Yuri Worlds

[99] Burst

Chaos didn't take long to erupt in every camera view. Some sections of the futuristic-looking structure simply dissolved like ice under too much heat. Other areas crumpled and cracked like whale baleen. And quite a few were trashed and smashed, like simple sets that were ornately decorated and easily destroyed. Fire, with improvised incendiaries, licked the once-magical contours of the space like it was less than plastic stuffing.

"Wow..." Chika spoke aloud, and everyone else echoed the same stunned sentiment. Even Yuka was without words, despite all she had just said to strike the necessary spark of rebellion.

Kei looked to her wife, who wore a clear measure of pride about Shimai. They had each been scrutinizing the girl with hair that didn't come close to resembling theirs. She didn't have a wireless connection with either of them or anyone else, just because a little piece of what was once her was being used as a block for thought invasions.

Their moods and presences reminded Misaki of an engine struggling to start up. She could recognize fragments of their usual affection for their daughter when she arrived home. It was like they had a sense of what was supposed to happen, but the triggers and connections had been severed, leaving them with nagging sensations, like almost recognizing a familiar book while not being able to place what it meant. She would do everything in her meager power to make sure they remembered her daughter. Exactly how she would accomplish that was the problem.

Yuka checked on her moms, quietly basking in the radiance of their pride. The imagery on the screens occasionally shifted to other cameras. The escapees swarmed the workers, with some not getting up afterward. Occasionally, these confrontations turned into pitched battles, with both sides dropping girls. Yuka laid an arm across her head and grimaced when she noticed these scenes.

Bianka tried to investigate the authenticity of the footage, but the effort was soon rendered moot as the conflict reached their level of the facility. Girls in torn, light, and scavenged clothes wielded all sorts of items from walls and cabinets to use against their captors. The spaces soon lost their absolute whiteness. Many of the girls hurried ahead to places unknown, chasing intangible exits.

Plenty of conflicts occurred in Misaki's world to show the less romantic side of a revolution against authority. This world wasn't filled with bloodless coups, peaceful wars, and gentle protests. Yuka and the others had to come to the quiet consensus that some things were painfully messy. They did their best to guide the girls that rushed by toward safety and away from violence. Some actually flailed fearfully at the group, but Yuka only needed to pull out her obsidian blades and wiggle them around to scare them off.

"We better get going. The battle has reached its peak. Some of them are going in the right direction, but I found escape routes. We can get everyone back to where they need to be. And the travelers can return to their world too, I think."

Home, their home. Misaki wasn't sure if she wanted to take that exit. She stood with Yuka and the others. One of the things they had mentioned in passing was the revelation that Melting was a lie, at least as far as Mari had confirmed it as a scarcity ploy. Chika and Namiko also fussed and floundered with a myriad of conflicting emotions about heading back to their world.

Leaving the others and those they cared about didn't feel like an option, but the prospects before were mired in the uncertainty of fighting through bureaucracy to get another ticket out. Now, that uncertainty was whether the battle would spill across the boundary, what would happen to their Earth, and whether the company would shut down the technology and escape the conflict zone. So many unknowns.

"I found the mass. That missing mass and where they keep it. Marked as a reservoir. A life reservoir. Probably what they supplied Yasha with to keep her from dying. It's distilled. Not the entire thing, but they have it kept down here, up here, or wherever here is. That part isn't clear. But it belongs to the world of Misaki, Chika, and Nami. And partially to us as well. Like holding back the water, to see what dries out. At least as I understand it… Which is not very well." Bianka cradled the interface and carefully peaked open a sliver of her eye before returning her attention to the device.

Yuka nodded. "We have to send it back where it belongs. Reverse the damage they've done as much as possible. I don't know how we can mend the foundational destruction, but returning what was taken should be a start. Bianka? Can you get everyone back to where we need to be in Akechi?"

