Yuri Worlds

[77] Sisters

Misaki had no idea what to say. She just stared at Haruka. There had to be more. She couldn’t possibly mean that. If Maharu was her true sister, then how could she just stand there with her murderer against what Misaki assumed was her adopted sister?

Yuka went slack, as though an invisible force holding her up suddenly shut off like a switch. She sought Haruka’s cold, cruel eyes and quietly pleaded, “Sis… Big sis… what is this?”

Haruka tightened her jaw and drew her hands together, as though holding an invisible ball of energy between her painted fingernails. Matter-of-factly, she responded, “You’re not my sister. We were never sisters. They just placed me with you. Now back away, or you will force me to break something.”

Each word hit Yuka like the relentless battering of a stone slab. She struggled to draw and hold her breath as she pressed against the cold Earth to return to her feet. Yuka tensed her limbs. Her expression dripped with pain as she refashioned the blade on her arm into the shape of a shield and squeezed the other into a black, round rod.

Resolutely, Yuka responded, “I am not letting this monster go.“

Haruka raised up on her toes. "Then you leave me no choice." The dark pinnacle of her horns grew broader and sharper. Misaki struggled to hold in her head the fact that Haruka was another one of these animal girls. Maharu was a rabbit, and Haruka has goat aspects. Whatever all that meant. Likely why they had hidden medical papers.

Misaki struggled with the same things as Yuka. Why was Haruka fighting on the side of the killer? Concentrating on the girl as she advanced on Yuka, looking at her horns, gave Misaki a grinding sensation like a drill probing cracks in her skull. Were there any other places that she didn’t want her to look? Searching Haruka’s striding form, Misaki‘s eyes landed on her wrist with a pinging radar pressing on her brain. Bingo.

Holding her eyes there was excruciating, but she refused to blink. Squinting helped somewhat as she resolved a black mark wrapped around her wrist. Wrist black. Black wrist. Wristband. She also had the wristband!

Plaintively, Misaki screamed this information to the girl she loved. Haruka didn’t waver or flinch as the once-sisters reached striking distance from one another. Compared to Yasha’s overzealous, illuminated attacks, Haruka restrained her use of bands of light to closely curled whispers of energy. Bluish gold blooms swirled nearby, as though she were a lightning rod that could only draw flashes to the vicinity.

The energy didn’t whip out at Yuka; instead, it flared and flew like a distant star’s coronal mass bleeding off. On Haruka‘s shoulders, it buzzed and hissed like neon lights contained in unseen tubes. Yuka shielded her eyes, just as she would from arc welding. Twisting forward and bringing her power to bear, Haruka pounded her sister like a stubborn nail. Misaki flinched and staggered sympathetically as Yuka bore the sparking, relentless weight. Her legs wobbled at the knee, but she remained upright.

"Why! WHY?!" Yuka screamed at her sister, although she might as well have been yelling into a void. "I don’t want to fight you! I don’t care where we came from or who our mothers are! You’re my sister! My big sister! Please, stop!" Her voice crackled with emotion and struggled to escape her lips. Haruka actually paused her assault.

The tight, bitter angle of her eyes withdrew, scanning with the same coldness but not pressed into a pounding force. Yuka redoubled her plea: "You’re being controlled. I know this isn’t you. You need to fight the monsters and their hold over you." Haruka straightened and held up her arm, bearing the wristband.

"Do you think this is a mind control device? It’s not. I am who I have always been—a lost girl protecting her sister. The company resolved who I am and who you are. Who we each have to be. They made it clear: I am a being of light, and you are a being of darkness." Haruka’s eyes quivered, as though something was burning them.

Yasha coughed. "That’s enough talk. If you’re going to restrain her, then do it. Or else let me have my fun." Haruka snapped up obediently and nodded her head. She stretched her arms out like glimmering wings and swooped down on Yuka.

A brutal, crushing force laid into her like a winding vice. Misaki screamed out, begging her for mercy. Yuka dripped fresh blood from her gash and could barely breathe with her shield arm wavering above her as she used the other for support. Misaki feared she saw stress cracks radiating across the fragile blackness that protected Yuka. She had no idea what to do, but she had to do something.

