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Yukari lay on her bed, staring at the white ceiling. Moonlight sliced even whiter across that ceiling in the shape of the slats from blinds on her window. It was a waning moon.
Her pink alarm clock had stopped counting, it’s face frozen on 00:00. It had been midnight for at least ten minutes; of this Yukari was certain. She was keeping time. Tapping her fingers against her thigh, counting one and two and three seconds, all the way up to sixty. At which point, she would permanently raise a finger, and repeat. Until she ran out of fingers.
Time functioned differently during the Dark Hour, so for all she knew this was pointless. Seconds crawled slower to the minute mark, and minutes stumbled toward the hour, and Yukari felt like a prisoner etching marks into the wall of her cell to count down the days until her freedom.
She scoffed at herself. (God, she be so dramatic sometimes!)
(A prisoner? Girl, calm down.)
Yukari stopped counting. Slammed her head down on her pillow with a huff, angry at her inability to succumb to sleep. She would be exhausted tomorrow morning, that was her biggest concern. Concealer caked under the eyes to hide dark circles, and a matcha latte for a boost of energy, because normal life didn’t stop just for a full moon. There would be school tomorrow, and archery practice, and socialising, and pretending like she doesn’t jump at the sight of her own shadow lurking behind her.
People would say she looked “rundown” or ask if she was sick, and she would laugh it off, and smile sweetly, saying, “Honestly, I’m fine!” A friend might even ask if it was, “her time of the month”, and then Yukari would have to restrain herself from rolling her eyes with an ironic smirk on her lips because that statement couldn’t have been closer to the truth.
It was that time of the month.
It was nights like these, after a full moon, that Yukari envisioned the Dark Hour swallowing her whole. A whirlpool of black in the centre of her bedroom like the flush of a toilet sucking in her pink carpet, her bag collection, all the posters on her walls, and her. She imagined herself reaching upward, arms flailing wildly about her, as though grasping for some sort of purchase, except that her whole room was coming with her.
The Dark Hour was too quiet. With trains halted on their tracks, Yukari could only hear the hammering of her own heart in her chest. Her television essentially broken for another hour, so that she couldn’t even watch one of her shows to fill the gaping silence, or some mindless reality TV to numb her brain.
She would even settle for watching that stupid shopping show where people with fake, shiny smiles told her about products she didn’t care about, just to remind herself that people exist at all, that they weren’t something she made up.
Tomorrow, during the day, Yukari would lift one finger to the glass screen of the television in the lounge just to feel the static sensation. Only as she walked past, it would be quick so that no caught her doing it. It always felt like being touched back.
Yukari flung her duvet from her body, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress, and slipping her feet into a pair of pink slippers. She placed her housecoat on, and opened her bedroom door, quietly. Held her breath. It was pitch black in the hallway, save for the moonlight streaking a line through the window and down the carpet. She walked along that line like it was a tightrope between two abysses.
Passing Fuuka’s bedroom, then Mitsuru’s, she tiptoed so no to wake either girl. Down two flights of stairs, and each creak was painful, and she cursed that the girls’ rooms were on the third freaking floor. But she needed out of the bedroom. For her sanity, she couldn’t remain there. She knew she had left a fashion magazine in the lounge; she remembered leaving it at the dining room table.
Grab the magazine, that was the plan. Then, sit alone at the big downstairs window with the curtains peeled back, and read by moonlight. Using a pen to circle items she wanted to buy, shaky circles. And heck, maybe she would treat herself tomorrow to make herself feel better after such a crappy night. Slingback sandals, a new handbag, retail therapy until her jaw unclenched, and the migraine needling at her brain dispersed.
The lounge was divided into two parts by two partitions meeting at a ninety-degree angle just off the centre of the room. Slipping down the stairs, and turning a small corner led directly to the dining area. A quick once-over, even in the darkness, and Yukari saw that the magazine was no longer there. She turned instead toward the living room.
