blade, an open gash was drawn across her cheek—one that ran from the base of her chin to the outer corner of her working eye.
Caught in the upswing, Yukari's eyes met Toyohime.
Toyohime was crouched down low, now. One golden eye peered up from the void—sad, angry, and defeated all at once. She flipped the knife in her hands and thrusted forward.
Yukari didn't know why or how, but when she saw that knife, seconds, moments away from plunging into her chest, she thought she saw the end. Some primordial part of her brain, buried under generations of evolutionary drift, called out to her, and whispered in her ear a secret that all Humans, all Lunarians, all things living in this world knew: that weapon was the absolute end and the absolute beginning. And someone would die here. She would die here, trapped in this moment.
She thought she could see a flicker of reflected light in the corner of Toyohime's one good eye—that golden light that peered upwards from an overwhelming void. "… Goodbye."
But before it could be, a heavy weight slammed into her side, sending Yukari spinning and flying into the air. She collided hard with the ground and tumbled until she came to a painful stop, belly down and her arms splayed out. A few meters away, she could see Mima's staff clatter to the ground and slide to a slow stop, perhaps a stone's throw away.
A pair of boots entered Yukari's vision. Attached to them were little purple hearts with vanishing wisps of purple thread projecting outward and upward. Yukari looked up to see…
Nothing. A vanishing silhouette of a girl, gone in the space between moments. But there, in that transient moment, Yukari could feel her thoughts and her regrets. Koishi, who had made a decision she would regret for the rest of her life, had this to say:
Goodbye, mom.
As if Yukari had seen nothing at all, she groaned and picked herself up, one shaky limb at a time. She clutched her head and stumbled around on her legs, still reeling from the blow that had so singularly shaken her to her core. And when she looked up, she saw Toyohime standing there, too.
There, a vacant look in her lightless eyes and an empty smile, Toyohime stood. With hands that looked like they might be blown away and scattered to the winds, she clutched at her stomach, where a golden knife had embedded itself. Her blood, dark and inky, flowed along the curses etched into the orichalcum surface, staining the blade with a complex network of black lines. In the end, it seemed only tiny dots of gold remained, like stars in the night sky dying in silence.
"Dumb luck, a miracle, or the indomitable human spirit. The application of your will, or the curious ordering of the universe. The reality of free will, or the absence thereof," Toyohime said. She looked up from her stab wound to meet Yukari's eyes. "It's all so stupid. I'm… tired."
"… That knife," Yukari muttered. "What did you do?"
Toyohime's legs gave out at that moment, and she collapsed onto the ground with her back to the ground and her eyes to the stars. She couldn't help but let out a bitter, bitter laugh.
"… Can I tell you a story?" There was a twinkle in her eye as her blood dried up and ceased to sustain her. Even as her body died, her mind struggled to operate.
"Is this some sort of second trick? Do you honestly expect me to hear about stupid stories after the things that you've done? You must be buying time."
Toyohime's hand, shuddering uncontrollably, managed a dismissive wave before falling limply back down to the ground. "Buying time for what? For reinforcements? I made the whole world my enemy. Nobody is coming to save me, Yukari. And as for Koishi… she made her choice. I can't help but be proud of her, really…"
Yukari faltered. It was hard to imagine Toyohime, reduced to a wheezing, gasping heap, to be planning much of anything. Her hand tightened around the ribbon that bound the two together.
"… Humor me, Yukari." Toyohime's lips curled into a gentle arc. "Humor this pathetic monster, at the end of her life?"
"And why should I?"
"… I suppose you're right." Toyohime blinked slowly. "You can kill me instead. I wouldn't mind…"
A chill wind blew through the shrine courtyard. An unnatural silence settled in the world. A heart, long since frozen over, halted.
"… Speak."
Toyohime sighed.
"It's… about a girl."
…
When she was born, her parents had already long since abandoned her. From the very beginning, she was alone in the world.
"Booooored. I'm bored," the girl said. She kicked her feet and threw a fit, but once her energy was spent, nothing had changed. She let out a deep sigh. "… I'm so fucking bored."
She spent her days on a little rock in the middle of nowhere. Today we call it the Moon, or Lunaria, our beloved motherland.
