It all turned out to be a trap.
And in the end, Kurara managed to save one. Only one. But did she wanted to be saved? And what will they do now, so far away from the school and with limited time to spare?
One pale hand to grasp, five fingers still attached.
One life intact to cry out, jaws and eyes and faces blown to bits.
Just one—
Kurara only needed, only could save one. When they arrived on the bus and assembled in the courtyard of Second to Last Defense Academy, waiting and shambling about as Gotoh fidgeted with some remote, Kurara glanced at Takumi over and over, as if he’d offer any assurance.
But his uncertainty matched Kurara’s own.
A mutual damnation. A mutual impulsive choice to leave it all behind, preserve what they had.
As Kurara thought about it, she looked to Gotoh. No one else wanted to look at him, but of course, Kurara doomed herself the moment she let curiosity overpower shame.
With a good look.
She knew the device Gotoh used, instantly. Only someone as acquainted with weaponry as her would recognize a remote detonation device on the spot.
And so—
As she reached—
As she ran—
Her vision turned to a far too merciful white.
“K…a…”
“Kur…a…”
“Kurara!”
Another shake, and Kurara’s eyes flew open. Not that it stopped Nozomi’s ash-stained figure from her efforts, but with the mask in the way, Kurara couldn’t blame her for not realizing.
Kurara couldn’t do much of anything at the moment. Everything hurt. Her muscles screamed with every feeble attempt at use, her mind swam in static, her hearing had only just started to return, and an awful odor seared her nose.
The reeking, haunting stench of burnt flesh.
Kurara didn’t want to think anymore. Nozomi pulled her close, balancing the silent girl in her arms. She stained Kurara’s mask with her soot covered hands.
No one said a word.
No one breathed their last, the explosion taking even the realization of death from them.
By the time Kurara realized Gotoh never wanted to save them, it was too late. She reached for Nozomi—she remembered that, in pieces.
She pulled Nozomi close. Out of the blast range. Only her, Kurara could only save her as the others, absorbed by the explosion, were granted swift deaths.
No haggard last goodbyes. Only silence. Kurara envied them, so, so damn much.
“N…Nozomi—” Kurara coughed, and Nozomi squeezed her tighter.
“Please—” she hiccuped, “please, don’t push yourself. I can’t lose you too. I—everyone, they’ve…we were…it wasn’t—pointless, but we still—!”
Kurara wondered whether she stayed a person in Nozomi’s mind, or in the process of corrupted grief, became a shining beacon of comfort.
They were all each other has.
With that horrible, empty thought in mind, Kurara forced her arms up, and cradled Nozomi in turn. Neither needed to say another word to understand the situation. The more they looked around, the more they forced themselves to witness what ‘pressing on with their decision’ meant, the more the rancid smell became a comfort.
Other than dull black stains, it was all that remained of their friends.
Once Kurara regained feeling in her limbs, the two hobbled inside Second to Last Defense Academy, collapsing as soon as they made it into the entrance hall.
“We…” Nozomi breathed, “We need to go….mh…”
Go back. Of course Nozomi wanted that. She needed to fight and die for something more than she needed to breathe. But Kurara shook her head, grip tight on her friend as if she could turn around and Nozomi would be already dead, having found a cause to throw her life at in the several second gap.
“The bus…” doesn’t have the fuel to make it, Kurara almost said, only for something to burn her cheek.
A slap.
When had Kurara lost her mask?
Nozomi glared at the other girl as if she were an invader. “We have to go! There’s no one else to protect the school! Humanity’s last hope…what did everyone die for, if we can’t make it back when it matters most!?”
Kurara’s mouth fell open. Nozomi threw her head in her hands.
“It’s all your fault,” she said, “you—and Sumino. You made it all—you made my…it didn’t…”
Nozomi heaved. Gasped, as if someone punched the air out of her lungs. Before Kurara managed to process Nozomi’s anger, the ethereal girl wrenched Kurara to her chest, vomiting out sobs and apologies.
“I’m…sorry—I didn’t…I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry, Kurara…
“Please…
“Don’t leave me. Yh—you’re…my only—my only—my friend.”
The angered—no, now calmed girl shuddered and shivered. She held on and never let go. Not to promises, not to love, not to her only friends (friend, now), but to some desperate, primal fear of loneliness. Kurara’s brain shut down from seeing these unfamiliar sides to her normally sweet friend.
She loved her. She hated her? But she loved her.
But she—
“…I’ll look for fuel,” Kurara muttered, shutting down and focusing on the only words she knew she could say without reassuring lies or complicated emotions. “If there’s any left, we can go back and kill those stupid invaders.”
It wasn’t as if Kurara knew how to make fuel from nothing. Working with machinery came as easily as walking, but of course she wouldn’t know where the next crude oil deposit laid.