The frosted glass panels of the partition revealed a figure in silhouette, and a cloud of red hair. Of course, the magazine wasn’t at the dining table because at that moment Mitsuru held it aloft in slender fingers. On the settee, with her legs crossed and her back rigid as though sitting side-saddle on a horse.
“Mitsuru-senpai?” asked Yukari, to which Mitsuru glanced upward.
“Ah!” said Mitsuru with a start, before regaining the little composure she lost. “Takeba.”
Yukari slipped around the partition and quirked an eyebrow. “Doing some light reading before bedtime?” she asked, with a playful cadence to her voice.
A small huff of amusement escaped from Mitsuru’s throat, and she said: “Are you teasing me?”
She suppressed a grin but didn’t answer. It was difficult to tell if Mitsuru was irritated or not, she was near impossible to read. Instead, she said: “What are you doing up so late?”
At that, Mitsuru closed the magazine and placed it down on the coffee table before her, replacing it in her hand with a cup of tea. She sighed: “I suspect that it’s much the same reason you are.”
Yukari nodded. The Dark Hour, she thought.
Just then, Yukari noticed how vividly she saw Mitsuru. Not as clear as during the day, it was far from daytime, but Mitsuru was awash in a warm orange light, illuminated by an oil lap, sat on the coffee table before her. The light rose upward, catching on Mitsuru’s chin, and drawing strange shadows along her cheeks and the pockets of her eyes. Adjacent to the lamp, a porcelain pot had been set on a dainty square of fabric. In Mitsuru’s hands, a single teacup perched atop a saucer of white.
Inside Yukari’s chest, a burning sensation alighted to rival the glow of that lantern. She could only assume it was the sensation of raise.
This girl. This woman. With a face as rigid as a statue, carved from marble, sipped with perfectly pursed lips from the sweetest little teacup as if the apocalypse wasn’t scraping with sharp claws at her front door begging to be let in. Yukari shoved her hands into the pockets of her housecoat.
“How’s that working?” she asked, nodding toward the lamp.
“It’s oil,” said Mitsuru. “Not electric.”
“I figured,” said Yukari. The only operable technology in the dorm during the Dark Hour was the technology in the Command Room: its console and screen, transmitters, mission stuff. Considering how capable the Kirijo Group had shown themselves to be, it’s a wonder they couldn’t have the whole dorm still functioning, but no. That clearly wasn’t a priority.
“The tea is boiled by a fire,” said Mitsuru. “I know it’s quite primitive, but needs must.”
Yukari snorted. (How was this girl even real?)
“I don’t suppose I could offer you a cup?” asked Mitsuru. “Camomile is a known cure for insomnia.”
A rejection hung on the tip of her tongue, eager to fire. A “thanks, but no thanks”, with a roll of her eyes, and that sour little tone she took when she was sure she was being patronised. She wanted to say that she already knew about the effects of camomile tea, having read about it in a health magazine she had picked up. She tugged her housecoat closer about her waist and averted her gaze from Mitsuru.
But she did not move.
And the very act of not moving made her angry with herself. She folded her arms tight across her chest, and a small almost-whimper caught in her throat. She did not want to be alone. Not right then. So, she closed her eyes, and from her lips fell a shaky breath.
She said: “Yeah, that might help. Thanks.”
Mitsuru smiled and nodded. “I’ll grab another cup,” she said. “I keep a set in my bedroom. I’ll only be a moment.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” said Yukari. “I can just use a mug from the kitchen.”
“Nonsense,” said Mitsuru. “I could hardly serve tea from any old mug to a lady.”
“A lady?!” squeaked Yukari. “W-what do you mean lady?!” Before she slapped both palms across her mouth because she didn’t want to wake the whole dorm with her screaming.
And sure enough, Mitsuru put a finger to her own lips, and glanced upward toward the ceiling as if listening out for stirring from the floor above. No sound came in response.