She spent her days wandering from end to end. Occasionally, she would stop and draw little shapes in the dust.
The girl giggled to herself as she drew. Headless figures, running around with knives in their hands, killing and hurting each other for no real reason. The point wasn't the story, but the violence. "Die, die, die! Everyone should just die!"
Curses upon curses. For a girl born into the world alone, all she knew were curses. But even a miserable girl like that had a simple wish.
She sat upon the lip of a crater and watched the sky. In her chest, the pumping action of her heart slowed to a crawl. There, she watched the stars in the sky and the movement of planets within the firmament… and dreamed. That one day, one of those stars would fall from the heavens and take her far, far away from this place.
It didn't matter where they went. It didn't even matter what that star would do to her. Anything—anything—would be better than this. Here, all she could do was wait for the day she would die: a faraway point in time that would never come.
She hugged her legs just a little bit closer to chest.
Someone. Anyone. Please save me.
10000 YEARS LATER
"Bored. Dude, I'm so freaking bored."
But no one ever came. She returned to her normal everyday life.
She was lying on her side, her hand idly tracing runes and symbols into the dust.
She had gotten quite good with curses. Thousands upon thousands of years filled with nothing but idle practice will do that to anybody. With a few flicks of her wrist, she could cast a lifetime of horrid luck upon somebody. With more effort than that, she could ruin generations of lives… That is, if there were any lives to ruin in the first place. She was all alone in a wasteland, talking to herself and teetering on the brink of total mental decay.
She leapt up onto her feet, an idea suddenly in mind. "God damn it! I'm so bored! I wanna die! I want to kill myself! I was born in the wrong era...!"
She would do anything to put an end to that miserable existence.
She picked up a pebble and chucked it across the world—before letting it come back around and splatter her brains across the ground with a smile. She ran into dust clouds, filled with razor sharp metals, hooting and laughing as she was sliced to pieces from the inside out. She lounged underneath the looming forms of stray asteroids, waiting to be reduced to paste.
1000 YEARS LATER
"Ugh… Why me…" The girl was walking along the base of a massive crater that stretched so high up that it hurt to look up at it. She was kicking a pebble across the ground and muttering to herself. "I must be the unluckiest person in the whole world."
It never worked. Of course it didn't. The blood of ancient Gods ran through her veins. She was a fixture of reality and could not die no matter how much she wished otherwise.
"Huh? What's that?"
That is, until one day, her wish came true.
A golden trail tracing a path across the sky. A shooting star, hurtling toward the wasteland she lived on. A miracle. A miracle. When it crashed, a golden arc traced itself across the horizon. She ran, her head filled with all sorts of bizarre thoughts.
"Maybe it's a really cute guy? Or a cute girl? A prince on a white horse? A sex toy? A fishing rod? A box of severed arms and legs? A 12-gauge shotgun and a box of buckshot? A coil of rope and a chair? Painkillers and a bottle of whiskey? A bundle of manga and an Evangelion Boxset? Argh! Can't wait, can't wait!"
What she found in that crater, still smoldering at the edges, was a golden crystal that we now know as Orichalcum. You may know it as the material used to construct the Vijoka…
It grew in jagged branches and remained as a cohesive whole even after such a harsh crash. When the girl placed her hand on the surface, it was warm to the touch.
But what it's truly known for in the Lunar Capital…
The girl yelped and pulled her hand back. When she looked down, a tiny shard had embedded itself into her index finger. A black ichor flowed outward from the puncture site, and that girl, who had been struggling to end herself for the longest time, felt something strange in her chest.
Fear? Unease? Or perhaps… excitement?
… Is killing Concepts. Monsters. And Gods.
"… You finally came." She was somewhere else. As blood ran down her arm in a steady stream, she couldn't help but cry—a sad, pathetic, quiet kind of cry. "My miracle."
10 YEARS LATER
"Oooh. This rock's extra cool. I think I'll take it with me. I'll take you everywhere," the girl said as she shoved a stone into her pocket. She took extra care to avoid using her index finger, which was inexplicably still sore from the incident 10 years back. "I'll love you and take care of you and name you Koishi. You're my new best friend."
That's her thirty fifth best friend this month.
After discovering Orichalcum, that girl entered a feverish state of manic productivity, in which she created a weapon. Not designed for fighting, but for killing.