Maybe with the right mindset and machinery, she would’ve accepted the challenge.
Maybe if she hadn’t imploded her friends by giving up just moments ago, she would’ve faced it with her usual false bravado.
Now,
she only stared
at this girl
loving and hating her so,
having nothing else,
but wanting so much more.
Kurara wished she died too. Surely, Nozomi craved to be with the ashes.
On cue, Nozomi pushed her lips into a smile. “Thank you—I’m sorry. But, thank you…I’ll…um—I’ll see. What I can do. About…everything else.”
Checking to make sure all the facilities functioned, and what to do if they were cut off from the power supply. Making sure they still had the necessities to survive for a day or two.
Burying their friends. In some way, any way it mattered.
…Kurara hoped ghosts weren’t real. Not that she ever believed in them, but she knew if the others could see her, they’d wrap their hands around her neck, breathe their anger down her spine, waiting for the day she’d come down and see them again.
Nozomi relaxed and got to her feet. She showed such endurance earlier, yet her torn leggings and exposed burns said far more than she wanted to show. Despite it all, her smile distracted from the damage, an illusion of normalcy casted as she turned around and stumbled further into the school.
Kurara waited. So she wouldn’t cross paths with Nozomi, before she too left for the Garage, picking her mask back up. She pulled her cape tight over her shoulders and breathed. She lived. She survived. Nozomi did, too. And didn’t Takumi want to protect her so badly? He’d better be thankful and not get in her way.
…
She wanted to protect Nozomi, too. Just like she wanted to protect Kyoshika, before the girl vaporized herself, big dumb smile on her face with only a—
Her heart seized. Kurara dug through her pockets, a sheen of sweat on her forehead rubbing against the interior of the mask as she searched until she pulled out the Tsuchinoko keychain gifted to her.
Held to her heart, she let her knees fall, let the quiet sobs evolve into pathetic bawling. To the end, she failed Kyoshika. She failed her and everyone else who died in this damned school.
Lives turned to numbers. Statistics.
Kurara ripped off her mask, grabbed her hair, ripped a clean chunk out in a desperate screaming fit, before she picked herself up and headed back for the schoolyard.
She needed it—if she wanted to get through this. Whatever ‘this’ was.
Their worst fears came true.
Between them both laid an unsaid assumption: after having abandoned the school for so long, they expected any important supplies to have been destroyed long ago by invaders. Maybe a commander came by and made sure to clear out the academy just in case the SDU doubled back for supplies.
They checked the pantry and fridge—power still ran through, but every speck of food had disappeared. The candy machine turned up empty, even the fish in the tank disappeared, leaving empty waters and torn plants.
Devoured, destroyed by invaders. Of course. Of course. Someone took the remaining fuel, too, while others laid waste to the electronics, taking parts and outright destroying them.
One device remained standing, no thanks to the machine guns.
“At least…you can…” Nozomi began, regarding the Revive-o-Matic from a distance as if it’d fill her with bullets for daring to stand near it. “Um. Come back. But—but we’ll need to find some food. I’ll go—”
“I’ll go,” Kurara said. “I can make traps and take them with me. Whoever raided the school, at least they had the idiocy to leave the metalworking classroom untouched.”
And just that.
They took the food, any obvious valuables, even the gas, but they left the weapons untouched? What kind of stupid invaders were they?
…
Kurara tried not to think about it too much.
Nozomi shook her head. “We’ll both go. We’re all that’s left. We’ll—find some food and fuel, and we’ll get back to the other academy before they attack.”
A lofty promise, yet bereft of much else to believe in, Nozomi’s honeyed words seized Kurara’s heart.
“I’m sure,” Nozomi began, clutching at her chest before she amended her words, “I…I, I’m only guessing, but without us to guard the school, humanity’s—perhaps someone involved in the Last Defense Academy project realized something terrible has happened. They might send a message to this school, or maybe they’ll find a way to get help or send reinforcements so the school can stay standing without us—for a time…”
Nozomi’s rambling unfolded into cotton which stuffed every inch of Kurara’s mind. To be honest—of course she worried about the school, but fuck it, she cared far more about what’d happen to the two of them.
Would humanity do anything? If Takumi’s accounts of what happened the last time Sirei died held true, then…
She wouldn’t hold her breath.
But despite her fears, despite her worse (or better) instincts, she wouldn’t give up on humanity’s last hope.
She wouldn’t let these disgusting invaders take the last person she cared about.
“I have an idea,” Kurara said, putting her hands on her hips and focusing on Nozomi’s pale, desperate face through the slits of her mask. “There’s a lot of junk in the metal shop. I’ll see if I can whip up something to find us oil. There’s still power, which means we can make parts in the Gift-o-Matic. I’ll focus on collecting junk, you focus on grabbing anything edible.”