“Why don’t you take a seat,” said Mitsuru.
Yukari’s face flared red, and she wasn’t even sure why, I mean, Mitsuru had basically just told her to sit down on the sofa. She had sat down on that sofa a thousand times before. Still, she was grateful to have two hands obscuring her cheeks, because oh my GOD the red could have oozed from between her fingers. Her eyes frantically searched Mitsuru’s expression for any hint of irony or playfulness, but no, because Mitsuru wasn’t the teasing type. She spoke in complete earnest, with manners learned from etiquette lessons, but Yukari wasn’t LADY, and she found herself shaking her head wildly, “Just go get the cup, will you?!”
“But of course,” said Mitsuru, and off she went up the stairs.
The tea curved from the spout of the porcelain teapot in a stream of gold. Steam rose in romantic curls upward until it left the bubble of warm light that ensconced Yukari and Mitsuru, becoming no longer visible. With a flourish of her wrist, Mitsuru flicked the spout upward, stop the tea flow with spilling a drop.
Two teacups sat before them, on delicate saucers. A gorgeous set, surely more expensive than anything Yukari owned. Cream coloured with a pearlescent finish, and the rims of each cup opened like a flower in bloom. Yukari shifted closer to Mitsuru so to peer inside.
“This is a loose-leaf tea, of course,” said Mitsuru. “I believe that loose-leaf allows the flavours to breathe better.”
“I probably wouldn’t know the difference,” said Yukari, and she cringed at herself in case that sounded rude, but Mitsuru was smiling pleasantly.
Mitsuru plucked up her cup and saucer, holding it beneath her nose to smell the fragrance of the blend. Yukari did the same. Pure chamomile, a smell like fresh air and moist earth. Mitsuru brought the cup to her lips and Yukari mimicked her, taking a small sip to test the heat of the liquid. She swallowed, and that heat flowed down her throat, blossoming into her empty stomach. She felt a little more at ease.
“That’s nice,” she said, and Mitsuru hummed in agreement.
They sipped in silence for a short while.
It was just as maddening as the silence of her bedroom, and the thoughts that come in the darkness of the night were crawling into her ear, nibbling at her brain-
Yukari cleared her throat.
“Why can’t you sleep?” she asked.
Mitsuru regarded her teacup, as though it might reveal the answer. Like reading tea leaves, and Yukari wondered if Mitsuru believed in things like that.
“I suppose, what you want from me is honesty?” said Mitsuru.
Yukari furrowed her brow. “Well, yeah,” she said. “Most people don’t want to be lied to when they ask someone a question.”
Mitsuru chuckled lightly. “That is… understandable,” she said.
The orange light shifted across Mitsuru’s cheeks by the flicker of the lamp’s flame as she lifted her eyes toward Yukari’s.
“I find it difficult to sleep the night after a big battle,” she said at last. “My body is far too alert.”
“Like… from the adrenaline?”
“No,” said Mitsuru. “Not exactly. It’s more like…”
“Fear?”
Mitsuru pursed her lips. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“I am certain,” she said.
It was impossible to decipher Mitsuru’s expression under the meagre light of the oil lamp, even at this proximity. In fact, it was impossible to decipher Mitsuru’s expression even in daylight with how her fringe fell across half her face, obscuring her. Hiding what she thinks and how she feels.
Yukari was sick of it! Sick of all this hiding. So, she reached forward suddenly, wrenching back the glossy length of Mitsuru’s red curls and tossing them behind Mitsuru’s shoulder, “Look at me!” she said. Mitsuru gasped at the sudden action, her neck snapping toward Yukari so that her fringe swept back off her face. Both her eyes were visible, and Yukari looked directly into them.
“You don’t get scared,” said Yukari. “Nothing scares you.”
“I apologise,” said Mitsuru, her voice thick. Still, she did not break the eye-contact.
“For what?” said Yukari, confused.
