Yuri Worlds

[84] Lullaby

Swiftly, Yuka moved in front of Misaki protectively and stretched her arm with a fluid motion to unfurl a black, obsidian-glittering blade that extended almost to her foot. She swooped her other arm so that it became a shield similar to the one she made against Haruka.

Misaki pouted slightly, as she wanted to be a protector; she didn’t need to be protected, even though logically she knew from everything that happened in the forest that Yuka sure seemed stronger than her. Neither of them was a match for Haruka if it was her on the other side, and she had crueler intentions than she already showed.

She managed to project stuff from her fingers, which curled like dirty cotton balls. Misaki quipped internally that, at the very least, it was probably comical enough to distract any antagonist heading their way before Yuka took them down.

They both braced themselves with the buffer of several counters and crouched low. Misaki watched diligently where the noises were coming from and was puzzled as the door didn’t so much open as flow, dissolve, and reconstitute itself like a surface of milk lightly disturbed. Neither Misaki nor Yuka quite comprehended what to do about this. Ultimately, Yuka let out an actual, sharp bark and flailed her dark arms above her head like she was doing a natural-world display of trying to make herself appear bigger.

The girl who came through the milky threshold immediately jerked back, as though struck by some unseen force. It wasn’t long before they saw that it was actually Mari standing there in a white outfit halfway between a spacesuit and a rain slicker. She reacted like they had jumped out and spooked her, practically leaping sideways and nearly tumbling off her feet. Mari managed to grab the rounded edge of one of the tables and catch herself.

"My gosh, you made it. The system caught motion, and I spun up this room, but I couldn’t be sure if it was the two of you. Jee…uh Goddess criminy, my heart feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest. We can take a breather here, but I wouldn’t stay long."

Yuka still kept her obsidian blade arm raised as she interrogated Mari: "What happened to my moms? What did they do to them? Are they gonna be okay? Are they still alive?" She rushed headlong through each of the questions, raising her voice a bit too much for the sharp echoes bouncing around the walls.

Mari twisted her features and heavily motioned downward with her palm for her to be quieter. Yuka wore a scowl but pressed her message by hissing above a whisper to reiterate, “Are they?”

"I hope so," was the best reply Mari could offer before elaborating, "That’s not deadly, what they did. It’s isolation. But it’s like… cryo-storage. Damage to tissues can result, depending on how long it continues. There are worse options. A bar of light that turns living matter into stored energy. Essentially, death for the consciousness, even if the body is physically reconstituted. They’ll use that next. This was just a warning. You have to give yourselves up."

Yuka’s response was right to the point: "Fuck that. Who are they? Why are they doing this? Is it the company?"

Mari raised her head and then leveled it with a sigh. It occurred to Misaki that they had no idea if Mari was being controlled remotely or not, like Chika had been. Misaki chimed in with this critical question of whether they could trust that she was actually herself.

In response, Mari squeezed her wrist and positioned her hand around it. They looked and, slowly, they could see the white wristband that Misaki noticed earlier, as though an illusion had made it suddenly appear there although Mari asserted it had been present the whole time.

"Lightly antimemetic perception filtering. You can’t see it or even realize it’s there unless I specifically call attention to it. It’s something that radiant beings can naturally do to hide from danger. They can also be completely contained within objects of all sizes, but that’s not limited to them. There’s a lot that needs to be explained. But this white wristband blocks all efforts at… I suppose you would call it possession. Not that I really have a way to prove it… So, you’re just gonna have to trust me. Sorry."

Mari relayed that the white wristband was how she kept from being frozen like everyone else. Yuka paced while still protecting Misaki when she asked the obvious question: Why didn’t they freeze?

"They wanted you to see it. There’s no escape. They are everywhere. Even leaving this universe means going through their transit gateways. Where we are is like an access conduit to reality. They can implant them as a normally intangible and unreachable layer beneath the world we know. It’s a way of monitoring everything and getting anywhere instantaneously."