Bianka tilted her head like she saw an invisible typewriter playing out a message. "It's difficult, but whatever blocks there were that confused my directions have been taken down. I can direct everyone back home. And I can get our guests back to their homes. Although I don't know what will happen if we release the reservoir. There are a lot of big, red, angry warnings in the system telling me not to mess with it, and these I don't think are bluffs or manipulation. This stuff is like pure, distilled human sunbeams. I don't know what it's going to do."

Yuka acknowledged her friend but also reminded her that they were trying to do as much damage as possible to these bad guys. Bianka pointed out that breaking something like a nuclear reactor without knowing the consequences might do more harm to them instead. That gave Yuka pause. Misaki wondered if they should be careful when they reached the reservoir.

They looked to the old woman, but she admitted that exact knowledge in this sphere was beyond her. Namiko and Chika looked pained with uncertainty about so many things, but they pointed out that if the company took this from their world, their memories, their lives, and what used to be their happiness, then they had to do something about it.

The Sasaki moms seemed especially uncomfortable with the outpourings of violence but urged that Ceri's heart was in the right place. They hoped that their daughter Haruka was safe, no matter what, and that whatever mind-warping she had undergone would soon be alleviated. Yuka encouraged this sentiment while restraining the flood of emotions beneath her careful expression.

Naoko led the pack through the pale wilds with Bianka as her blind guide. Ayame shared a thoughtful, tender hug with Yuka and Misaki, a blessing hug that she knew their mothers and intended mother-in-laws truly wanted to give them but didn't know they should. Whenever it looked like the angry girls they unleashed might hit them with friendly fire, intimidation from whatever Yuka could bring forth was enough to keep them at bay.

Getting to the exit point was actually not terribly difficult; several doors were already open in that direction, and girls were spilling out practically from everywhere. They just went with the most passive crowd and followed them. The way out did indeed resemble the way they got in, with a simulation-like cut of white joined seamlessly with active cityscapes, foreign locales, forests spilling with girls, and rural climates like home. Bianka led them to one of the quieter pathways, with the shrine almost as they had left it but with tipped-over booths, scattered decorations, tumbled seats, and a morning sky.

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Stepping through to the other side was as easy as leaving through an open door. A couple of the girls scouted ahead and confirmed that it wasn't a trick and that they could see all the familiar landmarks. The only ones who lingered behind were Bianka, Kosame, Yuka, and the three travelers. Bianka was needed to guide them the rest of the way to the reservoir, and her big sister was needed to guide her. Doubt lingered like a rough sketch on a wall about whether breaching the reservoir would be the final nail for the company or do more harm than good. But not taking this final step could cost them a chance to set things right.

Ayame shared one last, kind gesture for those who stayed behind. The Sasaki moms lingered as though every warning call in their intuitions was blaring and they just couldn't hear them. For Kei, this left her especially uncertain. Fighting with themselves, Kei finally made the decision to grab her wife and circle back quickly.

They grabbed the strange girl, Cerberus, and wrapped her in a hug that felt too emphatic and close for any hug they should give someone they just met. But she was this young, scared teenager who had struggled to get them out of here and bring them back home. She deserved it.

Neither of them understood, but they shared in that hug all the same and included the girl's close friend, Misaki, in that comfort. They showed relief to see that stressed young girl lose some of her tension with their support. Miss Okura bowed her head and offered simple, final words of encouragement.

Naoko split her fingers in a familiar, fictional alien gesture, and Misaki wondered if she was going to pull out a common, quirky, or rare quote from the series and characters they each knew so well. Rather than that, Naoko simply stated, "Send them to Hell for all of us." Each side of the group expressed hope that they would be reunited again soon and hurried off.

With just their small group, their pace was much quicker. Yuka took opportunities to scoop them up like she was a massive black bat that could hover along the ground. Kosame screamed at first but eventually got into it. The route felt more like veins lacing through deep, colorless bone marrow spreading through an invisible body, and they were rising to the brain to strike down the final fortress of control. On the last leg, Bianka announced a branching route they would have to take.

