Yuri Worlds
[74] Tearbreak
Despite so many boisterous personalities present, things got quiet after that, as though none of them could quite compare to what Maharu effortlessly brought at her peak and it wasn’t worth competing. They commented on little things from the dance. Naoko was decently knowledgeable about history but hesitant to draw all the same strands together like Maharu had done.
It was wrapped up in nationalist sentiment and a whole host of ambiguities. The mere fact that Maharu was able and encouraged by the shrine leadership to present a bit of controversy about the threads and themes of their history was healthy. Still, they couldn’t deny the fact that some of the oldest ladies in the audience looked ruffled and irritable, even though they hadn’t made an obvious fuss.
Misaki could imagine, from her focused demeanor, that Bianka had a whirlwind of controversial possibilities spinning in her head. The Sasaki moms were in the area and had clearly watched the dance, but their expressions were quietly inscrutable.
Chika was so exuberant in her take. She had actually read illustrated histories that incorporated and celebrated Himiko as a vital icon. The fact that their separate histories had such a strong point of convergence also excited her. Namiko was just jazzed by Maharu’s dancing.
Kosame thoughtfully fluttered her hands in a few different directions as she echoed elements of what Naoko said and appeared as though she was taking pains not to settle into her usual ways. Naoko squeezed her hand and offered her a kind smile. Moments later, Kosame unleashed a flowery eruption of maiden love wrapped in lyrical twists and turns.
Haruka appeared tightly pensive, separated from the rest of them even though she was standing close by. She stared out into the forest with eyes brightly shifting, as though typing a phantom manuscript that only she could see.
Misaki wanted to ask her what was on her mind, but the way to phrase the question kept slipping away from her, as though some other nagging thought she couldn’t quite place was dragging her attention away. Time passed.
It took several minutes before some mutterings became shifts in uncomfortable awareness. Maharu had been away for a conspicuous amount of time. The shacks extended off into the wilderness quite a ways, but even wandering in the rain, Misaki knew that it shouldn’t take quite this much time to head over and return, especially with the insatiable firecracker of energy that Maharu had at her disposal and the clear urgency she expressed to get back and have fun with them.
Chika, without prompting, volunteered herself to go check up on Maharu and make sure she hadn’t fallen or needed help. With imitative Maharu energy, Chika bounded off just as adventurously.
The group wandered over to the flavored ice booth even though the weather was starting to develop a persistent chill that was curling and nagging at the edges of their bodies and thoughts. Misaki didn’t want to try her luck with some more balls, but that was easily the toastiest entrée on display. An omelet would be a full meal that she wasn’t interested in right now. Some of those cute little dumplings Maharu fell in love with at the resort also dwelt here.
Ultimately, some grilled corn sufficed. And time passed again.
She should’ve been able to easily see the bright purple and blue hair tones of Maharu and her little sister returning, even with the darkness blanketing the trees.
Finishing her snack, Misaki noticed that Yuka was just as concerned and preoccupied as her. Her feet tilted up as though she were frozen at a starting line and just waiting for the gun to fire. She hadn’t said much lately, but a swarm of unspoken words filled the tense pall of her features.
Misaki volunteered next, promising she was just going to go a little way into the forest to check. She shouldn’t have done that. She’d learned far better than that over the last couple of days. But everything felt out of sorts, from the air to her string of thoughts.
No one objected, even though Yuka seized her hand tightly to restrain her before finally slowly releasing it. She firmly asserted, “If you don’t come back promptly… I’m tearing ass after you and ripping this forest to the ground as revenge.”
Misaki knew she should’ve stayed or put together a party of others. But it was like she was forbidden from doing that. This was the only way. Before parting from the group, she noticed that Haruka had withdrawn, with her hands pressed together and her head bowed. Her writing pad poked out a sliver, but she couldn’t see what was on it.
This version of the wilderness wasn’t as expansive as the raw world that stretched beyond the scratched-out resort trails. Around there, it was like a distant outpost of humanity and civilization, otherwise surrounded by the domain of nature and all its uncertain depths.
