Anisa woke with a jolt, a feeling of cold steel beneath her prone form. Despite the sensation, when she looked down, all she could see was darkness. That was when a familiar and taunting voice crept from the shadows surrounding her. “Hello again, Ani. We need to have a proper conversation.” She looked up, expecting to see the carapace of her other self only to see Sasori had once more taken the appearance of Sculptura. A wave of sickness and rage filled her at the sight, but she restrained it. Sculptura laughed, “There it is again. That sensation you keep ignoring. That you keep denying.”
Anisa glared at her and spat back, “Hurting you has only ever made things worse for both of us. You should be thankful that I’m trying to humor you.” She stood up slowly, her knees weak and her body feeling like dead weight. She asked in a very tired tone, “So, why did you attack Tak? Is she okay? Why did you bring me here?”
Sculptura sneered at her, “Why did you try to resist me? Why deny your own nature? Why put yourself and everyone else in danger?” Anisa drew herself to her full height, clearly preparing for the coming debate. To try and take the moral high ground again, but the telltale smirk on the face of the villainess told her that today was different. “Your little doctor is doing just fine. Or have you forgotten that this isn’t the first time we have faced HER?” Anisa froze, not sure of the full meaning here. She didn’t remember ever dealing with this Original Tak’Nasi and it was written all over her face. Sculptura laughed derisively, “Of course you don’t remember. Just like you ignored my warnings before when we were last on this planet. I kept trying to warn you. To save you. But you ignored me because of one unsavory truth. A truth you cannot stomach and you cannot dare admit to yourself.”
Anisa scoffed, “You are trying to pull that ‘we aren’t so different’ thing again. I get it. Like it or not, you are a shadow of my past. What are you trying to get away with by doing this.”
Sculptura punched the darkness like it was a wall, a loud metal clang filling their ears as it echoed in the psychological void around them. She hissed, “Stop that! Stop pretending that I’m someone else!” Anisa couldn’t be sure, but she swore she saw small tears in the corners of the woman’s eyes. She growled, “You believe your hands are clean?!? You dare to deny me simply because you ignore what we have done together, long before you gave me name and form?” Anisa tried to draw closer to Sculptura only to find the gap widen instantly. As she stared at the familiar figure in the distance of the void, the villainess began to cackle and laugh as if she had gone mad. “I can no longer simply sit here while you pretend to be someone and something you are not! I am no mere scapegoat! This facade you have built will crumble and you will become me once more, as we always should have been.” Moments later, the void around her began to shimmer and change, until there was an entirely foreign landscape to her filled with impossible geometry. And here she stared in disbelief at the kaleidoscope of madness her other self had created.
Anisa’s mind reeled as she tried to make sense of the odd forms before her, until her eyes rested on a familiar door, one covered in smears of blood and a heavy humidity that choked out all other smells. Jumping between the scattered debris that formed a makeshift path, she opened it to a familiar and empty courtyard. The smell of blood was fresh and saturating. The empty storefronts were mere set pieces to the horrendous game of her beloved host. Anisa muttered to herself, “I don’t want to be here.” The more she stood in this empty plaza the more she began to choke on the smell, the coppery taste of blood on her lips and tongue. She tried to rub it away to no avail as she could feel the heat of the drugs Permiso pumped into her station regularly fill her mind.
‘Oh, it appears he carries Permiso’s brand. Poor thing.’ She could hear the conversation echoing in her head as though it was happening again. As if that parasite was speaking in her mind and trying to take hold. She fell to her knees and held her head as she tried to keep control of the situation.
‘What do you mean? What does the brand mean?’ she wasn’t speaking but as this memory forced itself upon her she heard her younger self as clear as day.
‘It means that she drugged him. It means that she has trained him and drained him until she was nothing but her toy and puppet. Just another bauble for her collection.’ She could hear its next whisper in her mind as if it was fresh, ‘I could kill her you know. Wipe her off the planet. Just stop fighting me for a day and I will leave her temple a-’
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‘Give me your power.’ she remembered now how the parasite froze that day. It had never seen her like this. It didn’t know what it had done. ‘Give me back my body! I’m going to kill her!’ She had been so angry at the time that she didn’t even realize she had been given control. The parasite guided her ship to the station. It activated the alarms that locked down the hangers. As she heard the alarms blaring in her head, she looked up to see it with her own eyes. Sculptura walking into the plaza, her eyes not unlike Anisa’s as she is right now. The various men Permiso had brainwashed and drugged rushed into the plaza to try and kill her, but before they could get a single shot off, she lunged at one of them, pulling the arteries out of his throat without cutting them, pulling him into the line of fire of his fellow soldiers. Using his corpse as a buckler, she walked towards their oncoming fire until she could jam her claws under the rib cage of one of the warriors, lifting him effortlessly over her head until she used the man as a mallet to strike another of her foes like he was a stake she was attempting to drive into the ground, to a much messier result. Grabbing one of the men by the elbow, she spun to put pressure on the joint and repeatedly elbowed the man in the throat until the sinew broke his forearm free from the joint. Throwing the severed limb at yet another trooper, she rushed the man and allowed her claws to pierce his stomach, allowing the acid and bile to slowly kill the man from within.