"You get to sit right next to Mr. Knife," she said, patting a small golden ring that held a belt in place on her dress. She smiled. "Get along with Mr. Knife, okay?"
Reacting to her touch, the clockwork mechanism inside of the ring clicked into place, causing it to contort and flip into a single sharp stake. It cut itself free and fell to the ground with a muffled clatter.
Curses were etched into the blade—vile poison that embodied an absolute wish of destruction. All-encompassing. All-being and perpetual. Everything and everyone who has abandoned her… cursed upon this blade. If the world was so bad, if people were so evil, if she was so alone, then maybe it should all just go away.
For a moment, she could only stare at the knife on the ground, her eyes dull and her expression flat and void.
And in her hands were now the means. A weapon that could kill a God, etched with curses so strong that not even her soul would remain. Complete and absolute oblivion.
"Not today, Mr. Knife," she said, finally. She picked up the knife and let it click back into a ring before fastening it to her dress once more. "… Not today."
She made a promise to herself.
Just a hundred years more. If someone didn't come by to save her by then…
… She would kill herself.
100 YEARS LATER
No one ever did come.
The Universe is too expansive and too empty. For the person in her head to find her, they would have to spend the rest of their lives searching. But even then—even if miracle after miracle visited her to bring her and her fated person together—why would they even bother?
She was sitting on the tallest mountain, her eyes turned to the sky. In her hands, she turned a golden dagger.
What about this girl was worth saving?
"Sorry Koishi. Sorry for being a bad friend," she said. She pulled out a pebble from her pocket and set it down next to her.
In a reality filled with people who were ready to hurt and be hurt in the pursuit of their happiness, what good was a girl who didn't even want to try?
She raised the blade to her throat and pressed it hard against her skin. A thin line of blood formed where the skin met the blade.
When a person can't even bother to save themselves… No matter how much they don't want to die, deep down… No matter how much they want to live and someday be happy…
"Fuck the world. Fuck everyone."
Let them die.
And from her blood and her flesh, spilling out across the Lunar landscape in stagnant pools, the first signs of life emerged. Born from curses, alone and isolated, with their very first memories being tainted with the death of their mother, they set out across the wasteland of consciousness.
Hurting, and being hurt. Loving, and being loved. Dreaming and living with the weight of their mother's wish of destruction upon their shoulders.
They were the Satori—the first Lunarians.
BILLIONS OF YEARS LATER
A sea of bodies in a cramped alleyway market. A crowded pedestrian crossing. A subway train packed to capacity.
Children on a playground. A young couple in a café. You and me, and us and them.
A group of friends at an arcade. Students sitting in their seats. And that unmistakable feeling…
… That you will always be alone.
A trillion-year curse. A doomed bloodline. And the final, horrid wish of a forgotten girl.
A man lingering on the rooftop of an office building. A girl staring at an oncoming train. A boy leaning on the rails of a bridge, his eyes on the water below.
That everyone, no matter how hard they try, will know the same suffering she did.
What a wonderful world.
…
"It's a popular Lunarian creation myth," Toyohime said. "To most people, it's just a story. But…"
"… The knife," Yukari said.
Toyohime managed a weak smile. "Yes. The knife. Ha… I'm dying, Yukari."
"You were planning on killing me with something like that, is that right?"
"I admit I was planning on killing Kaguya with it. Maybe you, too. But… I'm not sure." There was a glossy aspect to her eye as a thin layer of moisture coated the top. "… I guess I was too nostalgic and weak for that, even when I wasn't myself."
"You talk like you and the person who tried to kill me are two completely different people." Yukari's eyes narrowed. "Did something really change about you? After I killed that monster?"
"… No. That comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Madness that entered Gensokyo really was." Toyohime's hands came to rest at the site of her stab wound. It was a dainty, shuddering motion—like her entire body was about ready to crumble to dust. "Listen, Yukari…
Madness doesn't change who you are. It shows the world who you really were all along.
Everyone. You, me, Koishi… We're all just monsters with twisted desires slumbering in our hearts. My sister was a monster. My father was a monster. Everyone you ever loved and everyone you ever hated and everyone you simply let pass by was a monster. Long after you and I have moved on and died, when no one can remember our names and the reunion of the Lovers becomes a vanishing bittersweet memory, there will be monsters still.
