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Laios’s party had just put an end to the threat of the headless knight, something about Laios making a trade with it or whatever, “whatever, whatever” Izutsumi thinks to herself, they wouldn’t have gotten into that situation if they didn’t make their stop to sleep and eat as always, if it had to be her way they would already be at the end of the dungeon. Izutsumi sighs and walks with her hands clasped behind her neck looking torwards the cliffside, it had been days by now and so much time was lost, and by the looks of it they already are planning to stop again.
-“Over here, everyone” Laios exclaims “We’ll explore the inside and find a nice spot to fill up and rest!” The tall-man hold up his bag walking torwards a great open door marking the entrance to a fountain adorned chamber. Senshi follows behind him holding his giant cooking pot, and right next to them Marcille and Chilchuck prepare to sit and rest.
-“Urgh, food, rest, food, rest, always like this with you all! We would already have been at the next layer if it wasn’t for this” Izutsumi complains frustrated, sitting by the edge of the deep cliff cross armed. Marcille and Chilchuck stop right on their tracks listening to the cat girl, Chilchuck furrows his brows with a sigh.
-”Izutsumi, you really just think about yourself don’t you?” The half-foot man says making his tiredness with the girl’s actions clear in his voice “Couldn’ you stop and think about other around you for once? You can’t just live your life all by yourself, no one does”
As the words hit Izutsumi’s ears her face scrunches up with anger, with her fist clutched the girl stands up, “Who does he even think he is? He doesn’t know how I had to live” this thought repeats inside of the girl’s head making her release all her pent up emotions at Chilchuck.
-”I never, never! Had someone to raise me, all I did and accomplished, all of it was myself!” Turning to face the half-foot man with an anger that could clearly be noticed by her held back tears she shouted “I’ve spent my whole life by myself, and that’s how I’ll keep doing it! I’m only with you because you told me that idiot mad magician can lift my curse!”
Chilchuck’s face turns into one of genuine annoyance, the girl was so immature to him that it frustrated him “If that’s the case then why haven’t you gone on by yourself, clearly you are capable to” he says sternly to the cat girl, not meaning harm by his words.
Izutsumi thinks and puts a hand on her chin, “huh this doesn’t seem like a bad idea” she thinks, she’s clearly way faster and efficient than these dweebs, and all she cares about is herself right? She can just do it by herself, still for some reason, her heart clenches with an unknown feeling thinking about doing so.
-”See? You haven’t done it because you want to stick with us, you need our help too Izutsumi” Chilchuck explains more calmly to the girl. Izutsumi’s teeth clench with a weird frustration, her mind shook with contradicting feelings about the situation: “He thinks he’s my father bossing me around? I do what I want I can just go on my own, I did everything alone all my life”, “If I stay here I’ll at least get to eat”, “No, urgh, but I should show everyone just who I am, I don’t need any of this, I don’t need Chilchuck’s bossy voice thinking he knows everything about me, I don’t need Senshi to make me food I can hunt on my own, I don’t need Marcille to heal me or clean me I know how to treat this, and I don’t need Laios to keep wasting our time and putting us in these situations”
Izutsumi grits her teeth again, her form stands tall on the cliff’s edge and her fists clench to her sides, her face is half covered by her hair and tears of pure frustration form on the corner of her eyes “I don’t need anyone!!” Izutsumi shouts, catching also the attention of Marcille and the two other members preparing the camp “I.. urgh! I don’t even know why I was following along with you idiots!” Izutsumi looks down to Chilchuck, clearly caught back by her explosive reaction “I’ll go get that mad magician, I’ll undo my curse, and I’ll leave this dungeon to stay on my own, like I was meant to be!”
With this one final angry speech Izutsumi jumps off to run on her own “Hey w-wait Izutsumi!” Chilchuck shouts out to her, the girl bites her lip and runs faster. Marcille grabs Izutsumi’s hand as a final effort to make her stay, but she pulls her hand away, making it atop of more rocks with agility unmatched by anyone else in the party, they can only watch as her form grows more and more distant in their field of vision.
Not looking back Izutsumi had made her way through the chamber, all she could see for a long while was simply the cliffside path she had been, part of her feels stupid for having done this, part of her wants to feed and prove right the side of her mind that tells her she’ll be solitary forever.
Izutsumi’s breath catches up and her body trembles as she moves, it seems even she had her limitations, the girl sprints forward, slowly sprints turn into just a hurrying pace, her pace slows down to the point of just walking, until the point walking becomes too much for her legs to endure, only able to hold herself to the wall to move forward, Izutsumi just lays down on the floor with a huff.
Looking at the cave roof, Izutsumi can’t help but feel stupid, for how much she complained about the others making rest stops, refilling their energy with food and losing so much time over such mundane things, here she was, laying on the floor unable to continue, resting and losing so much time, so many precious minutes that could be used to make her final mission of being a normal human so much closer to its goal.