“It appears I’ve misled you,” said Mitsuru. “I’m not as strong as you perceive me to be.”
Yukari shook her head. “What?
“I should be setting an example for you underclassman. You all look to me for strength, but this strength you think I possess is a façade. I’ve let you all down.”
“You haven’t let anyone down,” she said.
Mitsuru didn’t respond. It was strange seeing her eyes, and even stranger seeing their usual icy coolness falter. Although, it could have been simply a trick of the light.
“Honestly, I’m happy to hear you feel like a failure too,” said Yukari. “I know that’s a terrible thing to say, like, I shouldn’t want anyone to feel that way. It’s just… It’s comforting to know I’m not the only person who isn’t handling all this all that well. I guess it’s nice to know that the person I think is handling it the best is actually a scared mess too. It makes me feel a little less like a loser.”
“You are so brave, Takeba,” said Mitsuru, her voice just a whisper.
“Well, I don’t feel brave!” snapped Yukari. Her voice rose, and as it did the halo of light around them appeared to dim, the shadows in the room shifting. “I feel terrified all the time! I’m scared of shadows and people that want us dead and the fact that we might die every single time we step into the Dark Hour. I’m terrified of someone getting hurt because of me and I’m terrified that I’m making all the wrong decisions. I don’t even know if we’re doing the right thing, but at the end of the day what other option is there?
“I feel like every time we fight, we just barely win, and every Shadow gets bigger and stronger and I just have a bad feeling in my stomach that we’re reaching the limit on our luck, and I know that sounds so pessimistic but I’m always right when it comes to the bad things!”
Yukari took a deep breath. Exhaled before saying, “I’m like a bad luck magnet. It’s like it follow me around.”
In the inner corners of her eyes, she felt the pinprick of tears forming, and she blinked rapidly to dispel them, because she absolutely refused to cry in front of Mitsuru. She refused!
“I’ve never possessed the ability to say how I’m feeling,” said Mitsuru. “Expressing my emotions is simply not how I was raised, the same is true for my father and my mother.”
This was the first time Yukari heard Mitsuru mention her parents. Her heart seized up.
“Truth be told,” Mitsuru continued, “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I know the words which represent thoughts and feelings, I’m familiar with them, but it’s as though I’m incapable of stringing them together to represent me. Does that make sense?”
Yukari nodded, sniffed quietly, and said, “It does. Yeah.”
“Therefore, it is a pleasure to watch you displaying your emotions unabashedly, allowing your body to feel those emotions to the fullest extent as they exist within you at a given moment.”
“Huh?” Yukari felt her cheeks redden. “I wouldn’t exactly say I’m unabashed about it, I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing most of the time.”
“I enjoy how explosive you can be,” said Mitsuru, and her cheeks were dusted a light pink. “It’s… thrilling.”
“Huh?! I hate it,” said Yukari. She pouted, “it just gets me in trouble.”
At that, Mitsuru laughed. A hearty laugh, holding her hand to her chest, and tossing her chin back just slightly. Yukari smiled at the sight; she had never seen Mitsuru appear so carefree.
“Well,” said Yukari. “How do you feel right now?”
Mitsuru paused for a moment in thought, so Yukari pressed further: “You’re not scared now, are you?”
Mitsuru said: “I am. A little.”
“Why?”
“My heart is beating ferociously.”
Without thinking, Yukari stretched forward. Pressing her hand to Mitsuru’s chest, she sought out her heartbeat. Sure enough, it thrummed wildly against her fingers like a caged animal, as though Mitsuru’s heart yearned for Yukari’s touch.
“Is this okay?” asked Yukari.
Mitsuru’s eyes widened; her lips parted with a tremble. Her face as red as her hair, as red as her eyes. Still, she said, “It is.”
Said: “More than okay.”