“…Oh…” Nozomi’s mouth fell open. Kurara wondered what she might say—yesterday’s angry outburst left Kurara at a loss as to Nozomi’s true feelings. How much she hid, what emotions she kept close to heart and away from prying eyes. Maybe she still hated her.
Maybe she wished Takumi saved her instead—
Kurara wanted to slap herself for thinking that.
That idiot, perverted boy. If he lived, he would’ve been over the moon, having Nozomi all for himself. He could keep her in his room like some kind of pet, say he’d provide for her, leave her deprived and desperate for him so she’d let Takumi feed her by hand, he’d spoon rice into her mouth and a grain would get stuck on her cheek, he’d lick it off for her, and then she’d get all blushy and tell him there’s other places he could be using his t—
“Kurara?”
Fuck.
“Huh?”
Nozomi smiled as bright of the sun and pulled Kurara into her arms. “I almost forgot about the Gift-0-Matic! Maybe…do you think you might be able to make the bus electrical with something in there?”
Electrical powered…? Kurara wanted to slap herself with how stupidly obvious that was. Still—she wasn’t a mechanic, and she didn’t want to go and get Nozomi’s hopes up by promising something outside of her capabilities.
And yet. And yet—“I…I’ll try. There might be a book or something for it laying around.”
“Thank you,” Nozomi said again. She loomed over Kurara, but at the neck level, Kurara earned a full-blast of the blueberry-scented shampoo she used.
Her wispy, silver locks danced with each bob of the head. So otherworldly, Kurara almost believed she’d blink and Nozomi would disappear from this plane of existence.
Kurara brushed her fingers against Nozomi’s braid.
“…Th—thank you,” Kurara said. Her mask did nothing to help, not anymore.
Maybe she’d be fine with that.
With time.
Nozomi let her go, smiling and alive with optimism her body craved. “Okay, I trust you. I’ll be behind you all the way.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “Let me go get my Class Armor, okay? I’ll meet you at the door.”
She ran with a skip in her step, the playfulness of a child, the joy of someone reborn and wanting to drag everyone into the haze of happiness she lived in.
Kurara envied that. Sickeningly so. Moko brought the group together despite everyone’s different (and aggravating) personalities, but Nozomi carried hope in her heart. No matter what—she’d fight for what was right.
She’d die for what was right.
As hope incarnate. As a collection of wishes for people she’d never met.
…
Kurara needed that. She needed that, even if it meant lying and reaching under Nozomi’s skin to carve her precious hope away, however selfishly.
The surroundings of Second-to-Last Defense academy carried a bias for machinery.
Kurara knew this, Nozomi knew this, yet they both hoped otherwise. An uneventful day outside brought uneventful results: while Kurara managed to sweep up enough junk she enlisted Nozomi to carry half, Nozomi uncovered a few weeds and a suspicious mushroom.
“Maybe there’s a book on this—I’ll identify it before we put it in the Gift-o-Matic,” she said, pocketing and treasuring the little sprout like a precious jewel. Kurara put her ball of junk down, desperate to give her arms a break.
“Would it being poisonous change anything?” Kurara said.
“I don’t know…we—” she began, and bit down on her lip.
We might be able to ask Sirei.
But he was gone. They could’ve asked Yugamu, too, but he was gone. So many things changed, so many people left.
They trudged onwards. Through the punishing wastelands, academy among the shadows in the distance.
“You can have it,” Kurara said, “you need the energy more. Tomorrow, we’ll take the shortcut and see if there’s more plants out there.”
And there’d better be. Otherwise, Kurara would find a way to get the computer working and have her father send nukes towards all the commanders as retribution for…something or other.
“Well…okay.” Nozomi nodded.
She stopped.
“Right…but—” … “The shortcut. How far is Last Defense Academy from here?”
“Nozomi!” Kurara yelled as she turned to the other girl. “There’s no way we’re getting there without the bus. It’s crawling with invaders outside the school.”
“But there’s not enough time.”
“But we might not even make it there! If we had a group of four, sure, we could take our chances, but we’re not fighting our way there with the two of us.”
Kurara jabbed a finger into Nozomi’s chest. “You can barely fight. And my turrets are reactive—I can’t do much against an entire fleet on my own.”
“…
“And whose fault…”
Nozomi’s eyes shot open—she awoke from something, but Kurara caught that look in her eye before she snapped out of it.
“Sorry,” she said, “sorry.”
Sorry, sorry! Sorry for being angry. Sorry for thinking I deserved to feel that way. Sorry for letting you see it. Sorry for not being nice and perfect and willing just like always.
Sorry for being honest. I never should’ve been honest.
If she hated Kurara, she could’ve said so.