But… that's okay. Because even monsters can love each other. Even monsters can try to be better than they really are. That's what it means to live with the curse of subjectivity."
"… But you didn't even try."
A tear fell from Toyohime's remaining eye. She nodded. In a voice, so weak and cracked that it came out as a mere whimper, she delivered her response. "… Yeah. I'm the worst kind. I'm irredeemable."
"You and Koishi really are the same. You're every bit as self-absorbed and idiotic as she is at her worst." Yukari's gaze hardened. "You don't get to decide whether you are worthy of redemption. Forgiveness is something offered by others to you. For a society of monsters, each member disconnected and perfectly alone, how could a concept like that even exist?"
"I don't doubt that the curse existed at some point. Or even that it still exists today. But the curse does not define humanity. Humans are too complex and absolute to be weighed down by something like a generational curse," Yukari said. "Everyone but you has moved on. If you're too stuck in your nihilism to realize something like that, then you will die here."
"… I don't mind." Toyohime shook her head. "I don't mind if I die here."
Yukari hooked her fingers under the collar of Toyohime's dress and yanked her up so they could be face to face. But with most of her strength completely drained, Toyohime couldn't even keep her head from lolling backwards as she rolled in and out of consciousness.
"Ha… Just… let me die," Toyohime muttered. "Isn't that what you want, anyways?"
"… Are you fucking stupid? You think everything is going to be magically fixed once you kill yourself? Like you're the only person that exists in this world?" Yukari grit her teeth and, with her other hand, pulled Toyohime's head into position with her hair. "You're just too scared to face the consequences. You can't even face your own daughter after you fucked her life up. You're the lowest of the low."
"So what if I am?" Toyohime's eye drifted to the side, refusing to meet Yukari's own hard glare. "I'm… protecting her. It'll be for the best if Koishi never hears from me again…"
"Do you really believe that? Or are you just protecting your own heart?"
"Leave me alone… even if I wanted to, there's nothing that can be done about it now. It's a curse that modifies causality itself—I'm already dead. My body is just catching up."
"There isn't a single curse in the universe that can't be dispelled," Yukari said. "I don't care how strong it is. You're not dying. Not until you apologize to Koishi for everything you've done."
"Oh yeah? And what will that do?" Toyohime met Yukari's eye with a distant, cold, sort of look. "You think that sitting down with Koishi and saying 'sorry' will undo everything I did to her? Do you think that even if I spent the rest of my life atoning, she would ever find it in her heart to forgive me? Why would I even try? The only thing that'll happen in a future like that is just… more pain and heartache. Yukari… give me a break. There's a limit to how naïve you can be."
What followed was a wheezing, awful cough. A splatter of blood rolled down Toyohime's cheek as she started to shiver in the cold. "You can't save her. You can't save me. You can't even save yourself. We're all fucked."
And as if the world itself responded, the ground began to tremble under the immense weight of its wounds. Spires of glass and steel in the distance began to telescope in on themselves before sinking into further unseen depths. Those distant dunes that surrounded the city, now no longer held in place by an invisible hand, began to crumple over and roll like distant waves. The ground itself shook—at first barely enough vigor to displace Yukari's balance—but then enough to make her feel her bones would shake apart through her skin, like gravel traveling through a tumbling sieve.
The tiled floor below them cracked. And then, it split. Along the meandering dividing line, both halves displaced from one another, rising and falling in opposite directions like boats being tossed upon the sea. The shrine. And the shrine—its walls crumbled and split in short order. Out from its wounds spilled gold and symbols—artifacts of supreme religious importance spilling like guts from a cut.
"The world…" Toyohime muttered, deep in a shock-induced delirium. "… is fucked."
As the patch of ground beneath the two lumbered into the sky like a breaching whale, Yukari found her footing destabilized and slipped. Yukari caught the ledge with a free hand—but Toyohime, perhaps already dead, slid and tumbled down the new sharp incline until she was stopped by the ribbon tied around her wrist.