Did she even care about the time lost at this point? Thinking about it, not really, it angered her to have to move at others pace, it angered her to have been told what to do, it angered her to not be in control for a single moment in her life. Izutsumi rolls over leaving her back faced to the cold and pointy wall of rocks, she moves around a few pebbles in front of her, organizing them by shape, feeling their different textures and letting her own thoughts flow adrift.
Her mind wanted to be miserable, that was clear for her, she couldn’t let herself have company, she couldn’t let herself rest and enjoy not for a second, she had to affirm to herself and everyone else that she was meant to suffer and go by on her own. No one could get to know her inner self too closely, she was already closed off to the world, and when they tried to she had to push everything away. Izutsumi chuckles, the good thing about being alone, she guesses, is that she could finally spend some time revelling in the suffering she kept putting herself through, her mind never really got to learn how to work without feeling dread and misery.
“…”
“…” “…”
How long has it been anyway? Her sorted pebbles have already formed 4 neatly separated clusters, what else could she do to keep her mind busy?
“…”
It was cold, the floor was cold, the wall was could, the breeze was cold, her body felt cold and empy. She misses Marcille, she always hug her, no matter how much she complained and pouted about it before, now that she doesn’t have it anymore she misses it so achingly. Izutsumi’s arms close around her chest to try and recreate the warmth she was once given.
Now that she thinks about it, Chilchuck didn’t even want to offend her with his words, what would have happened if she stayed there for longer and just let her feelings boil off? Would she be resting in a sleeping bag with her stomach full and comfortable next to the crackling fireplace? Well it’s not like it even matters to reminisce anyways, she chose this path for herself, so here she’ll stay.
The wind blows cold on her laying body ruffling her hair, the girl closes her eyes, this gentle breeze is soothing if she relaxes, the ruffling on her hair becomes more vivid making it more relaxing, she feels her hair being caressed up and down by what feels like inviting hands. Izutsumi leaves her eyes half closed at the gentleness, the feeling of another hand gently caresses under her chin, making her lift her head slightly to make way to the new comfyness.
“Wait” suddenly it ticks to her, this was too vivid to be just the wind, tilting her head up with a sudden startle Izutsumi notices an unknown woman smiling down at her, and immediately jumps up into a protective stance muttering “W-who are you??”
Though scared, the woman’s appearance did bring a sense of ease to her heart, the woman mantained a calm posture with a gentle smile, her clothing attire reminisces memories of people she’s seen when very young, and something about her face… it just brought out a homey feeling of safeness to her heart, bringing its panicked beating to a steady pulse.
Slowly, almost instinctively her hand grows more distant from her pocket knife, her legs close together taking her out of her defencive stance, her ears lower back and she extends her right hand slowly torwards the figure.
Seeing this, the woman smiles with a satisfied giggle turning her head slightly sideways, carefully the woman raises her arms and envelops Izutsumi’s carefully extended hand into the warmth of her own hands. “I’ve missed you so much, my dear Izutsumi” the woman mutters, as if she had finally reunited with someone that mattered incredibly to her.
-“M-mo…” the words leave Izutsumi’s mouth almost unwillingly, she can’t believe, she doesn’t know why but this woman brings out such a calming feeling to her heart, she can’t help herself, she’s not a tough girl handling everything on her own, she’s scared, she’s frightened, she never had a single person to take her in their arms and tell her it’ll all be okay, all she wanted most of all was to be able to be vulnerable.
Izutsumi hugs herself to the woman’s chest and cries, burying her face on her shoulder, her eyes release so much emotion locked inside her heart from ever since she was a young child, she can’t control the flow of tears from her eyes, her body shakes with the intensity of all the feelings she has inside her.
-”It’s okay, I’m here my love” the woman says soothingly caressing Izutsumi’s head with her hand “You’ve been alone for so long haven’t you? You’ve had to be so brave from so young, my poor Izutsumi, you deserve rest now” the woman says as her head lays gently atop of her close companion.
Izutsumi can’t stop trembling and muttering phrases that leave her sobbing mouth too shakily to be comprehended as words, “I m-missed you, m-missed you p-please don’t go again” she says as her body grows completely vulnerable for once on the woman’s motherly embrace. The woman giggles lovingly “Don’t worry, we’ll stay together forever” with the smaller girl’s face completely hidden on her shoulder, the Sucubbus shapeshifts its head into its original shape.
The creature’s proboscis sticks out of its mouth and make its way to Izutsumi’s neck, “Rest now, my child” the Sucubbus mutters lovingly as part of its charade, sucking the vital force off of the cat girl. Izutsumi can’t feel herself grow weaker by the second, all she cares is her mother is back, she’s back, she’s… not… alone… anymore…
“…”
Izutsumi falls down to the cavefloor uncounscious.