So Kurara thought. But the words refused to leave her. Those pithy reassurances, Kurara’s desperate desire to not be seen in that way ever again.
…Would Nozomi look at Takumi like that?
Kurara fixed her mask back into place; It kept jostling loose lately. “You don’t need to apologize so much,” she said. “It’s getting annoying.”
“You’re—” Kurara’s breath hitched. She stopped, started, stopped again.
“…I’ll see,” Kurara said, reluctance coating her tongue, “If I can find any way to get more fuel. Even if I need to make a drill and start digging.”
She’d dig to the center of the earth as long as Nozomi never looked at her like that again.
Nozomi laughed, almost. She smiled—almost.
“We’ll see,” Nozomi said. Kurara drooped in relief at her disbelief. “I don’t want to ask too much of you. Or…hope for something which might not exist. Besides, with the invaders swarming the border of the school, it might not be a good idea for us to cause a racket.”
Right. If the enemy realized they were hiding in this school, of course they’d see it as their chance to attack. Even worse, they might connect the dots—they’ll realize the pair’s desperate desire to return as a reflection of the security (well, lack of) at the other school, and use that as their chance to invade.
It’d be all over. Even a flimsy hope wouldn’t sustain them. Kurara would be food for their Supreme Commander. Like Gaku was, taking the place she should’ve held.
And Nozomi…
Nozomi.
Struck by a wave of nausea, Kurara clutched her stomach. Nozomi didn’t seem to notice.
“Right…guess I’ll need to see what I can scavenge.”
…
“But—if I really can’t find any…if we really can’t take the bus—then…”
Kurara didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die miserably on some suicide mission in some empty building as some ordinary corpse—
“Then we’ll hoof it. All right? So don’t look so freaked out.”
And don’t hate me, please.
“…”
Nozomi looked away. “Sorry,” she said, having nothing else to say. “Do you—want me to bring this back to the Gift-o-Matic?”
“I can handle it. I’ll know what we need for the bus.” Kurara picked up the load of scrap she placed down and continued onward towards the school. “Just drop it off and go get some rest.”
“If you’re sure,” Nozomi said, in that pleading way where she still wanted to be included somehow. But if this was how Kurara could show her dedication to the deflated, secretive Nozomi, then she’d handle it herself.
She could protect Nozomi, too.
Her sweet friend. Someone who forgave her despite all the terrible things she did and said.
Someone who knew a mask, and everything which rested beyond it.
Kurara wasn’t losing her to some stupid invaders. Once they made it to the Rec Room, she all but pushed Nozomi outside so she could get to work.
Looking through the offerings of the machine, most of the choices which used the parts Kurara sought involved silly gifts or useless trinkets. Cameras, toys—who needed this?
Sure, humanity wanted to be nice and give them some treats or something, but couldn’t they foresee some circumstance or other where they might need something useful? A car? A bike?
…
Wait. There were bikes in here. Old-timey bikes, but still.
It gave Kurara ideas. Getting the bus working would’ve been nice, but at the end of the day, neither her nor Nozomi measured up to the mechanical prowess they needed to pull it off.
Her and Takumi incinerated Tsubasa to a crisp. After all.
They carried back enough metal to make two weird bikes. Kurara set them off to the side before she went back to her room, retrieving a blanket and a pillow.
She went to sleep on the floor of the Rec Room.
Just in case anyone thought to come by and steal them. Infuser clutched close to her chest, the cold dusty air lured Kurara to sleep.
Dreams of Nozomi safe in her room filled her mind all night, only for her desperate dream to end with an invader breaking in and goring the girl to death, and with her the hope beating in her heart.
“That might work!” Nozomi circled around the bikes with childlike wonder—as if she’d never seen a bike before. “I’ve always wanted to ride these again. My dad bought me one, before—I—I mean, it broke.”
Her wonder vanished. Longing took its place. “It broke…and bikes were expensive, so my mother promised to buy me another when I was older.”
Oh. Huh.
Kurara said nothing.
“But…I know how to ride one,” she continued, picking her head back up, turned away and unreadable to Kurara. “Do you?”
“Of course I do,” Kurara said, hands on hips. Of course she didn’t know. Why would a oligarch ever need to waste her time on little trinkets and games? The price tag posed no issue, but the weight of pride kept bikes out of her life.
If she had a way of knowing she’d need it one day, she would’ve considered putting her pride aside much, much earlier.
Too late, now.
“Then we’ll bring these to the entrance hall,” Nozomi said, already pushing her bike out the door of the Rec Room. “You made snacks, right?”
Kurara nodded and fumbled for the treats hidden in her coat. She offered one to Nozomi—who pushed it back.
