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Ririka had forgotten when she first donned the mask. But it's been by her side like a constant companion. Like a shell and she the ghost inside it, using it for protection, using it in order to walk this earth. Without it she would disappear and turn to smoke.
She was a phantasm. Compared to her sister, her strong younger twin who reveled in chaos and pain and wore her sins and misdeeds like medals of honor, she was a pale imitation. She hated conflict. She hated pain. And she hated the Momobami name. Why couldn't she have been born into another family? Why couldn't she have been born someone else?
Her sister knew this about Ririka. Knew she was soft where she should be hard. Knew she was kind were she should be cruel. She'd known this from a young age. Which was why her sister had decided she should be the one to carry their duties.
Small fingers, not yet engraved with blue upon sharp nail beds, held out a pale plastic form. A mask, yet too big. It looked terrifying. Meant to scare others and perhaps it would do that on Ririka's behalf because she could not scare them herself. “Wear this,” Kirari had said, and though she had not breached even ten years of age, she had a sharp mind. A scheming mind. One that Ririka could not exhume though she tried. “This will protect you. All you have to do is follow my lead and you won't have to worry about being weak.”
Ririka had wiped away her tears. They'd fallen down her face, mixed with the red from her wounds. Mother and father had beat her, and this mask would cover the bruises and cuts on her face well.
“This is not what they would want,” Ririka had said in a small voice.
“But this is what I want. And as future head of the Momobami clan, they better get used to my wants,” she had said, so calm and assured. And Ririka had taken the mask, had accepted the deal. It was time for her to be useful in any way she could find, and if that way was to be out of the way, then so be it.
For years on end, Ririka grew accustomed to the mask. It was her second skin, her true home. Under it, she felt indestructible, felt what her sister must feel even with her bare face on display for the world to see. And with her sister telling her what to do, Ririka felt she could do her tasks. Her sister never gave her anything too gruesome. Ririka knew, that her sister was handling the worst of the worst but she never mentioned it and so Ririka never brought it up.
But, things began to change. And Ririka knew her sister better than most. It was when Sayaka came into the picture that Kirari became....well, that was hard to say. She became something or someone else but Ririka didn't know what. And it was threatening the balance of their symbiotic relationship. Suddenly, schemes revolved around Sayaka. Kirari spent hours doing inane tasks for her, such as building her a whole tower.
It wasn't until the whispers around the school became loud enough that Ririka realized what this was. It was love. Kirari was in love with Sayaka. This couldn't happen. There was never meant to be any love in a devourer's heart. They ate love, desecrated it, and here Kirari was, acting like she wouldn't have to do the same in the end.
It was infuriating. If Kirari wanted to do something like this, she should have just worn the mask! This romance could go nowhere, and yet to Ririka's frustration, she saw the romance going even further. Kirari and Sayaka tried to be secretive about it, but no one on the council missed the heated looks between the two, the exchange of caresses, the way they gravitated towards the other. Everyone was just smart enough not to mention it least Kirari take their head.
It made Ririka hate her sister just a bit. She already had so much and still she took more. This thing with Sayaka would not end well. Was her sister too blind to see that? But as Ririka stood and silently observed, she began to notice that all was not well in paradise. Her sister was becoming frantic. Not at school. No, that was her domain and she hid her true feelings behind orders to cause more chaos in the halls and gambling dens. It was at home where her feelings would rise to the top and Ririka found her more than once in her study, mumbling under her breath, making plans as graduation approached, ensuring a finite ending to her and Sayaka.
Kirari seemed to be in another world then, lost to her thoughts. Her eyes gleamed wetly but she never shed a tear. Her fingers twitched on papers and documents, and her hand rubbed her forehead or her tired eyes as she sat hunched over dead trees spitting words under a small desk lamp, trying to ease her way out of a position she had claimed years ago as her own.
“You're the soon to be future head of the Momobami clan. Can't you do as you want?” Ririka had said one evening and Kirari had startled, not at all hearing the quiet way Ririka had walked in. Kirari may have everything else but she would never have the silence in which Ririka arrived. Ririka was such an empty slot, that even her noises were nonexistent. She wondered, what else would be next to go? First her face, her presence, her noises, and then...her life?
“What are you talking about?” Kirari asked stiffly, hurriedly rushing to hide the documents in her desk drawer. Ririka can't see them from here, the mask obscuring her eyesight further.
