Yuri Worlds

[97] Trapped

Yasha. Of course. Or Joshua Feland. Either way, the last thing they wanted to see.

As she moved out of the shadows and into the light, it was easy to tell that she was worse for wear since her encounter with Miss Okura. Both of her arms around the elbow had been replaced with prosthetics like articulated mannequin limbs.

"Hello, old goat. You're not supposed to be out in one piece. How badly do I need to punish you for insolence this time?" Misaki knew the horns above Miss Okura's head were more like a ram's and a goat's. Haruka's horns were more goat-like. But clearly, Yasha didn't care about accuracy in her slurs.

Miss Okura sighed and looked bored more than anything. "Do you really think your crude words intimidate anyone?"

"Of course not; they're just for me. My acts speak louder. And I can't wait to show you all that I can do now." A forest of spikes erupted from Yasha's artificial limbs.

Yuka braced herself and swallowed before inspecting her blade limbs and adding serrations to the sides. In addition, they acquired protective shield aspects on the back.

Misaki didn't want her to fight, but she couldn't fight in her place. She didn't want Yuka to have to resort to violence again and again. Misaki had some use in providing a block to what the company was doing, but she felt so frustrated that she couldn't directly protect the girl she loved.

Yasha launched at Yuka, barreling towards her like an out-of-control locomotive on fire. Misaki felt ill at the prospect of them slamming into one another and what would happen to the girl she loved. She may have been immortal, but seeing her in pain still brought suffering.

Fortunately, Yuka had some experience with fights. Haruka was an overwhelming fight. Yasha seemed to attack the same way, but she had no discipline like Yuka's older sister. She just swung wildly with the overconfidence of her weaponry. All Yuka really needed to do was step to the side when Yasha came at her and shoved her off course and into the walls. The others backed away from the crazed assault.

Yasha swung her spiked limbs in all directions, but stepping swiftly on her feet kept Yuka safe.

"Fight me, you wretched cur!"

"I am. Sorry, I don't provide the same fucking entertainment as a helpless little girl all tied up!" Yuka found an opening as Yasha dropped her hands, bashing her in the neck. The healing factor had been restored for new injuries as the bone and gore cleanly knit themselves back together within moments.

"She begged so beautifully. She had no idea it was me. She thought I was her friend. She screamed and pleaded before she cried for her mommy. It was delightful. Delicious. Shame you couldn't watch the whole thing..."

Yuka flared her teeth, and a rumble came from her mouth that sounded more like thunder than any sound a human could make. She slammed Yasha with both arms extended, swiping hard but with concentrated purpose, using the backside like a wrecking ball while cleaving through her flesh from the sides.

Yasha's spikes made it through and ripped at Yuka's robe, but she barely noticed. Her unrelenting, focused fury slammed into the blonde, splattering brain matter through her golden hair. She was a crumpled mass of bone and gore, twisting and turning its way towards restoration. But Yuka wouldn't let her off that easy.

She renewed her strikes, going lower and twisting her torso into an unwound pretzel, detaching her legs. Sweat and exhaustion soon spilled off Yuka, but she still refused to relent. Even once Yasha was a heap of entrails and viscera knit together with broken bones and cleaved organs, Yuka still smashed and splattered her again and again, fighting against the unstoppable tide of healing. Finally, Yuka screamed to the heavens, for herself and no one else, and stepped back from the mess, shaking the remnants loose as best she could.

With sickening speed, Yasha stood before them once again, with not even a scratch on her. However, there was a crack in her left prosthetic. The spike-wielding segment moved slower than its counterpart and didn't settle into a level position. Yuka bowed her head as Miss Okura looked on in pride. The entire group lamented that they couldn't fight in her place.

Naoko and others explained for the Sasaki moms, touching only upon the fact that Okura Mahara was dead, murdered by this crazed foreigner. If a look from Kei and Fuyuki could do actual harm, then Yuka's pummeling efforts would have been nothing compared to the absolute destruction the two moms brought upon the vile killer. Namiko loomed with brutal anger and wanted to find an opening to help Yuka, but it was just too dangerous.