This stretch almost bordered on a zoo-like captivity for the woods. It was easy to tell that the vastness of civilization existed mere miles away and that this was a bubble. The bubble was quite convincing though.
It didn’t take long before she ran across the first in the series of shacks. They looked clearly unchanged from the other night, even without a dense curtain of overwhelming rain to blur and muddle things.
She wanted to imagine a starry, moonlit radiance peeking through the branches like a massive goddess watching over her. All she could see to the sides were the faintest glimmers of the lights of town, too far away to help her, like a lighthouse scanning the wrong sea.
The frail efforts of her phone light just cast a jumbled beam across the blackness before it was swallowed up. Trees above either sliced through the landscape like teeth or crazed static snapping and swirling to strike.
She passed another shack. Their measured presence was the most reassuring sign she could find along the way. Breadcrumbs of civilization urging her to continue. And so, she did.
The forest felt larger and closer, the deeper she traveled, as though it wasn’t a forest at all but some massive beast masquerading as such, and she had actually stumbled into a vast, cavernous gullet, beginning to squeeze down in all directions and desire a taste.
Just when it seemed like this whole trek was fruitless and the best idea would be to just swing around and bring the others with her, she caught sight of a flickering of light blue rippling out from the darkness like a thin, dangling flag.
It didn’t take long before subtle reds and pure whites blazed. The radiant girl in front of her seemed like she had a strange light with her against the darkness. Everything about her glowed sharper and clearer than if she’d been dunked in special paint. Carefully approaching, she soon saw there was no doubt; it was Maharu.
Misaki waved and raspily cried out for her. Maharu was turned away; her attention focused on something distant that Misaki had no chance of glimpsing.
Stepping closer, she wanted to cry out as the girl moved away, as though she were avoiding her. Couldn’t she see her? Couldn’t she hear her yelling, at least? Misaki huffed in frustration and desperately struggled to get her attention. It seemed like they were a million miles away from one another. All she could do was chase after her and hope.
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But no matter how swiftly she pursued her, the girl either got lost in the shrubs or managed to advance so far ahead of her that it was like she didn’t make any progress. Weird. But the strangest thing of all was when she got close enough to dispel any doubt that it was someone who just looked like Maharu.
It was clearly her… But she had a bizarre, tall, skinny hat on her head that looked more like brightly colored, fancy restaurant napkins somehow propped up on her noggin. In the right light, she thought they almost looked like… Ears? Why would she be wearing something like that on her head?
This nonsensical pursuit continued through the forest until she left the shack marked seventeen behind. She just regarded it with a quick glance to the side before checking on where Maharu was with respect to her. But when she looked back, there was no sign of the girl anywhere. Not that a rapid, insane dash was out of the realm of possibility for Maharu in particular, but this stretch of darkness felt tangibly finite.
She knew how far ahead she could see. There was plenty of space for her to notice if Maharu had hopped to the side or attempted to blast ahead in the split second she had looked away.
She should’ve seen something when looking again, but there was nothing, and she couldn’t explain it. Not a sight or a sound—actually, that wasn’t true. She could hear something very faintly whispered and repeated. The voice of someone far away or a quiet whisper. As she arrived at the next bit of clearing, it finally resolved into words.
“…..Mommy….Mommy….Mommy….Mommy…”
A heart-rending plea full of pain and desperation. An impossible sound that Misaki refused to believe she was hearing. But as her light moved towards the next shack in the row, she saw even worse. A slight, girlish figure lay sprawled out on the ground with her limbs stretched at odd angles.
Even in the dark, Misaki could see several unnatural springs of vicious red flowing from her body. Several strands of rope, like a tangled spiderweb, laced and constricted around her, drenched in blood. As what felt like an afterthought, a pair of pale, elongated ears more appropriate for a rabbit jutted out from the top of her head.
“No no no no no no no…oh my God. Goddess. Oh, Jesus. Maharu… what? How? oh my God…” Awfully silly words, pointless words, but they were the only things she could cling to in that moment.