“You know what I'm talking about.”
Silence, Kirari turns around in her chair. Glares Ririka down. Ririka is not intimidated. Living with Kirari, one cannot be scared of her anymore. Especially because Ririka knows that Kirari still sleeps with her favorite stuffed fish.
Kirari's glare breaks and she stands up. “You don't know anything. Stay out of it.”
“This will concern both of us shortly. And you know it,” she says and then leaves. It's that night that something becomes glaringly apparent to Ririka.
Her sister was suffering and like a coward Ririka had taken the easy way out. Every time she saw Kirari's face she was filled with hatred. Not for her, but for herself for she wore the same countenance and yet she was so craven. The reason for her mask changed. Her mask wasn't to hide her face to hide her emotions but to stem her self hatred. She couldn't continue living like this. She needed to get out of the shadows and do something or else they would both be ruined.
So, she decided, when she graduated, she would become different. She would no longer mince her words or hide behind her mask. Her own features would mask her emotions. While she could not hide them like her sister, she could mask them with the disguise of other emotions. Her family thought her weak. Let them think that while she grew stronger and stronger yet. Building up her own fortitude until she could stand even with her sister.
Ririka was no longer content being the family ghost. She would become a person in her own right. She swore to that, no matter what it took to get there. And she was glad she made that resolve. Her sister began to wilt. Like a flower that had been over-watered. Kirari was given too much. Too much responsibility and her training in their high school had not prepared her for this gruesomeness.
Ririka, took this chance to flower, to try and save her sister. Kirari had done so much for her over the years, it was time for Ririka to repay the favor. Otherwise there would be no favor to repay because her sister would be dealt with permanently. But, she could not do this with kindness. She would not, do this with kindness. It was time to stop fooling themselves into thinking that such a trait was needed in the family. That such a trait is what Ririka even possessed in the first place.
Ririka thought she had been kind, but she finds it almost terrifyingly easy to begin being cruel. Maybe she had never been kind in the first place? Maybe her sister had been the kind one? After all, she had given up so much of her own life to give Ririka a chance to slip under the radar, a chance to be free of most burdens. And if that wasn't done out of kindness and self sacrifice, then from what else? And Ririka had taken the offer, not even fought or argued against it, because she was selfish and didn't want to suffer.
Yes, Ririka can see it now. As the days progress and Kirari refuses to eat or sleep, Ririka begins to eclipse her sister. Ririka is flowering but not really. She is more like those vines, that come to strangle other flowers and suck out their life force.
She doesn't want to do this to Kirari but they are from a family of devourers. It only makes sense they cannibalize each other from time to time. And Ririka has been stealing bits and pieces of Kirari's identity so that she can go to meetings in her stead. Meetings her sister is out of tune with, as she pays no heed to the world around her, but suffers inside her own mind. Soon, it will be hard to tell who is truly Kirari and who is Ririka.
Which is why Ririka needs to do something about this. And as much as she has changed, she hasn't changed too much from her roots. Just replanted them in firmer soil. More acidic but she thrives on acid now. Hasn't her mother and father seen to that with the acrid taste of their love and care?
She sets an ultimatum for Kirari on Sayaka. And she intends to carry it out. One of them has to. She will not lose Kirari to this, not after all her sister has done for her. The knife in her pocket burns as she sits on Sayaka's bed, talking to her, listening to her cry over how she feared she lost Kirari's affections. She almost doesn't expect her sister to come.
But she does.
Fear is plain on her face, and seeing her like this, in casual clothes and with hastily made braids, Ririka almost wants to laugh. She really looks less and less like Kirari each day. It doesn't help that she hasn't been eating or taking care of herself. Was it possible to devour your own self from pity and misery?
Still Sayaka, loyal Sayaka, knows who the real one is, even if Ririka feels like the real Kirari. Maybe there never had been a true Ririka or Kirari, just a Kirari. And whichever one of the twins succeeded got to be her. But what if she no longer wanted to do that? What if she wanted them to both be equals? Food, for thought.
She leaves the two of them alone. Her sister has passed the test. She came to fight, has shown some will, and it's all Ririka wanted to know that her sister was still in there and would continue to fight for the things she wants. And Sayaka, has passed her own test. She saw that there still was a difference between the twins. Which means that Ririka is not so much Kirari as Kirari is not so much Ririka.
And for now, that is all that matters.