The reservoir connected directly to the travel headquarters, also known as the waypoint from which the original four travelers arrived in this world. If all went well, and there were countless reasons to think it wouldn't, then Bianka and Kosame could drop there and immediately take the passage to the big city, from which they were only a couple hours from home. The others could continue on to the other world or wherever else. Despite all the chaos, complications, and developments, Yuka expressed a delighted flair of joy that she would finally see another world, the world that the girl she loved came from, and hopefully restore it to its full splendor.

Misaki felt nervously daunted at the encroaching reality that Carrie Francesca Fowler wasn't just going to be a series of dream-like confused memories but her reality with whatever physical dimensions that entailed.

For Chika, that same thought weighed heavily, along with her secret desires for mega boobs, which she could potentially be staring at in a few minutes. For Nami, she didn't have clear enough recollections to delineate what Fiona meant to her more than the name that Misaki urged was important. But everything she thought she knew defined her as a man, a strong one who carried immense burdens alone and stood up for her friends. A man who could handle stupendous tits and not struggle a moment with that burden.

The girl reality that loomed before her was possibly the scariest thing she could ever imagine. Chika was prepared but still defined herself as manly enough to be a beautiful woman. Neither knew who they would be once they were awash in the reservoir of truth.

Pushing closer, they expected workers to align themselves like troopers in a space battle with weapons they hadn't seen before, and waves of followers devoted to the goddess of the company. No loyalty to a queen here, just swarms of terrified ants.

Some outliers amongst the masses spotted them and attempted to push them back, not so much for loyalty but more because they were entering a dangerous area and had intentions. Yuka pushed back even harder, turning her black swords into obsidian battering rams. None of them were a match for their advance.

The so-called reservoir looked very much like a dam saturated in white crystal. Vertical tiers extended up in ways reminiscent of the space show's many iterations of warp cores but stretched for far more levels. It didn't take them long to climb stairs and scaffolds to reach what was clearly the pinnacle.

A stretch on the other side contained a sloped shaft that led out of sight with branches and junctures, bending space and reality to lead to the waystation that kindled so many memories from just a week ago. How could it have been only a week? Misaki marveled at the memory. She was a different person than the one who arrived, despite changing physically in transit.

That no longer Franklin, that barely Misaki, thought she was so confident with her new shape and a fresh world with boundless possibilities seeking a space in her imagination. She never imagined the people she would meet and the ways she would change them and herself forever. But then, forever wasn't here yet, and change was still happening.

Standing at the highest point in the goddess kingdom, Yuka looked out at the monument to the company's supposed power. She didn't know where she was supposed to strike first or whether the strength she had would be enough. Bianka delved through her access and shrugged before simply offering up, "Hit it."

Taking a deep breath, Yuka drew back the strongest smashing shape she could build out of her limbs and slammed the translucent reservoir as hard as possible. A moment passed before a vibration echoed through the floor like a delayed earthquake.

Chips and fragments of the structure above them began to tumble off. Cracks spread, radiating to the sides, before the shaking started to slow. Yuka brought her arms around for a second strike.

The cycle started anew with a fresh wave of vibrations, this time more violent than the last, hard enough to shake them from where they were standing and force them down to their knees to keep from tumbling over the railing. On the lower levels, a few of the workers in white did fall, with crazed, terrified screams filling the air. Yuka had no time to focus on that unfortunate collateral damage before she started slamming the structure again and again, building up momentum and pushing the vibrations to accelerate and combine.

Eventually, she stopped and took a breath. Everything shook but also dangled in a strange hum of peace. Just when it seemed like the structure would quiet down once again and resist their efforts to break it, the entire wall blasted open like a shattered glass watermelon, spilling a rainbow of light and life through the air, sparkling with raw, awesome power and ominous danger.

The flood had begun.