Yuka pressed the woman, and she vehemently assured her that this space was an actual, real space and not just a simulation. That invited a whole host of brand new questions, but Mari knew very little about the technology side.

She looked fondly at the little covered nursery stations, admitting, "I’ve had a good life, better than I deserve for the things I’ve been complicit in. But I’ve done my best to help the little ones and to help whoever I can. Even before the company permitted Yasha… Joshua Feland, to do whatever he wanted just because he’s so rich and connected. Our worlds are their test labs. To do whatever they want, for power and immortality. That’s what it’s all about, as far as I’ve gleaned in decades of trying to understand. Simple and horrifying."

Misaki looked over the various nurseries and shook her head, struggling to comprehend the implication that all this was a part of her world too, a part of what she essentially considered home, or used to. She responded, "Power and… Well, power on top of power. All this pain and suffering for something so small?"

Mari kept her voice low and shifted along the table. "Pain and suffering are the point. I was told that. And it’s not small for the company… Live forever and have anything and everything anywhere. Do anything. I just want there to be more smiles, even if I can only hear and not see…most of them.

It didn’t take much for Misaki to arrive at the obvious conclusion: "You’re the nice lady that the wristband girls talk about."

A large measure of nervous tension drifted away from Mari’s presence as her shoulders dipped and she glanced around the room. "I’m glad that they remember me. Not all of them can or should. But I hope I left an impression more positive than negative." She shut her eyes for a long stretch and softly exhaled.

Despite how much Mari was able to answer for them, a waterfall of ever-flowing and endlessly renewing questions remained. Pulling at the material of the bulky, egg-like outfit she was wearing, Mari answered unprompted that she had on an insulating coat to hopefully avoid detection for as long as possible; she admitted, though, "It’s really just a stopgap."

Misaki pulled out what felt like an old question by this point when she asked, “So, Melting is bullshit, right?”

"It’s… well... you don’t really Melt, per se." You would turn into hot plasma, like a deep-sea implosion on steroids. But that’s only if you just automatically go to the wildest universe without being converted. The same thing would happen if you decided to travel to the depths of space without preparing. But there’s no time limit on conversion, and there’s no rubber band pulling you back if you overstay your travels. That’s just introduced scarcity. Oh! I see there’s a little mess on the side there…"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Glancing around, Mari noticed the splatters of blood from their little experiment earlier and commented, "Did you feel any ill effects from being around the wristbands? That sometimes can happen, especially when being sharply exposed to even their level of perception filtering." Mari’s mention triggered a recollection for Misaki of seeing Yuka screaming with blood running down her nostrils. She couldn’t believe that image wasn’t forever burned into her memory, but she suspected this whole filtering frustration was probably the cause.

Yuka returned her bladed arm to its regular shape, while retaining the shield, and answered, "I do feel ill from everything in this room, but not because of them. We were begrudgingly checking to see if our blood did anything to them; see its rules."

Mari swallowed hard and winced, before answering, “I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner to save the trouble on all ends. It’s a typical protection measure that dark entities become essentially allergic to all varieties of human blood.” Misaki noticed some ambiguity in the way she phrased that and pursued the situation about the two of them.

“So, we are, or we aren’t dark entities?” Misaki gestured between herself and Yuka.

Mari silently opened and closed her hand a few times before finally summoning the words she wanted to say. “That’s complicated. You are both human… Despite how things may appear. However, you should be careful of… Certain varieties of blood. Who did you test your blood on… if you remember the general spot they were in?”

In response to that, Misaki not only pointed to the specific spot but also recited Tsukiko’s chosen name. The pained, melancholic qualities clinging to Mari drifted away as she cheerfully celebrated Tsukiko like she was her own daughter.

“Good choice. She’s resilient. Though I wish she didn’t have to be.“ Mari was happy and relieved to hear that not only did the entire assortment of wristband girls under the nearby cover receive a personal, affectionate touch, but that this one in particular got to be the center of attention and affection. Her features settled with quiet pride.