The light of the fire rekindled, its warm glow intensifying. Like forcefield, it encircled both girls, protecting them from Shadows and the Dark Hour, and the crushing weigh of expectations placed upon them from the hands of the forefathers. In that moment, Yukari knew nothing but the soft heat of Mitsuru’s skin and the beat of her heart. A sound which cancelled all silence better than her favourite CD spinning in a portable player ever could. Her breathing, guided by the rise and fall of her chest. Yukari wanted it directly into her ear.
People are real, she thought. She knew. Because there sat one before her, the best of. And if Yukari could not trust her eyes, bleary at this midnight hour, then she would have to trust her other senses. Smell that? The rich, floral fragrance of Mitsuru’s body wash, from her post-Tartarus shoulder. Touch. Touch that lingered. The pads of fingers meeting skin flushed pink, sticking to it like glue. More gentle than TV static.
Where static shocked her, Mitsuru breathed into the touch. Stretched out her neck under the light coercion of Yukari’s hands rising trailing from Mitsuru’s chest to the luscious wildfire of her red hair. Brushing against her expensive robe.
Mitsuru was not a dream, although she could have been. So impossibly perfect that she was, sitting on the settee with one leg crossed over the other. Yukari hated that. Her poise, and the tightly zipped up posture of her body, the tightly wound-up pinch of lips.
So, she kissed her hard. Hard because was angry. Slotted their lips together, and felt Mitsuru return that anger, and maybe it was because Mitsuru hated her right back, and why shouldn’t she? Yukari had screamed at her. She had regarded her with nothing but suspicion since she arrived at the dorm, glaring at Mitsuru from across the lounge with eyes like the pierce of an arrow, sharp. Yukari had never been good at hiding her feelings. Born with a sour face that spoke whatever words were held captive on her bitten tongue.
Yukari was very good at firing arrows.
Remembering those early days, it had been just her and Mitsuru and Akihiko. Floating between rooms and floors, these three little specks in the huge expanse of the dormitory. There were times when Yukari turned a corner to find Mitsuru and Akihiko discussing some topic in hushed voiced, with their heads bowed together. “Yukari!” Mitsuru would say, making her surprise sound pleasant, thereby silencing whatever conversation had been going on between them.
It was always embarrassing running into either of them, as though she been caught somewhere she shouldn’t be. Walking through the hallways shouldn’t feel so much like lurking because Yukari lived there. Didn’t she? Or at least she slept there at night, and sometimes that’s all a home was.
When her father had passed away, evenings after school became microwaved dinners for one, to the sound of her mother giggling from her bedroom like a pathetic little teenage girl. It made Yukari sick. Piercing the plastic film of her meal with the sharp prongs of a fork and the heavy weight of her fist. Stabbing it again and again until the film caved in altogether and her pasta bake turned to mush.
In the dorm, during the day, Yukari preferred to sit at the counter near the kitchen with her back to the lounge. Her flip-phone in one hand and her cheek nestled in the other, texting her girls from the archery club absent-mindedly. Knowing Mitsuru was in the room with her somewhere, maybe reading a book, or maybe she had set it down, Yukari couldn’t be sure because she refused to turn around just to check. Really, she didn’t care.
When someone entered the dorm, Mitsuru’s voice rang out with, “Oh, there you are. Welcome home.”
And Yukari seethed because Mitsuru delivered it with such practised serenity. Her hands shook and she wanted to snap her phone shut and shout right across the room, “YOU DON’T KNOW ME!”
Because Mitsuru doesn’t. And she doesn’t want to know her, no matter how many times she greeted Yukari as she arrived home from archery practice. “Hello, Yukari,” said with a placid smile on her face over some classic literature book. “How was practice?”
They weren’t a tight knit little family, eating homemade dinners around the dining room table, they barely used that damn table. They weren’t talking about their days and their dreams. Yukari didn’t know when Mitsuru’s birthday was, or her star sign. Either she hadn’t been at the dorm long enough to see the day come and go, or Mitsuru simply didn’t celebrate it.
