Yuri Worlds
[85] Chaos
”NO NO NO NO MORE! NO MORE! STOP!”
Yuka burst out screaming the moment Mari disappeared through the floor. Misaki felt like she too had dropped an imperceptible yet terrifying distance despite still standing. The blank, white ground beneath her feet suddenly seemed like a predatory illusion that could swallow them up too in an instant of fickle hunger. Yuka swiftly swooped towards Misaki and wrapped both arms around her yukata-draped midsection.
The hold was secure but also squeezed her barely recovering tummy so tightly that only shallow breaths were possible. She didn’t even have enough breath to communicate to the girl she loved that this was not going to work. Fortunately, Yuka was able to notice enough of her frantic expression to ease up on the death grip.
After what happened to Mari, an eerie calm settled over the space, as though a great beast had temporarily been satiated by her sacrifice. Yuka panted as though she’d just gotten done with a full-on sprint. She checked on Misaki, who reassured her that she was fine for the moment. Although ‘fine’ was not the appropriate word, she scolded herself. Everything was very much not fine.
A relative silence was slowly and ominously broken by what sounded at first like rattling from something gently and then more vigorously rotating, like an accidentally kicked trashcan wobbling with a bottom-heavy top or a coin coming to rest. But instead of that sound slowing down, it was instead swiftly winding up with an angry engine driving its barely contained chaos.
Looking around nervously, both girls wondered if there was any place in the room that might offer some measure of safety against whatever hell was about to be unleashed upon them. The rounded nature of so many features and furniture reduced the options for a confident grip.
The covers for the nurseries had the sense of an empty car backup light from decades ago. More likely for them to be run over than provided protection. The walls had no obvious grips or holds to use, and the door they initially entered through long ago receded into a seamless space when they weren’t looking. And nothing remained to tell where Mari came in either.
Yuka’s best thought at that moment involved either grabbing as much table as they could as an anchor or using one or both of their abilities to cling to whatever space looked the most consistent, like an old, dirty wad of gum. Neither seemed like a great idea.
Before they could choose, gravity lurched sideways and upward like a monstrous toddler seized the room to play with like an inter-dimensional toy block. The covers on the nurseries secured them from shifting.
The floor and immediate tables felt like they’d been greased up with an invisible and intangible lubricant. Trying to get a handhold was impossible. Even Yuka, digging in with her black form, couldn’t gain purchase. Grinding her teeth and hanging on to Misaki, Yuka pressed the contours along the base of one of the tables.
Where the blackness touched, its ivory shape caved beneath her contact, as though it were butter blasted in a steaming pan. Yuka gaped in shock at the damage she was able to do with just a touch.
She’d erased it. That triggered an uncertain but persistent recollection in Misaki. In her strange assortment of visions and dreams that had plagued her ever since she arrived here. It felt so familiar. Dark little girls and sad accidents.
Instead of providing a grip, the destruction made the entire lower structure of the table behave like trying to squeeze a coconut cookie instead of a rope. It was breaking up, and they could both see that the nurseries above were wobbling and shifting towards tumbling.
Yuka refused to dig in further and endanger the little ones. She wrapped as much of herself as possible around Misaki. The close contact brought more wooziness to Misaki’s sense of self. Another reckless shift in gravity slid them around the edge of the table and across the glossy floor.
Before they reached the opposite wall, features of the nearby one twisted and contorted to meet them like Abba Zaba taffy yanked by invisible hands. Yuka attempted to plant some licorice-toned aspects of her form to arrest their drop but immediately recoiled when trying to dig in. It burned like trying to touch a bare coil on an old stove as Misaki experienced a pronounced echo of Yuka’s pain as if it were her own.
With reckless disregard for her own well-being, Misaki attempted the same with her little puff cloud of blackness. The fact that the internal lattice didn’t just erupt in the flames or at least tangle like old glue rubbed between palms seemed less about any strength she had than whatever was doing this not wanting to bother attacking. Misaki withdrew her assault before it decided to change its mind.
Yuka made one last, desperate effort to twist herself into a traditional, braided rope like the one Yasha knitted with broken promises. Misaki wondered and hoped that somewhere in deep and quiet traditions, the worst kind of recompense existed for everything Yasha had done.
She prayed that Maharu truly found peace and that what she glimpsed at the edge of the clearing wasn’t just another nasty game played by forces she didn’t comprehend. If she and Yuka were to join her in just a moment, eaten by white acid, then she hoped that Maharu had plenty of fun games in mind to greet them with. She promised, with all her heart, to give her a challenge.
If only Misaki had more time for the depth of thoughts she wanted to share inside herself and scream to the world. If only she were afforded a frozen eternity to give Yuka or Ceri or Cerberus, or whoever she wanted to be by name and heart without the influence of others to impress upon her destiny, the love she truly deserved for a thousand years and beyond. If only… But all she could do was rest her head against the girl she wanted to be her wife ever after, to be the wife of, and to share the emotion of a kiss, if not the physical reality of it.
When they should’ve made contact with the wall now beneath her feet, a narrow, round hole opened up in the structure, looking like a practically invisible, lightly creased sphincter. It was like a slide. Misaki knew she should’ve been terrified by the rapid drop into unknown, blank oblivion, but it actually had a strange, breathless sense of exhilaration.
Sure, they were likely going to splat like a skydiver without a parachute, but if these were to be her last moments, then she sure as hell wasn’t going to give whoever was responsible the satisfaction of her fear. Blatantly yelling, “Weeeeee…” probably would’ve been too much.