Below them was a window, or a portal, to the real world that had been concealed. As if the ground they had stood on was a pure flat slab of land that was drifting out in space, Yukari looked down to see the Earth below them, blackened and browned like a rotting corpse. And as the façade had been breached, the atmosphere that was so sustained by nothing but whim broke, too. The space around them—what seemed like the entire world—began to depressurize, with air pouring out of the wound as a great tide. Debris, dust and sand, religious idols and reminders of a nonexistent normal life began to pour into the void—before evaporating into so many rising particles of dust and light.
Yukari tried to pull herself up. She didn't have a plan for what happened after, or what happened after that, but she exerted all her strength to pull herself forward anyways.
But really… Yukari couldn't help but look down at the extra weight she was supporting. The silhouette of Toyohime, limp and lifeless, like she had already long since been lynched for her crimes, was supported only by Yukari's' will. If she wanted, she could just let her go. Let her die, like she so wanted. So why? Why can't I let her die..?
An intense pressure began to build in Yukari's arms, both being pulled apart by the weight they had to support. An acidic, burning sensation flitted around in her fingertips as they surely became numb from the exertion. She might have had a moment or two more before she couldn't hold on anymore. Then, Toyohime would take Yukari with her into the vastness of the void, where they would both die horrible, futile deaths. What will it all mean, then?
But even knowing that, Yukari couldn't let go. All it would take was an errant thought—a vanishing feeling of weakness to shoot a signal through her synapses to just let Toyohime go. But still, she couldn't. It was an aberration. Or, perhaps, an unseen truth buried in her heart. An unconscious action that screamed in its silence—that Toyohime could not, should not die here. Not by her hand, not at all.
Then, Yukari's hand slipped.
Terror seized her heart as she felt that familiar lurching feeling in her chest. Even as her hand slipped, she clawed uselessly at the sheer surface with her fingers as she fell in a desperate hope to find any handhold. In a wild stroke of luck, her handhold found her.
Yukari's side collided with some metal pipe sticking out of the tiled surface of what used to be the ground, thoroughly wedged into a crack in the surface. The air was knocked out of her, but she did not miss her chance to grasp that miracle as she slid downwards. When she looked up, she saw the staff of the crescent moon—Mima's final parting gift—stuck into the side of the wall as Yukari's sole support.
"… Why?" A voice called from below, apparently still clung to life. Yukari looked down to see Toyohime peering up at her. They had fallen such a distance that she was already halfway out into the void. "Between you and me, why would you pick me?"
"Shut up! Let me think—just let me think, damn it...!" But the two of them already knew that Yukari's mind was too scrambled and panicked to put together an alternative. In her head, in the second or two she had to think, she had already given up on finding a third solution—she was either to send Toyohime to her death or die with her.
But buried under the noise and the chaos, seen through her opened third eye, Toyohime found hidden insight into the kind of person Yukari really was. And there, Toyohime realized something very important.
She laughed. She smiled. Toyohime, from the start, had lost. Lost totally and completely. It had been a fight she had been fighting since she was born, not against the world, like she had convinced herself she was, but against Yukari. And she had lost. It took her a thousand years or more of suffering to finally realize it, but she did. Toyohime wrapped her fingers around the cold Orichalcum surface of her cursed dagger and pulled it out with a swift tug. Now, the rest of her life would be measured. Her time, in moments. Her worth, in action.
In this world lived curses. In this world lived only pain and suffering. In this world lived no good people. What a joke. Toyohime wondered if thinking that was just to protect herself. Like she had hurt too many people to have it all be for… nothing. There had to be a reason for it all, no matter how bizarre or fantastical it was. Like if there was no reason to it, all her anger and purpose would dissolve, and all that would be left was a shell of anger that wandered from place to place, destroying everything it laid eyes on. A concentrated ball of blind hatred, who destroyed everything that reminded it of itself. As Toyohime thought about it, she placed the knife's edge against the end of the ribbon that connected her to Yukari.
Living in this world of people, curses, of pain and suffering, there was me. And I didn't even try.
I didn't want to try. I wanted to get even worse. Everything made more sense that way.
"… I won't take you with me," Toyohime said. "I won't even take Koishi. I'll go to Paradise by myself."
"What?" Yukari's eyes widened. Her blood ran cold.
"I forgive you, Yukari." Toyohime's hand tensed. "… Could you forgive me, too?"