“I’m…not hungry, yet,” she said. A painfully obvious lie, but she kept talking before Kurara dared argue. “We need to ration it for the trip. Let’s see how far we get first before we start thinking about snacks!”
There it was. There, Kurara caught a spark of Nozomi’s long lost joy. The way she curled her hands close, her small but beaming smile—it almost seemed like the pair prepared to go on a bike ride and a picnic, if you ignored their friends ashes scattered about outside.
Or. Well. the scorch marks they left behind. Kurara knew Nozomi must’ve buried whatever she could before the winds stole the rest of it.
Kurara pushed her bike forward. She swung a leg over and struggled to balance herself, but after years of training in both posture and balance thanks to her parents’ annoying lessons, she managed to pedal and not fall off…
For a few seconds.
Almost half a minute, if you wanted to be generous. Her mask cracked as it bore the blunt of her fall. At least, Nozomi’s warm laughter made everything worth it.
“Do you want to fix it?” she said. “Before we go?”
Kurara held the two fragments, the mask that guarded through her terror after terror. Before, she couldn’t face the group without it.
She put them down. “No, it’s fine. There’s no point anymore.”
There wasn’t much of a point to begin with, but with everyone dead and only Nozomi left to see her, all the fear she felt, everything she needed to hide and guard with sharpened claws and pointed teeth—words, hostility. Pride. What was pride, even? A mask of importance, robbed of influence the moment no one bore witness to it. A person became a beating heart and a bag of flesh when no one remained to perceive them as they were. Animals saw no people.
They saw something to die. Just like them.
Not that there were even those left, in this dying husk of a world.
In silence, in restrained silence, the pair pushed their bikes outside. Through the school, and out the entrance hall, door propped open as Nozomi balanced part of their tiny food supply under her arms. They mounted their rides and began to push the pedals.
Kurara inched forward with an unsteady rhythm, but somehow, someway, she managed to build momentum, and as Nozomi took off ahead of her, she pushed with all her might to keep up.
The ground around Second to Last Defense Academy betrayed little variety in its terrain. Kurara sighed in relief as she pedaled along at how steady the ride felt, coasting past areas which would’ve taken them twice as long as on foot. They’d need to take a break eventually, yes, but what once seemed to be an insurmountable goal almost became—doable. More than a wish towards the dead taken, their hopes turned to action. Kurara would bring Nozomi back, and they’d defend the school. Kurara would bloody her hands ten times over if it meant Nozomi never looked at her like that again.
Even if it had been her fault. All Kurara’s fault, for listening to Takumi. For thinking every sacrifice had been pointless. Even Gaku—especially Kyoshika.
…She cast aside a dead friend, just like that. Out of what? Some rotten, no good guilt?
Maybe that selfishness befit an Oosuzuki. A polished, beautiful death machine.
“Kurara!?”
Kurara yelped and swiveled out of the way of a sizable rock, regaining balance and speeding up to meet pace with Nozomi. “Ugh, stupid annoying planet! If I had a phone right now, I’d call in a team to bulldoze everything and pave us a nice road to get back with.”
Nozomi smiled. A smile of nothingness. “If only it were that easy. But be careful, okay?”
Kurara grit her teeth and turned her attention to the road. As nice as fantasies were, none of them held a sliver of truth until they made it back to campus and ensured they still had something to protect.
Instead, Kurara focused on all she could: their surroundings. She had to keep Nozomi safe. If Moko couldn’t do it anymore, because of her choices, then she’d press on with this one wish.
Arid air scratched her throat—her stomach rumbled. Kurara swallowed dry lumps of spit and ignored how the hot, dead currents cut her cheeks and burned them a bright red. She focused on the simple things: the lack of invaders, the quiet atmosphere, and the flat land ahead.
The simple things. The only things Kurara begged for.
…She wondered if she should’ve felt more guilty. If the silence the world brought was an admonishment which refused to take. Kurara thought about her feelings—focused only on her balance, the road ahead and whatever the hell swirled in her heart since the moment a flash of white stole her entire world.
No.
Not all of it.
She looked to—
Nozomi
Nozomi, so melancholy, lachrymose, fixed on a sky beyond and a world outside of the mission, outside of Kurara, outside of whatever she had left in this miserable place
distracted and torn away
as a hovering invader watched
with its eye pointed towards her ready to fire and rob her of everything
But Kurara wouldn’t wait, she noticed and she had to protect her if it meant she wouldn’t look at her like that again—! Not again!
And so.
Kurara charged forward, rammed herself into Nozomi, as the world melted into an inky, comforting black.
Pain.
Pain was a world.
Pain was a collection of sensations which defined a world. When one knew pain, pain from within, pain from outside, then pain encompassed emotions, logic, even the pathways one relied on to make the world.
So what remained to shape it, other than a beating agony?
