Yuri Worlds
[89] Distant
"Don’t fucking count on it…" Yuka hissed. Haruka swiftly dashed forward, her hands reaching out. Yuka set her feet and steeled her gaze.
“Hold…” Maharu spoke casually with her hand raised. Haruka paused inches in front of Yuka with one of her tubes of light flanking her hand and her blue nails eager to scratch her younger, adopted sister. Misaki shook her head. How the hell had they come to this after everything in the last week?
Yuka flared her teeth and spat, "Demon in white, smugly serving evil. You’re right. You’re not my sister. You never were..."
Haruka had the frozen, harsh expression of roughly carved marble. Misaki thought she might’ve glimpsed a glimmer of pain around Haruka‘s eyes. No matter what she said about being in control because of the wristbands she wore, which Misaki knew were there even though she couldn’t see them, she had questions. The older sister seemed like she could’ve done so much more in the forest. It seemed like she let them get away, even though the easy explanation was that this was the plan—to recapture them later.
She told them to run, traced in blood, and then there was an explosion, which somehow shut off Joshua‘s power. The fact that she was so swift and yet didn’t even attempt to go after them had to mean something. Even if it was a fruitless, delusional thought to pursue.
We’re all in danger. That’s what she told her. And a bunch of other little vague statements and allusions to her sister. Only she meant Maharu.
All her love for Yuka was a performance, just a role she had to play. Misaki wished that the leg of the girl she loved could give her powers to challenge the supernova-brutal, bashing light of that ivory devil. But even if she could channel more than dirty cotton fuzz, she didn’t think she could wield it in anger. It was to be protected.
Maharu brushed her hair back with her hands, tossing it over her shoulders and planting her arms on the sides of her chair. “Rather rude there. You leave me tempted… all right. Haruka? You can have a little fun.“
Immediately, the sister in white pounced from her frozen position, punching a fist in Yuka’s stomach and bringing the other around to smash her arm. Yuka gurgled and choked with a screeching struggle to take a breath as her arm ripped back like Stretch Armstrong black taffy. Awash with unnatural shades, Yuka focused on her other arm and spread the same familiar shield she used before.
Before that shield could come around to block Haruka‘s blows, the elder sister dug her molten light tubes into that arm like ragged glass. The structure of the shield crumpled and crunched like an overcooked potato chip instead of an obsidian bulkhead. Yuka's screams pitched up so much that they practically became silent with the teapot flash of pain. She didn’t have the strength to make them louder.
Misaki struggled up from her chair, but she wasn’t able to rise to her feet, staggering and slipping back down. Across the table, Maharu slowly wagged a finger and shook her head.
The swing around threw Yuka off balance, but she went with it, making a single spin in place before she was able to get the leverage to elbow her sister away. Misaki wanted her to plant a tripping leg down, but Yuka resisted that urge. Haruka did plunge to the floor but went into a roll and brought herself around with a leg kick against the wall.
With both arms summoned into shield shapes, Yuka did her best to block Haruka, pressing her into a rigid hug that avoided the tightness of a vice. Softly, she whispered, “Please, sis…stop…”
Those words only served to push Haruka to redouble her slicing fury. They swirled around, locked together, pivoting around the snack setup, and sliding over the mess Yuka made. Haruka slammed down on Yuka’s limbs to break free. The tangled roots ripped off and plunged to the floor in twisting, oily puddles. Winding up, Haruka stretched to her full height, augmented by a spread of gossamer feathery wings unfurling at her shoulders, about to flap and take flight.
Instead of doing that, the wings curved and hastened a swoop, with her bringing the molten strands around into a thin, blinding sword that passed through Yuka‘s neck to the other side.
“NOOOOOOO!!!” Misaki screamed with a pain and anguish she never knew she could summon. No matter how empty and cavernous this blinding prison was, her painful scream filled it to the brim, past all ragged efforts at words, past any moment beyond this.
Yuka’s head spilled out behind her, and her body flopped to the ground like an old doll discarded by a bored child. She couldn’t believe it. It was impossible. She had to be dreaming. She had to be. This had to be some horrible torture beamed into her brain, like the wretched memory she couldn’t change.