Anisa tried to block this memory out. To leave it behind, but there was one face she knew she couldn’t ignore. Not now. Not here. Permiso stepped out of her temple giving a slow clap of approval. Her smile drove Anisa to madness and made her want to vomit. Permiso spoke like an approving mother, “Very good, Sculptura. You serve me so well. Such precious blood spilled on my altar.” Permiso's hungry eyes basked in the massacre as she held her arms confidently open, The monster dared say, "Come and serve beneath the Goddess of Murder, where you bel-" Before she knew it, Anisa's hand was driven through the woman's throat. Her younger self approached the now confused victim of Anisa's fury and jammed her hand into her chest, pulling free a pulpy mass that her instincts screamed was the woman's heart. Her younger self held it up to the dimming eyes of the would be goddess' drained husk. Anisa could feel her body grow cold and start shaking as she watched Vittivici's Bane fall from the corpse's neck and the final sounds to leave the throat of her friend's rapist was a genuine and uproarious laughter, as if it was the greatest gift she could be given. Anisa fell backwards and scurried away as she looked at her bloodied hand. As she watched her younger self pump the heart by hand to keep her prey alive, she watched in horrified acceptance as her younger self jammed her boot into the now pierced throat of the figure. Each pump elicited more laughter from the doomed cult leader, choked out by blood and the pressure from her boot.
Eventually the vision faded, leaving her hollow and cold. Anisa shouted into the maddening landscape, "She was a rapist! A Murderer! A complete sociopathic killing machine that ruined and corrupted all life she took! Branding people like property and brainwashing them into her own personal hit squad! That's not the same!" the silence that returned to her was somehow worse. Sasori had meant it. She was done talking. She had assembled her case and Anisa now had no choice but to travel the road that had been set out for her.
Searching for another familiar door or entrance, she walked around the ever shifting landscape beneath her feet. Every step was slow, as if her body knew something she didn’t. It wasn’t long before she saw a door that sent chills down her spine. She reached towards the handle of the pale blue door with cherry blooms but her body refused to turn the handle. She knew what was on the other side. Her hand shook as the weight of her heart pressed down on her. Swallowing hard, she pushed the door open and her body grew cold as she saw Katsi’s old bedroom. She stepped within and heard her dear sister crying from the closet. Anisa’s cousins were laughing derisively from just outside of it, their delicate two inch heels burying the remains of Katsi’s model kit into the carpet.
”What kind of girl makes models?”
“Such an unsociable girl. Hands always covered in glue.”
“Hardly ever speaks but always trying to be seen.”
Anisa was no more than twelve at the time. Every year her cousins would come to visit and every year they would try to tear down Anisa and Katsi. They were raised that competition with their family was natural. Healthy. Encouraged them to improve. But this was the reality to the young. If trying your best isn’t enough to stay on top, then sabotage was the only alternative. Anything to avoid the punishment of failure. The shame of defeat.
Anisa saw her younger self step into the room, a familiar cold edge to her eyes. “You. Out.” Her cousins tried to sneer, to dismiss her order. To mock her. But it was too late. “Last chance. Leave.” Again they tried to play it like they still had control. Like they were the ones in charge. Anisa felt her heart sink as she watched the inevitable. She grabbed one of her cousins by the hair, slinging her head quickly and without warning into Katsi’s bed post. Before the second one could process what was going on she punched her in the teeth. When the first one tried to stand back up, she punched her hard across the cheek. The second one jumped on her back and she flipped her to the floor. Mounting the piggybacker, she wrapped both her hands around her neck and began to squeeze. As she watched this memory play across her mind she felt her mind drift for a moment before she felt her hand on Scultura’s throat once more.
Releasing her grip and leaping back, Sculptura laughed before fading once more. She was chilled by the brutality she had visited upon her own blood. Her own kin, her hands shaking and her breath was weak. She didn’t know why but she could feel it. There was at least one more vision awaiting her in this madness and it somehow filled her with more panic. What memory could be more dreadful than this?