As Kurara came to, pain took the place of ‘her’ world.
“Kurara…? Kurara!”
A desperate scream escaped from the darkness of her new world as a pair of arms wrapped around her. Nozomi’s familiar scent flooded Kurara, the only signal of life from a black void.
A void…? Kurara reached up to touch her face, feeling thick bandages. Nozomi gasped and pulled them off—only enough so that Kurara managed to see again, a thick layer still hanging around her forehead. Nozomi let go, planted a small kiss over the bandages, and returned to her chair placed at the bedside.
They’d—come back to Kurara’s room, in the end. Not the room she had at Last Defense Academy. Even if they looked identical, a few differences here and there led Kurara to this conclusion. The thought brought dread, pooling in her stomach, as she locked eyes with Nozomi and waited for an explanation.
“It’s been a few days,” she said. “I brought you back here as fast as I could and put you back in the Revive-o-Matic, but you—hadn’t died, somehow—so I patched you up and waited for you.
“I’ve been waiting…a while.” She took one of Kurara’s hands, running her fingers against it. “But you’re okay. I’m glad.”
An iron neutral tone gave way to tears. Nozomi snatched Kurara into another, longer hug, one the two girls remained locked in for a couple minutes until Nozomi mustered the will to break it.
“An invader took me by surprise. If you hadn’t…” Nozomi bit her lip, took a breath. “You’re hurt. I’m going to take care of you. Once you’re able to move again, we can try to get back. I found…some food, nearby. Some cans the invaders left behind, I think. It should be enough.”
Kurara tried to move—tried to get up, tried, tried, but her body ached as she pushed her muscles—she mustered a few arm movements before she gave up, Nozomi putting a hand against Kurara’s shoulder to goad her back down.
“Please, don’t push yourself.” Nozomi paused. “You’re….hurt. You were hurt—badly. Let me take care of you, okay?
“Please?
“You trust me, right?
“Kurara—Kurara, you’re…”
Kurara mouthed something, but her throat burned. The words locked themselves away, and Nozomi leaned forward and put her hands around Kurara’s throat no, the shoulders. Of course the shoulders.
“Kurara, you’ll be okay,” she said. Smiling. “Kurara—Kurara, you have to get better, okay. You’ll get better.
“I’ll be taking care of you.”
The two of them lived so. And as they breathed, they did so together. Kurara knew she didn’t want to die until Nozomi did, though now she wondered whether Nozomi’s frantic pleas were of desperation or an actual longing to spend her days with Kurara.
Call her insane—but she wished Nozomi saw her as special. With no one left, did she have any other choice?
“You’ll…” Nozomi muttered. “You’ll get better.”
A resentful blade cut through. Followed by a pristine smile of life, sending Kurara into a tired, tired daze.
With one last reassurance, Nozomi sped out of the room, returning a few minutes later with a bowl and a spoon. Once she took a seat Kurara saw the murky red liquid floating inside. Tomato soup by itself—Kurara almost gagged, but the pain shooting through her throat stopped her.
No. She needed to be strong.
She needed to stop being selfish. For Nozomi.
“I know it’s not your first choice for a meal,” Nozomi said, frowning, “but we don’t have much. I thought it’d be better to get the…worst out of the way first. And tomatoes have a lot of important nutrients.”
For a second, Nozomi sounded like a proper nurse taking care of her beloved patient. Kurara believed so. Until, with impudence and no grace, she filled the spoon with soup and shoved it into Kurara’s mouth. It touched the back of her throat and she gagged—Nozomi wrenched her hand back, horrified.
“I’m sorry!” she yelled, grabbing onto Kurara once more. Holding her—her doll, her angel. “I’m…so, so sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Please, again, let me try again…”
Kurara didn’t protest as Nozomi poured another portion of soup down her throat.
How could she?
How could she say a thing?
She gagged again, and this time, Nozomi didn’t pull away. She kept her work up until the bitter end.
If only these rooms had clocks. Maybe there was a reason they didn’t—like some sort of punishment for wasting away in bed when they arrived here to fight for the sake of humanity.
Takumi told them a long time ago, about Hiruko’s strict methods in his timeline to get everyone to fight. Confining people to their rooms, depriving them of food—
Not that Nozomi did such a thing.
Of course not.
So Kurara liked to think. But she couldn’t tell—she couldn’t move on her own. She couldn’t see anything outside her room.
…
It reminded her of a book she read as a child.
Being an Oosuzuki afforded her family the privilege of access to more elusive bodies of work. Growing up involved in the manufacturing of weapons for a purpose unknown to Kurara never bothered her. She never questioned it.