She didn’t know about Mitsuru’s family, whether she was close with her family, or hatred them vehemently. The Kirijo name was branded on everything in the school: equipment, plaques, all written with a trademark because they were a company before they were a family name, Yukari supposed.
She didn’t know how that made Mitsuru feel.
But she did know how soft Mitsuru’s lips were, slotted against her own. Knew the warmth of Mitsuru’s tongue as it pushed into her mouth and swirled silky with her own.
They weren’t lovers because lovers meant love, and this wasn’t love. Yukari kissed Mitsuru with venom, kissed her like she wanted her to hurt. Wanted to cause pain, with biting teeth that chewed at the flesh of Mitsuru’s lower lip. Dragging the lip out, it’s plumpness like a berry eager to burst. The pop of juices which fill the mouth, before relinquishing it. Pulling away her for a quick inhale of breath, before diving back in to taste the dark wine again.
Mitsuru’s hand slipped into the opening of Yukari’s robe. Broadening firm hands across her lower back. Mitsuru’s fingers melted into the skin it found beneath Yukari’s cropped pyjama top, pulling her in closer, coaxing a sudden and sweet gasp from her lips.
With her other hand to Yukari’s shoulder, Mitsuru eased her backwards onto the settee. Leaning over her, Mitsuru stared down at Yukari with dark wine eyes, and Yukari shivered beneath her gaze. She might have been drunk on that wine; the room was spinning while she herself remained immobile, pinned in place by Mitsuru’s legs straddling either side of her hips. The world revolved on their axis.
(HATE.)
Mitsuru’s hair tumbled down in curtains about Yukari’s cheeks, so that they were both encased in the red walls it created. Now there was nothing else but Mitsuru. The wispy ends of her hair tickling at Yukari’s skin, along her neck, immaculate curls even this late into the Dark Hour.
Mitsuru was so perfect it made Yukari sick, and her stomach churned with that sickness, the bile rising to her chest where it burned acidic.
Yukari reached up, running her fingers through the silky waves of that hair, toying with it as a cat might a strand of yearn. Her nails were cat’s claws, scratching, scratching. She wanted to mess those curls up, to destroy the perfection before her, or at least to tarnish it, if only just a little.
(HATE.)
If only for just her own eyes to see.
Mitsuru’s face floated nearer, placing a kiss on Yukari’s cheek bone and the corner of her mouth, catching droplets that fell from her lashes. She hadn’t even realised she was crying. (She couldn’t even stop herself from crying. God, she was so pathetic.)
“You’re so beautiful,” whispered Mitsuru, and Yukari felt her cheeks redden, she knew she was blushing. She turned her face away, attempting to tuck herself into her own shoulder, to burrow into the cushion beneath her head.
Mitsuru cupped a hand about the curve of Yukari’s cheek, guiding her gaze back toward her once more. “It’s okay,” she said, running her thumb gently along Yukari’s under-eye. “I’m here.”
Yukari felt like a child, cradled in Mitsuru’s firm arms. Cradled, too, by the maturity of her voice, in a sense. How she sounded so much like an adult when she spoke, each word soft but assured, so that Yukari believed each word Mitsuru was saying. It was okay, just because Mitsuru said so. And Mitsuru was here. Someone bigger and stronger than her; smarter and prettier, who could grab Yukari’s life by the reins and take complete control. Make every decision for her, tell her what to eat and what to wear, so that anything that went wrong was no longer her fault.
Yukari would relinquish all control with open hands. A sweet smile.
Her body softened with an ease she had not felt in a long time, her limbs loosened, and her muscles relaxed. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, fluttering to a close. In Mitsuru’s arms she was tiny. So tiny as to curl up into those satin blue robes until her tears became part of the intricate pattern, blotchy and dark.
Yukari felt safe in Mitsuru’s arms, and that was the most frightening thing of all.
So, she screamed.