Physically bashing Yasha again remained an option for Yuka, but it didn't look like she had the strength for many more rounds. She may have been made of a morphing, living ferrofluid essence, but the limitations of human energy still remained, Misaki surmised. And she had another thought.

Inspired by what she was able to do with her dark fuzz essence to protect the others, Misaki wondered if a version of that might be possible for Yuka.

After a few more rounds of beatdowns, Yuka pulled back and instead did her best to temporarily cripple Yasha while also making progress on her increasingly battered prostheses. As Yuka retreated to regroup and catch her breath, Misaki whispered the idea to her.

Chika and others endeavored to especially protect and comfort the Sasaki moms from the rotating fight carried out on the side of the hallway. Miss Okura also received attention. Ayame attempted to learn everything that had happened since she was last conscious while also passing along mentions of her spirit being like a crystal that she could tune to receive and refine the vibrations and feelings of others to treat them medically and spiritually. She deduced she had been used as a transceiver of communications from and for this company.

Kosame again supported and guided her younger sister Bianka as she furiously focused with her eyes still shut to come up with something that could help Yuka in her fight. But, hopefully, Misaki had already found it. She stepped back from Yuka before Yasha attempted to make a renewed strike towards them. It missed badly.

Immensely frustrated, Yasha pressed her artificial arms against one another, as though crudely trying to fix a pair of loose gloves. Yuka pressed one of the serrated edges against her own flesh and gently peeled off a piece of herself. A tiny hunk that looked like living black coal settled gently into her hand, not dipping through the flesh to return to where it was supposed to be but just sitting apart as she restored her hand and heaved it at Yasha like a stone.

The projectile sailed through her throat and created violent turbulence, like a chemical reaction bubbling through her disorganizing flesh. Furiously, Yasha struggled with her awkward, cracked artificial limbs to pry it out, but the spikes did more damage than she could heal. Sweat poured over her flesh as she struggled to keep her head balanced and stable.

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Yuka advanced, looking for a wedge point on the prostheses, as Yasha tumbled to her knees. When she got close, the blonde whimpered and begged, "Friends! Help! I need help! I gave my fortune to the cause! Come to my aid!" She again brought her arms up to protect her face, as she did when Miss Okura attacked. The old woman narrowed her eyes in anger and looked like she wished she had a renewed burst of energy to slice some more of the fiend.

Though Yuka didn't take a step back, she hesitated in her next one. A sense of mercy that Yasha would never answer in kind. Moments later, a puff of chill air passed around and through them, like a bitter ghost. It was followed by Haruka dropping through the ceiling next to Yasha. She had a pair of sun-bright blades with a lacing grip in each arm, they looked like molten katanas pulled from a forge moments ago.

Her mothers gasped and flooded her with questions. Haruka clenched her jaw and refused to look at them or her biological grandmother. Yuka shook her head and bared her teeth with a wad of spit held close in her cheek.

"Oh good. They sent you. Please finish her off for me." Yasha cackled.

Haruka slowly rose from the brace position she'd dropped into. She held her swords high and gazed sharply at Yuka. Misaki nervously squeezed her hands against her mouth. She remembered what Haruka had said in her memory. But it didn't have to mean anything. She wished that the damn girl would stop standing on the side of the bad guys for once! She wished that she could do more to protect the girl she loved, even though she had so many powers beyond her comprehension. She was so powerless in this moment, and she could barely look to see what came next.

After a long pause, Haruka announced, "Stand down. I am under orders to remove you."

Yasha got to her feet with a twisted smile curling her lips. "Do more than that. Slice her up a little, even if we can't kill her."

A quiet moment passed before Haruka turned to face Yasha. She tipped her blades up and told her, "I'm talking to you...murderer."

"What? What kind of nonsense are you speaking? Have you forgotten who is in charge, who your Goddesses are?" Yasha stumbled, hissed, and wiggled her prosthetics around in bitter fury. Miss Okura smiled behind her hand.

Haruka maintained her position and gestured the tip of a single sword towards the ceiling.