But she did learn a few things about war. She got used to so, so many things. She studied military tactics for fun, manufacturing, weapons crafting and evolution, how to make bombs that burn and bombs that kill, tools for torture and tools for mercy—a quick death. It was expected of her, so she did it all, and worked her hands to death to meet the expectations of her parents.
She learned how many people died in wars. Millions, all compressed into a line on the page. They struggled for air within their limited space, screamed to not be forgotten as their names dissolved into one, meaningless number.
What was a million? Nothing a person could hold in their hands.
So none of it mattered.
Those numbers meant nothing, so most people never heard of them. Only Kurara did, desensitizing herself to their weight while burning them into her mind. She figured if she tried, a few million more or so dead wouldn’t mean anything to her given a couple more weeks.
The millions dying because of their failure to ensure humanity’s future? Maybe that’d stop meaning something, too.
Maybe the lives didn’t matter. The cause did. The ideals, the money, the benefits, the detriments—everything mattered more than her beating heart.
…Even one’s feelings.
And if Nozomi hated her—
“Kurara?”
Nozomi crouched by Kurara’s bed. Kurara gasped, and her throat seized, and Nozomi tensed, and she placed a hand over Kurara’s mouth.
“Please. Don’t do that.” Laced with sugar, ice—maybe some kindness, Nozomi frowned and moved to pat Kurara on the head before she took a seat, bowl balanced in her lap.
More tomato soup.
“I…added something,” Nozomi said. “To help with the pain.”
Nozomi filled the spoon with delicate precision. It smelled off, or at least, Kurara’s addled, tired senses processed it that way. She never liked the smell or taste of tomatoes, though.
It was probably just that.
Kurara opened her mouth and somehow guzzled it down. She only gagged after a few more spoonfuls, and even then, Nozomi powered through until Kurara downed the whole bowl. With a satisfied smile, she stood up. Kurara lost sight of Nozomi’s eyes.
“You look better already,” Nozomi said. A big lie—but Kurara lost the ability to argue even if she wanted to. “You’re not as pale anymore. Your cheeks,” she cupped Kurara’s face, hands calloused over and rough to touch, “are so warm.”
“You’re so…alive.”
Nozomi’s smile dropped, and she released Kurara. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—do you want me to read you something? I have some time to spare, but I’ll need to leave and find more supplies soon. I’ll find something you’ll like.”
She rushed out the door. About—some time, an immeasurable amount later, Nozomi returned with a hefty tome under her arms. A historical novel, about how a town half destroyed by bombing ended up slowly dying out over the next decade.
The main protagonists were a once-rich girl and a homeless girl. As the former lost everything, she grew closer to the homeless girl, until she found out the girl earned a chance to flee their dying town, moving overseas on a lavish scholarship. The rich girl slit her former friend’s throat and dumped her body in the river.
She was never found.
Dreams died so easily. People took the fates of others so, so easily, tied up in their own lives under a web of knots until all outside concerns weighed like a grain of sand.
Kurara woke up in a haze. She tried to sit up, but a hand goaded her down. Milky gunk clogged her ears and a blanket of cool white sleepiness encased her vision—as everything swayed and malformed, she only managed to follow the white sheen of Nozomi’s hair as she graced Kurara with a caring smile, and another spoonful of—
Tomato soup.
Kurara threw up. The thick, sterile taste of drugs stained her tongue.
Nozomi pulled out a towel and dabbed it away, before moving to remove Kurara’s top. She hurried out the door, and returned to don Kurara with a different shirt.
Thick with her own scent. Nozomi’s shirt—Kurara wanted to keep it pristine.
With everything put away, Nozomi sat back down and resumed feeding her. Two spoonfuls later, though, and Kurara thickly swallowed bile in her painful attempts to keep the food down. The muddled blinders the world filtered through began to slowly, surely snap into focus as Nozomi frowned, watching Kurara.
Waiting for something, almost.
“Kurara?” Nozomi said. Kurara nodded, weakly, and—coughed. She’d long since finished her food, and with her weak throat, only feeble noises resembling all the pathetic, squealing creatures in the world slipped out between wheezes. But it meant progress, a step towards getting better, towards returning to the school and defending it against whoever dared threaten them.
…It’d be faster if Kurara died, back then.
“No…z….” Kurara mumbled, but it sent her into another coughing fit. Nozomi put a hand over Kurara’s mouth.
“Don’t—your throat isn’t better yet,” Nozomi said. “I can give you more medicine. I promise, it’ll help you feel better soon.
“I…”
Nozomi bit her lip.
“I’ll be back.”
She left.
If she never came back, Kurara would dissolve into meat.
Kurara wasn’t getting better.
She wasn’t going to get better until she died, and even then, maybe there’d be nothing to come back to. Maybe the Revive-o-Matic would break down. Maybe the invaders would target them. Kurara needed to get better, needed to protect the last thing she trusteed in this damn selfish world.
