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Everything was white. White ground, white sky, so similar in colour that they melded together, the line where they split apart nearly impossible to make out.
The only spot of colour among the monotone landscape was a dense circle of flowers, sprouting out of the ground and blooming in every shade and shape. Giving off no scent, heads facing a non-existent sun. Breaths of life, in a lifeless plane. An anomaly, just like the girls which roamed this world, writing their own stories on blank sheets that ended up ripped from their hands, lost to the skies of glass.
Silence crept among the flowers, a palpable thing that oozed through the gaps in the leaves that brushed against each other. It sat heavily on them, interrupted by nothing. Not even the Arcaea made any sound as they sliced through the air, pieces whirling about in a mindless frenzy, forming whimsical shapes like those children picked out from clouds, before breaking apart as if they couldn’t stand to be together, all in the span of seconds.
The flowers ringed two girls. One seated cross-legged, a splash of black against endless white, hair undone from her usual twin pigtails to cascade down her back like a waterfall, its dark surface hiding secrets. Several pieces of Arcaea hovered and twisted behind her, like a cape that draped her shoulders.
Tairitsu was uncaring of the chaos above her, for the Arcaea posed her no harm. They never got close enough for her to touch, for they knew her to be fully capable of shattering them into fine dust with but a snap of her fingers, if she so chose to unleash her wrath upon them, the flames of destruction coming as easily to her as breathing. Not afraid of her, for the Arcaea could not truly feel fear, only a shadow of it, an emotion carried in the countless memories reflected in its surface.
She knew not how she came to be here, when she had been at a church with Hikari before. She only remembered opening her eyes and finding herself already seated, the other girl lying beside her. Her white hair rippling across the ground like a colourless ocean, chest sitting utterly still, not following the natural rhythm of life. More fitting to this world, where everything was neither alive nor dead, where nothing truly breathed. Arms folded across her chest, eyes closed, face arranged in a peaceful expression. Asleep, resembling the princesses from fairy tales that she had once seen in fragments. And, Tairitsu hoped, having the most wonderful of dreams.
Vines had, at some point, begun caressing Hikari’s unmoving body. Exactly when, Tairitsu could not remember. Her time here had become a blur, memories slipping through her fingers like sand. Now, those vines were wrapped lovingly around Hikari’s waist, right where her ribs were. A single flower had sprouted above her heart, a vibrant crimson, drawing one’s gaze towards it. Its roots were covering… a spot of something, on her clothes. Trying to recall what it was made Tairitsu’s head hurt. Trying to put a name to the dark substance that was rough under her fingertips and stained the brim of Hikari’s soft pink beret, sitting in her lap, made some violent emotion wrap its sharp talons around her heart. Anything regarding the blank space right after their time in the church, coiled around with tendrils of fear, guilt, and immense anger that made an unbreachable wall blocking its contents, made her pulse quicken and the Arcaea above whip into a tempest.
So she didn’t try to remember. She simply continued with her methodical actions, utterly absorbed into it, not a noise leaving her lips. Easily snapping the stems of the roses that were close to her, stripped of thorns, with not a single care, the sound piercing. Dropping the gathered roses into the beret, piling on to a small mountain. Before weaving those roses together, slowly taking form in the shape of a crown, fit for a queen.
A single piece of Arcaea dared to flit by her cheek, nearly leaving a cut. Flashing a single image - two girls, of opposing black and white, separated by bloody glass. It crumpled within seconds into motes of light, vanishing into the sky.
“Here you go, Hikari,” Tairitsu whispered, leaning over to place her completed flower crown on the other girl’s head. If she pressed too hard against the green stems, she could feel phantom pain in her finger, despite the lack of thorns.
“It’s pretty.” She poked Hikari in the nose, uncaring of the cold flesh that met her finger as she smiled to herself, the Arcaea her only audience. Hikari’s skin was greyer than it had been at the start, like the flower on her chest was leeching all colour, the carnation once pinned to her shirt lost a long time ago. “Don’t you think? I’m sure you’ll like it once you wake up.”
The smile on her face faltered as she straightened her back, gaze drifting to the side. “Yes, when you wake up… When will that be, again? How long have you been sleeping?”
She’d been sleeping when they first arrived here, however long ago that was. Was she truly like Sleeping Beauty, unable to wake up? But then…
Her gaze landed on another patch of pale, pink roses.
Eyes of the same colour stared back at her with resolve, no hatred burning within them. A voice that rang with hope, that spoke of forgiveness, even while trembling in fear, interrupted when -
The roses exploded into glittering pieces of Arcaea. A sting in her palm made her glance down, the world starting to spin around her. Feeling like she was floating in someplace far away, she watched her now clenched fist unfold, a drop of blood oozing out from the gouge her sharp nails had left behind, meandering down her palm.
Stiffly raising her head, she closed her fist again. Gentler, this time, feeling a tug within her.
The Arcaea that had lost their previous home began to violently embed themselves into the ground where they used to be, more and more of them, in droves. Until they glowed, their shape wobbling before her eyes and resolving into a patch of crimson roses.
“Hikari! Look!” She couldn’t help but call out in excitement, the energy surging through her almost enough to make her jump to her feet and hop on the balls of her feet. So unlike the dourness she had always carried with her. “I created something.”
It had always been destroy, destroy, destroy, the words repeated in her head countless times as the world showed her nothing but desecration and despair in the shimmering surface of the glass, images dying away to reflect her own face. Never about possibility, about something new.
“Hika…” she trailed off as she remembered that the girl couldn’t answer her, still lost to the jealous embrace of slumber.
If she’d been able to see past the destruction, see that her hands could build structures instead of tearing them down, would things have been different?
The thought is scattered into pieces immediately, like a leaf caught in the wind and torn apart by forces it had no chance of resisting.
“Right… Honestly, you sleepy-head…” Her smile grew again as an idea struck her. Unheeding of the budding tears, of the blood dripping from her hand onto the beret in her lap, adding further to the ugly stains.
“Maybe…” she muttered, gazing up into the Arcaea.
Maybe…
Maybe…
The final word was whispered into her ears in a ghostly voice that wasn’t hers, echoing in her mind, a stray piece of Arcaea shooting off before it could be caught. Tairitsu didn’t notice, mind drifting away, grip tightening on the bloody beret.
If she could create something perfect, something just for the two of them… Then…
Then maybe she could see Hikari again.
And a wonderful, terrible smile bloomed on her face, hope seeded into her heart, soon to sprout into an out of control monster.