The voice of the company politely cleared its throat and spoke with anonymous clarity, neither young nor old. "Joshy. Hey. Listen. We just want you to know that we deeply appreciate the time and money you've invested in our mutual causes. Your presence and influence have been invaluable in allowing us to advance our objectives. Unfortunately, every professional and personal relationship reaches a point where it needs to be reevaluated. Your attitude, your preoccupations, and your problematic actions recently and throughout the years have caused us to decide that we're going in a different direction. One that doesn't include you. This is goodbye, not good luck, but we did have some fun times. Our representative will see you out."

Yasha remained silent, stewing, fuming, and absorbing that explanation before bursting out, "YOU FUCKING SISSY WEEB PERVERTS! How fucking dare you! I will rain unholy fury upon each of you fucks! I will burn your so-called kingdom to the motherfucking ground! Fuck whatever immortality! I'll watch you fucking die!"

"Always a pleasure, Josh", was the last thing said from above before the communication crackled and went silent.

Panting with unspoken words she still wanted to say, Yasha looked like a trapped lion with broken legs and no teeth, surrounded by advancing hyenas. The ripples from the dark fragment had quieted down to a low vibration in Yasha's flesh.

It still seemed to bother her like a tuning fork pressed against her head, but she continued to speak. "Did you hear that? They deserve the worst. And I can deliver it. I will hunt them down. You don't know them like I do. You don't know where they come from or what they're like. Human, yes, but far too clever. I should've known they would betray me. I'm inconvenient. And now we're on the same side and want the same things."

Haruka leveled a blade right at Yasha's cheek and pronounced, "We are not on the same side, now or ever. Follow me to the exit. You will be returned to your world of origin. You will have no more dealings with the company. If you resist, I may choose which parts don't need to make the trip with you. Do you understand my meaning?"

Yuka extended her dark blade towards Yasha and pressed, "You can't just let this monster go. No matter what mistress you serve."

Haruka leaned her head and finally looked at Fuyuki and Kei, even though she spoke to Yuka. "I have obligations that I cannot break. No matter how much I want. She is a husk now; she is nothing. She's not worth the time or pain. Let it be her fate to be small and vanish to nothing." Yuka scowled and shook her head, but she turned away from Yasha. Misaki begged Yuka to look at her, but Yuka just looked away.

Yasha bowed her head and agreed to all the things she was supposed to do. She looked so contrite. What the others didn't see in time, but Haruka kept her eye on, was a small grenade-like device tucked in the elbow of Yasha's right arm prosthetic. Before she could chuck it at the group, so that Yuka and Misaki would have to watch more death, Haruka casually extended a blade shaped like one of Yuka's shields as a scoop and shoved the live grenade deep into Yasha's stomach.

Haruka said softly, "For her..."

The stunned blonde didn't have a moment to speak or scream as the contained explosion rocketed underneath her skin like crimson water in the form of animated ground beef. She looked more like a sculpture trapped in horror with jerky claymation. The blackness of the Yuka shard flashed through her system like a bloodstream flow of corrupting ink, attacking her wild efforts to restore her body to a human shape.

Like an impossible, perpetual motion machine, all the forces within tried to bring her back to her normal shape. The violent spasms, twists, and shakes just accelerated till she was practically frozen in place, like a preserved Pompeii victim made of silently screaming flesh. Misaki did not envy her that fate and hoped it would remain for as long as possible. But she still had to look away, along with several others in the group, especially the Sasaki moms. Naoko looked like she was close to vomiting, and Chika seemed especially queasy as well. The old lady breathed a sigh of relief and said a quiet prayer for those who couldn't be here.

Soon, a translucent, almost gel-like cube dropped from the ceiling, just as Haruka had, and captured what remained of Yasha like a specimen on a slide. The ground beneath Haruka's feet started to become porous and turbulent. She folded her arms like a corpse in a coffin but gave one last glance at her adopted mothers, her real grandmother, and the girl who desperately wanted to be called her sister. Haruka said nothing as she and the preserved Yasha fell away.