But before she could hear or see the answer, Toyohime cut herself free. And as she was dragged away into oblivion, spinning and drifting away from the chaos of the world she left behind, she was left with only her thoughts to keep her company in her last moments. She caught glimpses of Yukari, looking down at Toyohime as she drifted down to the dead Earth below. There, on her face, Toyohime could see nothing. Not horror, not regret, nothing. It was the gaping maw of oblivion, in which the longer you looked, the more you realized it held no significance at all. It was the stone-faced calm of someone who had seen so many tragedies that it all simply stopped registering. But that was just her own subjectivity speaking.
Underneath the face was a vibrant inner life that she never even bothered to understand. Complex thoughts and feelings that brought her to a point in her life she couldn't have explained in spoken word. For Toyohime, all it took was a glimpse of what was inside the box to realize that everything she believed was a lie. In most cases, it would take decades yet to internalize a sentiment like that, but the unstoppable march of death toward its inevitable conclusion had the curious effect of opening minds.
In the world lived one good person. Or, at least, a person who was trying her best. Toyohime wondered if everyone she had ever killed was like that. Maybe they were all trying their best—and making horrible, horrible mistakes every step of the way. Maybe her father did love her, after all.
I guess I don't know. And now, I never will.
As Toyohime's extremities started to freeze and everything in her body began to shut down, she wondered what the point of her life was.
And her heart was seized with terror. Because she did not know.
Toyohime stared at Yukari for as long as she could—all of her thoughts and feelings popping into her head as splatters of color and incomplete images, radio static and half-spoken words.
Until it cut out.
Pure silence. Complete stillness. Nothing ahead, but the promise of death. Toyohime wondered if this is what Koishi felt like on her journey to Earth. No one to talk to. Nothing to see. A complete deprivation of senses, and stuck in your head with someone you didn't even understand. Someone you didn't even like.
Toyohime thought that she probably should have killed herself a long time ago. Maybe, when she was just a little girl who knew of nothing but love. Maybe then, the world would have spun on like it always did. And all the monsters under the Sun could love the way they always will.
She closed her eyes. And began to dream.
Of a bright-eyed girl.
And her father. And her funny little sister.
And her teacher. And her cute pet rabbits.
Of a palace full of attendants who loved and adored her.
Of a land of fantasy, filled with eccentric friends and silly little rivalries.
And of a world with no curses.
…
I hope I looked cool back there. Haha.
WATATSUKI NO TOYOHIME: DECEASED
A blue appendage, covered in eyes, gently wrapped around Yukari's arm and pulled her upwards.
"Yeah. We can go together," she said. Yukari tore her gaze away from Toyohime, who was rapidly fading into the distance, and looked up at that newborn god above her. "... Koishi."
END OF SORROW
END OF SUFFERING
END OF SALVATION
Zhongmou held onto what was left of Kaguya's body—all cut up and torn beyond recognition.
With an empty, broken expression, she tried to fit body parts together back to where they belonged. That is, until a single speck of golden light alighted upon what used to be Kaguya's fingertip. Zhongmou looked up.
Above her were thousands of those flecks, drifting and bumping into each other with no reason or purpose. They rose from the ground and into the air, seeking something that they could not touch.
Zhongmou spoke. Barely above a whisper.
"... What will happen to us..?"
And no one answered.
END OF KOISHI KOMEIJI'S HEART THROBBING ADVENTURE: THE INTERIM
"Ha… Miss Yukari… You've done it."
By all accounts, Orin should have been dead. But she was lucky. After all, Toyohime had called her the one in a billion—a wonder cat that transcended the bounds of what was average or even miraculous.
She had been reduced to nothing but half a torso, an arm, and a head, all pinned under tons of rubble, but she didn't care. She would live. Satori physiology was tough like that.
From her little nook, she had a view of the sky and the lights through a little window formed by cement and rebar. She saw Koishi, still in the air, with a few of her arms halfway through the massive gap that stretched into the sky.
Orin sensed mixed feelings from Koishi, but somehow, she was okay. She would be okay.
Just knowing Koishi was okay and with her sister gave Orin strength—like no matter what happened to herself, everything would work out, somehow.
She sighed.
"... I need a nap. And a raise."
I'm sorry.
SEE YOU NEXT TIME!