All reason and sense in the world were melting around her. Maharu couldn’t be bleeding. She couldn’t be… Dying. The word made no sense. Was this part of the performance? Even if it was a cruel prank or method acting on an alarming scale, that would be far better than accepting that this was actually happening. One look at Maharu’s starkly pale, wretchedly tired face told her that denial wasn’t going to save lives.
Tourniquet. Something. She had to use something to stop the bleeding. There were an absurd number of wounds that flowed into each other. It was impossible to count them while her mind felt like it was bleeding out as well.
“There you are. I’ve been expecting you. You or your wannabe wife, big sisssss.”
Misaki didn’t wanna look up. She didn’t want to connect the voice she was hearing to the face she knew she would see. But she had to.
The lights turned on around the shack, tracing the features of a cruel face that never should’ve shown such cruelty and whose precious heart fought for every smile since childhood, even when Franklin was too embarrassed to hold her hand.
Chika bent her head down but curved her eyes and smile up as though she were cosplaying a monster as a joke, and the joke never landed. As another afterthought, Misaki realized that she had a crumpled paper inside her right pocket, which she hadn’t noticed before. If it was a warning message about this, then it came far too late.
"No. Oh God, no, Guy. What have you done? Why?" She wanted to be angry; she wanted rage to flow with concentrated confusion. But all she had was a stirred miasma pot of hopelessness given voice.
"You don’t get it. You never did. You never stood by me. You always thought you were better, even when trying to act so submissive. And all those selfish, mindless little bitches and bastards on the Internet that throw their pennies at me just to see their monkey dance in a stuffed bra with shaved legs. I hate them! And I hate you. I should’ve done this ages ago."
Chika’s sharply carved smile twisted on her face as she brought her hands forward to show them drenched in Maharu’s blood with a long, nasty knife clenched in her hand and several lengths of rope, both new and old, digging into her fingers. All throughout, Maharu’s mournful pleas continued, gradually getting weaker and struggling to fight their way out of her throat.
None of this made sense. Not even as a nightmare. This was her entire world, twisted and torn into pieces. "No. It can’t be. It’s not true. This is not you. How…"
“Believe it, little one. Everything you thought you knew has always been a lie. And now, it’s going to die.“
Little one. That’s what was said when Chika was possessed, when the wristband turned her against them. But she didn’t have a wristband on anymore. She should’ve been free. Unless there was still something else controlling her in secret.
Misaki didn’t know how or why, but she just knew in her heart that the precious boy and the beautiful little sister who had been her friend since her very first memory, now muddled, would never do this, and she had to stand up for her goodness.
“You’re not Guy, or Gal, and you’re sure as hell not Chika. You’ve infested her skin. How dare you! Let her go, NOW!” Uncertain moments burned past with the pulsing of Misaki’s heart.
She wanted to strike like an angry dog and rip the invisible parasite from wherever it was clinging to her little sister. At the same time, she could see and feel that the dark pool around Maharu was growing denser. But if she turned away from the monster puppeteering Chika, then she would meet the same fate.
She had to do something. Rumbling with a glare and a focused growl, she ripped a length of her sleeve off and squeezed it against the deepest red stain on Maharu‘s abdomen. The poor girl hoarsely squeaked and tensed, as though she had been stabbed again, but some of her energy flowed back and she struggled to sit up.
The monster mere feet away swung the blade in her hand like an unbalanced metronome. She wanted to strike. She was going to strike. So many more cruel words were percolating in her brain, more sharpened than what she was wielding to rend, tear, and slice all the precious, beautiful little moments that Misaki had left.
Then, the mask slipped, and someone else’s face showed through Chika‘s features.
"Ahh, fuck it. Such a stupid Matlock-level slip! But I kind of wanted you to figure it out. Your little friend would’ve been a decent alibi. At least that’s what they provided me with. Although the prospect of some angry, history-obsessed little anime county lady not liking the way she treated their traditions would be a nice, last-minute effort. Making it a murder-suicide between you and her is way more complicated, but I guess it’ll have to suffice."