She fell out of her chair and struggled for her feet. This time, no force tried to stop her, and no wannabe goddess scolded her. She wanted her eyes both wide open and squeezed shut. She had to see, but she couldn’t. Scrambling and crawling across the remnants of so much once-delicious food, Misaki dragged herself to be with Yuka. She was still moving.
More than that, the mass of erupting tendrils that once constituted her head fumbled and scrambled, reaching for her familiar shoulders. Gingerly, uncertain, and still terrified, Misaki guided them back where they were supposed to go. Cautiously, like an army of those little girls slowly nurtured upon a table, the swarm returned to where they had been cut and bound back with the flesh. Soon after, the puddles of Yuka’s arms found where they were supposed to go as well.
Misaki didn’t dare do much more than carefully gasp a few breaths as she cradled Yuka’s torn and tired shape while it knit back together. When she returned to human form without any marks, wounds, or other signs of injury, Yuka took a deep, echoing breath as though it were the first she’d ever taken. Wheezing coughs, flush red colors across her cheeks, and scrambling confusion followed Yuka until she saw that Misaki was holding her. She relaxed and squeezed her partner’s hands tight.
Looking up, Misaki saw that Haruka was turned away with her arms folded tightly. If only she could fight.
“Got it out of your system? I hope that was fun. Like I said, Cerberus, you are immortal. You can’t die. And you’re the home for even deeper paths to immortality. All of that’s almost ready. We’ll have to do an examination to know better and go about extracting and replicating it for ourselves. In the meantime, rest. Big day tomorrow. And, once again, congratulations. You made it, and you’re everything we could’ve hoped for.”
Standing up from her chair, Maharu walked a few paces and gave her boobs a series of needful squeezes before running both hands down her body and seeking out certain spots before taking a breath and giving a single wave to the others. An instant later, Maharu’s body crumpled to the floor like a puppet with all of its strings snapped. Different workers in white pixelated their way through sections of the wall and retrieved the fallen, lifeless body.
Haruka ordered them up. Yuka looked over at the sister she once regarded with gleeful love and awed respect. Misaki suspected that the faint manipulations Yuka made about her mouth were an effort to summon up something to spit at the bitch. Eventually, she just swallowed and leaned towards Misaki as though all the energy she could bring to bear had been sliced off with her parts and it wasn’t going to come back.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Sternly focused on them, Haruka added, glancing from Yuka to Misaki, “You may not be able to die. But she can. A lot of girls can. And they can hurt all the while before they expire. The Goddess can bring suffering you can’t even imagine. So, get up.”
Misaki squeezed her hands into a fist. She didn’t try to do more than that, as she brought her arms rigid and endeavored to keep her presence separate from Yuka as they remained close and touching. Working together, pushing isometrically with a few wiggles, they rose to their feet and staggered just a step in Haruka‘s direction. When Haruka started to walk, they followed a few paces behind.
Reaching the wall made both of them flinch with the anticipation of pain, but its presence softly parted like smoke. Hallways spread out before them in straight but also rounded ways. The looping curves in her memory shared with Yuka’s leg emerged in a dozen different branches and corridors leading off in unknown directions. This was the same space, a hazy laboratory for the torture of beings so different and yet so desperately human. All…for an ideal that sounded like such bullshit.
Haruka was there though. She was on the floor, sprawled out, practically in a fetal position. And then they grabbed her and cleaved Yuka’s leg off. Why was Haruka there? Was she just a way to get Yuka’s attention diverted so that the team with weapons and the electrical containment junk could trap her and do what they wanted to do?
Was she playing dead? Was she a complete and total phony? Misaki wanted to heave this accusation at her, but she held the memory inside her head and pressed for every single detail. Every part of the recollection with Guy was so vivid, but this part felt so fast and blurred that it was hard to see the exact details.
There had to be more; there had to be something that she may have missed, something important. Looking at it again, without the preconceptions and distortions of a dream state, it was easy to understand that Yuka was a fledgling human, made more of confused branches and black, bird-like feet. She killed scientists.
The blood didn’t matter; the pain and burning just weren’t strong enough of a deterrent. Even their electrical restraints didn’t do much. She plowed through them; she cleaved them into pieces without spilling a single drop of blood. The flesh dashed away like a magical, nightmare eraser.