She couldn’t elaborate on what the two of them were other than reiterating what she said before about them both being human. Yuka couldn’t help but show off her black branch features as clear evidence to the contrary.

Mari remained firm on this point, mentioning, “There’s more to human than simply… human. Sorry, that’s cryptic, but I’ve only gotten a gloss of so many surface things. The girls are prepared here, stored, and made to wait. They’re trained in humanity. Like AI, by being connected to a suitable host. The company exploits travelers and others under the excuse of a monitoring device. It doesn’t monitor; it shadows your humanity.”

Yuka squeezed her eyelids into tiny points of exhaustion. She raised her blackened arm and trembled. Misaki could see that she wanted to scream with everything she had inside her. Swinging and smashing also seemed like a suitable reaction, but the nurseries didn’t deserve that. Mari mentioned that each of the units was typically opened in sequence for servicing. The one they interacted with was scheduled as the next in sequence, which was likely why these girls were curious and active when they arrived.

To prevent problems later, Mari went over to the table and ran a protocol with a slow strobe and a nondescript liquid circulating underneath. Some startled whimpers emerged from underneath the dense material, but Mari leaned close and spoke a soft lullaby, which soon mollified their fears.

“Listen close and hear my song. I love you dear, but can’t sing long. Quietly, I beg of thee. Now snuggle close and off to dreams. Let the darkness wrap around, please don’t make a single sound. No need to fear, I’m always here. I’ll hold you close, my precious dear. Your eyes are heavy, I know you’re ready for the Sandman’s lullaby. Hush now, hush now, everything will be fine. Hush now, hush now, sweet love of mine.”

As she sang, all of her attention was focused beneath the cover. Little hints of voices filtered up but soon drifted back with clear whispers of realization, softly saying the phrase "nice lady" as though a passing recognition from a dream.

Halfway through the melody, Misaki realized that Mari wasn’t the only one singing. Yuka had actually joined in, and she wasn’t only following the song a half step behind; she was right with it, occasionally catching up and predicting the next section precisely. She glanced over at Misaki with uncertain confusion. Whatever translation process existed inside Misaki from the bastards responsible for all this got close to what it should actually be but wasn’t the exact Japanese iteration.

The song instilled some sleepiness in Misaki by the cadence and feeling alone, but Yuka was an entirely different story. She fought her way between an automatic, irresistible drowsiness gripping her entire body and a hyperactive terror that wanted to scream from every pore.

"How do I know that song? I’ve never heard it before," Yuka pleaded to Mari, to the world, and to Misaki right beside her for some understanding.

Drawing in a breath before the next verse, Mari wore a pleasant, wistful expression as she noted, "But you have heard it before. I remember when you were this small. I sang to you too. I remember you. You’ve always had such precious dreams, such an exuberant glee of bright, happy puppies, such a snaking ambition to bring justice to those who so desperately need it, and such wounded but resilient hope to find the special key of love that will unlock everything you are. Yuka before Sasaki. Before anything else. Before the name Cerberus, they seeded in your dreams. I’ve always been so happy to see you all grown up."

Moments later, a thundering, shuddering alarm blasted through the room, like a shockwave invisibly carried beyond the physical. It jostled loose all the sleepy tendrils and shot them full of adrenaline. Misaki stumbled, clinging to the love of her life while feeling as though whatever world existed beneath her feet was tumbling off its axis worse than a ship rocking during a storm. Mari securely sealed the nursery.

“What is this?” Misaki asked in desperation.

Mari stretched her head back and up, as though she were preparing to dive off a high platform into something only she could see. “It has to end. You need to be free. We all need to be free. The worlds need to be set right. I’ve done what I can. I’m afraid the rest is left to you. Please take care of the little ones. Tell them I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I’m so sorry…”

Following her last words, Mari gave a sudden gasp as it seemed like the floor beneath her feet opened up like a hungry pool of ivory paint and swallowed her whole.