Screamed: “GET OFF OF ME!” suddenly, and Mitsuru’s face shattered.
Eyes dilating, terrified, and Mitsuru’s mouth fell open as she crawled backwards off of Yukari’s body. “I apologise,” she stuttered. “Yukari, I apologise profusely.”
Yukari had never seen Mitsuru in such a panicked state, but she hadn’t time to relish the expression on her face.
She stood, hastily shoving her feet back into her slippers. Clenched her fingers messily at the collar of her housecoat; tugged at the sash about her waist where its knot had come undone. She was gripping at fabric, groping for the chair behind her and then the divider. Searching for something to hold onto as she backed out of the halo of light now burning weakly on the coffee table, creating distance between Mitsuru and her.
Even in the darkness, she saw the sadness dripping from Mitsuru’s eyes. The regret swimming there.
Rushing upstairs and into her bedroom, Yukari slammed the door behind her, not caring how much noise she made, or who she woke up, because everyone was probably wide awake anyway, hugging their pillows close and pretending they weren’t stupid little children, afraid of the dark.
(GOD, she was such a bitch!)
Ramming her back into the door, she felt each crevice in the wood as she scraped slowly down to the carpeted floor where she landed with a thump. Her heart was liquid. Heavy like a sponge when it absorbs too much water. No matter how much she cried, still her body felt as though it was sinking.
She couldn’t stifle the tears. She had always been such a cry baby. The type to cry when she got angry, or to get angry when she cried, whichever came first. Mascara running down her cheeks as she ran away from anything too difficult. Always running away every time a mirror cracked or a nail broke. Petty problems. Stupid things. A trait she had inherited from her mother, because no matter how much she looked like her father, with his puppy dog brown eyes and his strawberry blonde hair, she would always be her mother’s daughter.
Yukari rubbed the heel of her hand deep into the socket of her eye. Followed by the knuckle kneaded into the socket of the other, attempting to stifle the tears before they could fall. They were hot like water boiled, singeing at the skin. Like water poured from the spout of a teapot into a delicate little cup. How easily a cup like that could smash in a pair of violent hands.
Raising her hand to her face, she saw it was trembling.
She imagined pouring shards of porcelain from that hand, letting them crash down onto the floor before her. A polite girl would rush to grab a brush and dustpan to clean up her mess, but instead, Yukari pictured herself stepping on the shards, crunching the pieces to dust beneath the heel of her shoes.
“Oops,” she would say. “Did I do that?” with that obnoxious lilt to her voice.
Her mother was not an angry woman. All the fire in her blood went toward fucking men, of which she had more than Yukari cared to know. Her father’s passion was different, channelled into science and the pursuit of knowledge, and look what that did for him!
No. This anger was not inherited. This anger belonged to Yukari alone. It existed inside her, she had created it all by herself. Opened her hands to show the broken shards of a teacup, and the burns on her palms, and the blood, as if to say, “Look what I can do”, because she couldn’t do much else.
Yukari moved her shaky hand to her lips. The tip of her tongue blistered from the too-hot tea, and her lips felt blistered too, aching beneath the touch of fingertips with the memory of Mitsuru’s kiss. In her rush to leave Mitsuru, Yukari realised, she had forgotten to grab her magazine. But the Dark Hour would be over soon, so it didn’t matter.
That’s when she saw it. From the corner of her eye, a Shadow rising like magama does from the cracked earth. In the centre of bedroom, a pair of yellow eyes and claws like shears. It appeared to bubble; it’s flesh pulsing lava does.
Yukari gasped, angling her shoulder so that she could reach upward toward the door handle behind her, using it to drag her up off the floor. She thrust the door open. Her evoker remained in the command room during the day, and she would have to alert the others to the presence of a Shadow outside of Tartarus.
She tossed a quick glance over her shoulder before she left; before this new mission began. All she saw was darkness. And a set of digital numbers floating in that darkness flashing 00:01.