The wild screams of a worker in white as she held the missing stumps of her arms went silent a moment later when her upper torso was also gone. So many times, so many people. She had to do it because they wouldn’t get out of her way, because they were trying to hurt her and stop her.
Extraction complete. They tunneled into her, pulling out a large sample. It was like her soul was dragged out with it. She had to get free.
Run run run… Everything was clouded, like she was half anesthetized. And then there was Haruka. Oh, Goddess, what had they done to her? Her big sister, her beloved big sister, who held her close on the scary nights when the thunder crashed, and darkness reigned. She was her light. She loved her mommies, but she and her big sister were together for one another, now and forever.
Misaki thought about that. She thought about the little melodies that trickled into her mind from the fragment of Yuka dwelling within her. There was something there, something true; it had to be. No way it was just a performance to play out their roles. But those bits were desperately weak, hazier than anything else. She could tease out moments and feelings, but they were overwhelmed by the clash of her own multiple memories and emotions, like a storm battering a delicate plant.
More, there had to be more; there had to be something. She focused on that last moment before she was cut loose from Yuka, a clashing instant of chaos as they swarmed her. Yuka was so lost in confusion and fear, but she caught a glimpse of Haruka. Misaki zeroed in on that; she clung to it like every sliver of her consciousness was aimed at recording that jostling fragment, video stabilized, noise cleaned up, and every detail scrutinized.
Before it went black, Haruka opened her eyes the faintest sliver and looked out softly. She mouthed something across the way, blurry on top of blurry. So frustrating. Misaki rewound the moment; she played it again and again until the tape heads were practically worn out. More clarity!
The moment focused, and, with all her will, she watched Haruka mouth words meant only for Yuka. She struggled to read her lips. In anime form, it should’ve been a little easier. But it was also in Japanese. She understood the translation of the other things, but this was a physical motion; it wasn’t said. It apparently didn’t trip the translation, or however that worked. Damn!
Yuka had to know, though, and she was Yuka, at least a little bit. She may not have caught it, but she had to know what she said! Again, try again, and focus harder!
This deep internal dive fluttered as Misaki noticed they were coming to the end of the corridor Haruka was leading them through. She didn’t have much time left. If this meant something and she could pass it on to Haruka… But what if it was just “Gotcha sucker! Rot in hell!” Well, at least saying that could also be satisfying.
Holding on to the frozen moment as slowly as possible, she went by each faint motion. Anime nights with Guy and Dwight actually paid off, as certain words were familiar beyond the subtitles and lip flaps.
“I.. I’m-I’m-I’m… so very sorry.…”
No, it was deeper than that.
“What I did and am going to do are inexcusable. Please forgive me, my dear little sister. I love you with every fiber of my being, as if we were true sisters.”
Emotion poured out of her in words that felt like more than any Japanese person would ever wield in any situation in their entire life, especially towards a family member. Love was often shown through action and subtle ways between girls, rather than boisterous words. The way that Haruka expressed all that, when she was otherwise so carefully reserved, felt like she had thrown herself to the floor with her face touching the ground and tears flowing over her eyes as she begged for forgiveness.
It was something. Even if she didn’t mean it anymore, even if she was reading it all wrong. It had to be something.
Haruka opened up a small chamber about a third the size of the last one they’d been kept in. Opening an unseen cabinet, she retrieved long, blocky restraints, which she roughly shoved around Yuka’s arms after binding them behind her. The threshold of the space she intended to put them in crackled, like the air before a thunderstorm. Yuka went first with a rough shove. For Misaki, she allowed the courtesy of a gesture towards the opening and an arm extended with brilliant tubes.
Taking a deep breath, Misaki held the precise memory in her head and traced her mouth around each and every word. Again and again, she recited it without speaking, focusing on Haruka‘s hauntingly bright eyes. And there, for just a moment, something slipped away, and mournful kindness filled it. For a flash, Haruka didn’t look like some otherworldly avenging evil angel with the horns of a demon and the light of destruction; she looked like a scared little teenage girl, lost and alone.
When the moment passed, Haruka angrily shoved Misaki head-over-heels into confinement as the threshold crackled with arcs of gold and blue light. She stormed off without saying anything else.