Misaki recalled the way that Yuka and her connected; they practically shared a soul. She had seen inside her, known her feelings, and known her heart. No matter if Ayame was wrong or right, she’d seen that feeling and felt something special.

Light, dark, human, or monster, she loved her, and Yuka loved her too. True evil couldn’t know and share love. Yuka was not bad, no matter if she had a hellhound name, coal-dark skin, or whatever else. Misaki reached out to her, searching for their red string of fate.

She could feel it, as though it were a vein feeding lifeblood between them. She had to protect Yuka, whatever it took. Misaki imagined all the energy she had as like a tightly packed net ready to be thrown. She had no idea where that analogy came from, but it seemed worth trying for visualization. Around her feet, Chika was making even more little noises, struggling towards actual words. Misaki just prayed she had no physical or mental injuries.

Without dwelling on it, Misaki emotionally hurled herself across the distance that separated her from the girl she loved. What came next was a surreal, practically out-of-body experience where she remained planted on the spot while also spinning and whirling through the air like a projectile. It felt like she was being spread too thin, like the smallest dollop of butter over blazing toast that wanted to dissolve and absorb her. She had to hold herself together.

White-hot pain flowed across her entire body, even though she knew she hadn’t actually been struck. Trying to resolve the scene before her, she saw a web-like structure spreading from her hands, exactly like the net she imagined, but pitch dark and iron rigid like a burnt backstop across Yuka’s huddled form. Oh, Goddess, her too? Was she a dark entity too?

She didn’t have time to process what this all meant as Haruka‘s assault screamed through her and rattled her fragile, stretched body. It was excruciating. She noticed when Haruka saw that her blows weren’t landing. Misaki expected a second round to fall even harder. Instead, a flicker of horror crossed Haruka‘s eyes as she still wielded her weapons but pulled them to just making contact. Each subsequent swing barely grazed her alien flesh. It still hurt, but more like a pinch than a boulder falling. She had questions, as in all things since the madness of this forest clearing.

“What… sis?” Of course, Chika’s eyes chose that moment to finally flutter open. When she was shooting the dirty snow equivalent of Spider-Man webbing. Poor Chika. She also had to keep in mind that her little sister had been under control without a wristband. She couldn’t trust her. Misaki quietly tried to keep her distance.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Yuka managed to catch her breath and recover. Tears softly streaked her eyes as she looked over at Misaki with blazing concern and fear. She put herself in danger. She knew Yuka wouldn’t approve, but she couldn’t let her face this all alone.

Yuka pulled back from the protection, and Misaki felt a strange sensation as she did, like her entire body was magnetized, and Yuka was a tingling flow compelling her to follow, drawing her in. It took determination, like holding her breath underwater and past the point of pain, to resist the alluring, compelling force of Yuka’s presence. Yasha gave a sly cackle.

“Be careful, little one. Don’t get too close. Or you’ll fall into the raging waters.”

Misaki had no idea what that meant and honestly didn’t care to interpret her cruel words. Once Yuka was far enough away, she willed the black mass back into her. The dizzy, disconnected feeling still remained, along with nausea-inducing spins of uncertainty. And swallowing all that back up felt like retrieving a dangling loogie that touched the ground on its way down. How could all this be inside her? How could she ever feel normal again, knowing what came out of her?

Chika slowly sat up on the cool, slightly muddy ground as she cleared her throat with coughs and grimaced at the state of her clothes. It didn’t take her long to look on in horror at Maharu's still, bloodied shape. "Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Christ. No no no…" Misaki wanted to stop her from crawling over in the faint, desperate hope that the CPR or wound care might rouse the poor girl from her stillness. Her cries soon echoed across the clearing.

Someone else found them. Dressed in a deep green that almost blended in with the expanse of trees, stood Miss Okura. The old woman appeared older still, her expression lanced, crossed, and torn with pain. Tears were beyond her as she staggered towards her granddaughter’s fallen form.

A hush fell over all those present as she cried out, wailing loud enough to break the stars above and bring them crashing to earth. Unnatural screams, animal cries, and earth-quaking rumbles echoed through the clearing like a cursed, ancient invocation of doom. Even Yasha gave an unexpected shudder and leaned back with a scowl.