“Weeeeee…”
Not that it stopped her from doing it. Yuka was immediately confused and alarmed, worried that something was wrong with her partner, but soon decoded the yell as more happiness than terror. Obviously, terror was still there, but Misaki didn’t want to give it more notice than it deserved.
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Her stomach was still wrecked and clearly not happy, but the exhilaration smoothed away all the discomfort, along with being held by the most amazing, beautiful person she could ever imagine. Finally, she managed to grab that loving kiss with all the fervor and joy she had inside spreading across her lips.
Go out with a bang, a splat, a boom, and all sorts of other noises she would probably never even hear because they would both practically be melted plasma by that point, fused together forever and perhaps exploding like the birth of a new star, to rip through the evil of this place and deposit the little ones somewhere safe. That was a nice thought and worth leaving this realm of reality with for whatever came next.
Yuka held the kiss without panic or fear, relaxing into Misaki while squeezing her insistently and with measured balance so her tender points wouldn’t hurt. Around her embrace, Yuka echoed the same soaring sentiment of unbridled glee to wipe away the tears both shed and held within.
Even though she barely touched that loaded, guilty gift from her aunt, who she had no idea was even real anymore, Misaki remembered a line that likely wasn’t even translated in that version this way.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain… for the former things have passed away…[Revelation 21:4]
It was probably cited in a movie that she saw once but couldn’t remember. Some version of her aunt would be deeply irritated by that. God. Goddess. Well, she would find out soon enough. Yuka deserved more. She deserved to live her forever name, whatever she resolved it to be, free of the bullshit trying to dig its way into them.
Misaki felt a strange rush of unreality tingle in her fingers. Her limbs felt intensely weightless, yet they were tugged and contorted by dizzying forces. It wasn’t pleasant, but there wasn't much she could do about it.
Her body felt like a shell at the breaking point, but she wasn’t sure if that meant she was actually a bird about to hatch or a delicate sculpture set to shatter. Her blood flow, depending on whether the black web within had the wherewithal to keep it regulated in a moment of panic like this, was probably screaming in all directions and pooling where it wasn’t supposed to be.
Misaki expected a multitude of terrible things to happen at any moment. But what she definitely didn’t expect was to hear a faint noise like a stuck switch being flipped, followed by an immediate change in setting. To her horror, she realized she was alone, without the reassuring presence of Yuka anywhere.
Another level of torture. Bring it on, fuckers.
“Just have a seat on this side of the table. Would you like any refreshments? I’m afraid we just have the off-brand stuff right now. And you’re welcome to drink as much water as you want.”
The voice had a terse, focused presence, expedient, and unmistakably masculine. She hadn’t heard a man’s voice in what felt like so long that she had to remind herself that her own, normal voice shared several similar qualities. Franklin’s was more reserved, struggling to shape the kind of determination that flowed easily from the speaker within the darkness.
There was another voice, though, and this voice was instantly recognizable to Misaki.
"Weird thought, but this kind of feels like a setup for an interrogation. Should I have a lawyer? I’m just here because I was offered a trip through an advertising firm for me and two guests. Travel Anywhere’s legal department can just email me the details, and if there are any further issues or complications, we can work them out over the phone. I don’t want this to run long; if I can avoid it, I have a busy streaming schedule today especially."
Chika. No, Guy. Her regular boyish voice had an irritated edge without any hints of Gal. It was eerie and fascinating to hear. The edges of her words were clipped and sharpened, the playful femininity she wielded for friends and audiences excised. For a certain stretch in high school, Guy attempted to give the impression that he was a rough-and-tumble boy with boisterous energy.
It failed comically and catastrophically, and it was the first firm sign that entertaining others with a mix of exaggeration and earnestness could actually be something to explore further and develop better. Misaki‘s heart broke to hear her friend, her little sister, relegated to that cruel, bitter box of blunted color and grounded spirit.
Where was Yuka? Who was doing this to Chika and why? What was going on? Where the hell was she? And why couldn’t she move or see anything?
No voice came when she attempted to scream, or even the slightest sense of air passing against her lips. She was contained within something. It felt like a rounded, curved prison without any edges for her to grab, like the chute they had been falling through had darkened to midnight. Paralysis struck her, but she didn’t feel bound or tingly. The void surrounded her in all directions, even within.
She had no warning when the stifling, dark vessel suddenly shifted in place and rattled about with a whirlwind of vertigo. When she came to rest, it was with a prodding sense of elevation, as if some immense contraption had hoisted her higher and deposited her on a platform. A series of echoing clicks and shifts came in all directions before a blast of blinding fluorescent light overwhelmed her senses.
"What is that? Do I have to take some sort of luggage with me? I’m fine with most obligations for something free, and I’m grateful you’d even consider me, but I’d like to know upfront exactly what the fine print, provisos, and qualifications entail. I’m also not keen on this whole range of digital scans for AI generation that are in vogue right now. Just putting that up front. As an entertainer, my digital signature has value that I refuse to sign away."
An immense gray table spread out before her as though her head had been planted atop it like an errant bowling ball. White, sterile walls loomed in all directions like a cavernous, blank cathedral. And there was a Guy. He was huge, stretched, and distorted from her awkward position. She assessed the clothes he had on. The theme was strictly Mario Kart.
Chika hadn’t brought that outfit with her on this trip. Misaki knew that her friend greatly valued it, considered it deeply nostalgic and delightful that it still fit after so many years, and had last worn it weeks ago for a charity event right before her announcement about the trip. In fact, she was fairly confident that Guy specifically wore this exact outfit the day she went to talk to Travel Anywhere about their offer in the first place.
Could this be?… No way… Could this be the day the meeting actually happened? Had she somehow traveled back in time?