In this selfish world that made priorities of numbers and molded everything which tried to escape that.
The world which grabbed Kurara and tied a collar around her neck, put her on a tightrope of beliefs and identity and told her to be as she should, to see the world the way her family wanted, to be the kind of heir that’d never change the end of the tale, who took the name Kurara Oosuzuki and defined it how they wanted.
Who looked at her love, and tore it away.
Tear it off her face—cover it with a mask. Any mask would do.
Everyone needed to see Kurara as something else, as long as it wasn’t who she truly was. Very few people slipped through the cracks; one of those people forced another spoonful of soup down Kurara’s throat as she gagged and let out pitiful, strangled, wretched cries.
Maybe she imagined the force behind Nozomi’s feeding. Maybe Kurara imagined how her head swirled more than usual, how her vision distorted and filtered the world to the point life became this dream.
Maybe she imagined it all.
Or maybe the medicine had been poison all along, and Kurara wouldn’t ever get better.
Nozomi’s face smeared, features distorted and amalgamated into an unidentified smudge which formed whatever Kurara dared to see in the other girl.
It obscured her smile—frown, glower, her tender words filtered and smashed through the layer of goo coating Kurara’s ears. Nozomi covered Kurara’s mouth, took her sound, and told her she’d get better.
She’d be a good girl, who waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited.
Waited.
To get better.
A spoonful of medicine—poison, medicine—something horrible entered her mouth. Shoved in, served, did it matter much if the contents remained the same?
Did Nozomi hate her? Did Nozomi never see Kurara at all? Did she look at Kurara and only see the hateful words, the focus on the enemy and numbers and why did you lie, and why did I lie?
Maybe she did. Maybe Nozomi brought her here to watch her die, slowly. Maybe Nozomi knew there’d been no hope and clung to the wish to make Kurara’s last moments agonizing. Kurara said all they’d done had been pointless—it was just what she deserved.
One night, Nozomi cried.
Another day, Nozomi screamed.
Who did she curse? Kurara’s head hurt. Nozomi became an apparition, one which brought pain with every touch, which shoveled welcome poison into Kurara’s helpless mouth with each drop.
She’d begun to enjoy the taste.
Someone came into Kurara’s room one night.
Red hair, with a familiar black streak down the middle lick. Kurara didn’t want to remember anymore. Her head hurt.
The figure approached.
It asked where two people were. In the entire world, he expected her to know.
She mouthed the only answer which came to mind.
He smiled, and moved close. Put a hand to her head and whispered: “Good job. Good job. You did something right, after all.”
Her hair ruffled under his touch. “It’s two less…two less. The rest—they’re still…” He continued to mumble to himself as he melted away. Head to toe, a shadow over the surface of a pond, he rippled and tore apart, apparition be damned somewhere else—anywhere else.
Kurara closed her eyes.
Kurara wondered when Nozomi would come back.
It’d been some time. She closed her eyes and imagined Nozomi, a blurred ghostly figure which reached down Kurara’s throat and pulled her insides out, exposing all that she was before she brought everything Kurara tried to hide into her arms.
She wrapped her hands around Kurara’s heart.
She squeezed, blood, so sweet and candy stained around her fingertips. She licked each drop as Kurara’s vision smeared to white, red, red, white.
If Nozomi loved her blood, her insides, she could have it all. She could find what Kurara was, even if she wanted to destroy it. At least someone saw her. At least someone knew her. At least someone looked at her and saw Kurara…
Kurara.
Just.
Nothing but.
…
She was tired.
Red and white watched over Kurara. Red and white shook her, screamed at her…
Red and white. Stained. Torn. Together.
In a dream, Kurara finally got to ask: “Do you hate me? Did you want me dead all along?”
Nozomi only smiled.
“I hate liars, you know.”
But Nozomi only smiled.
… “I can’t hate anyone, Kurara.”
Nozomi lurched forward, grabbed Kurara’s head, plopped a kiss on it in a failed imitation of a mother. “I can’t hate you. I can’t. I can’t. You’re all that’s left, you know. The world’s gone. The invaders and humans killed each other. You and I—that’s all there is, now.”
That’s it?
“Yes, it’s over now.”
It’s over. So you don’t have to hate me anymore.
“But I never hated you.”
Okay. Okay.
“I can’t hate you…but…I don’t know if I can love you, either.”
…What?
Nozomi took off Kurara’s head, and put it upon herself. Ah, now it made sense. Kurara tore herself apart with guilt—now that Nozomi had become Kurara, she couldn’t love Kurara. Because Kurara couldn’t love herself.
But in this way, one was saved. One by itself was just one to die, but two becoming one, maybe that’d be fine. One pale hand to grasp, one life intact.
Just one.