It didn’t take Miss Okura long to turn her grief and pain into jagged anger. “You swore… you wouldn’t touch my family again.”

Yasha curled her lips. "I didn’t touch your granddaughter. She did…" She pointed at Chika, who noticed in horror that the dead girl’s blood was splattered across her. Chika trembled and retched on the ground. A wave of similar sympathetic sickness spread to Misaki as she desperately wished that she could wrap her arms around Chika, speak soft, kind words, and reassure her little sister that all this was a passing nightmare and that in moments they would wake with relief. But there would be no waking.

Miss Okura snapped back. “I don’t care who you decided to use as your puppet. You broke our agreement. And you will suffer for it for as long as I have breath.”

With a little snort, Yasha retorted, “So what? I have the company on my side. More than that. You mess with me, and everything this world ever was goes away in an instant. I’m untouchable…”

In a literal instant, Miss Okura was standing behind Yasha, even though she was still on her knees beside her granddaughter. The second old woman had a curled set of ram horns atop her head as she ripped Yasha‘s limbs from her body. Yasha looked over the pieces and growled, "Bitch…" before the duplicate Miss Okura plucked her head off her neck like retrieving a fallen marble from the ground.

Seconds later, a restored Yasha picked herself up and brushed the dirt from her body. "I’m not…" She began, but Miss Okura didn’t let her finish as she brought her hands together on either side of the woman’s head. Misaki swiftly turned away, but the sounds were still wretchedly visceral, even though she would’ve gladly done worse to the red-eyed blonde.

Wounding her was a Sisyphean task, as every injury reversed or resolved itself moments later. Despite not making any progress, Okura refused to relent. Soon, a third version of her joined in the assault, pounding the demon into fractured pieces that swiftly reassembled.

Misaki saw that since a second Okura branched off, a bitter pall fell over the old woman. Had it been like that when her double served her in the office or when she glimpsed a sliver of this in the doorway? When the third arrived, the old woman looked the part of her supposed age, with her skin beginning to show through her once bright flesh.

Haruka cried out, “Grandmother! Stop! This is pointless. And will only bring more harm.” The old woman refused her plea, splitting the blonde down the middle before furiously tearing her into tiny pieces. A dripping sheen of sweat covered every version of her. Still, Yasha’s cruel, steady eyes locked on the original, no matter where they fell.

With a hesitant effort, Haruka aimed a shard of light that struck the old lady right in the shoulder. She jerked back and spun around to fall on her side. Panting gasps followed as her doppelgängers faded to light, wafting smoke. Haruka bowed her head with her eyes squeezed tight.

Yasha restored herself once more. She took a deep breath, and, in concert with her inhale, a sudden, sharp, burning rush of wind swelled through the clearing and battered at her clothes. The light twisted around her body brightened and deepened as she breathed in the infusion of air.

The wind remained solely on her without even drifting in the direction of anyone else. When it was finished, it dissipated as though it had never been there at all. Misaki had several thoughts about all that, but she let them stew inside as she edged toward Yuka.

The red-eyed blonde focused her attention solely on the old woman and stepped slowly and confidently toward her. "We had an agreement. And I thought we had an understanding that small sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good. The company has given all of you so much. And I know you understand that it can all be taken away in an instant of insolence. Prices have to be paid in pounds of flesh. Now, I won’t begrudge you for lashing out like the wild animal you are behind your illusions. But when you persist like that… Well, I can’t help but take it personally."

She licked her lips a few times, bowed to retrieve the dropped, bloody knife, and brushed it off affectionately. Chika crawled in panic towards the trees. Mercifully, if it could even be called mercy, Yasha opted not to assert control over her body.

Misaki was a few feet from where Yuka had also backed away. Only Haruka still stood close, between the lines of conflict. The old woman pulled the body of her granddaughter to her breast, gently stroked her cooling cheek, and planted a series of soft kisses on her almost-perfect skin. She spoke words that failed translation, sounding like beautiful, precious gibberish.

Yasha scowled and pressed her ear before demanding, “What? What stupid animal talk was that?”

Taking a deep breath, the old woman proclaimed, “I told her… Don’t worry, my sweet child, you and everyone who has suffered…shall be avenged.”