
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/815570.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Additional Tags:
      Magical_Girls, Mutual_Masturbation, Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder
  Collections:
      Shousetsu_Bang*Bang
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-05-24 Words: 7666
****** Love Lights Up the Darkness ******
by Yoshiyo_Hotaru_(SaturnOolaa)
Summary
     Chisato has been fighting on her own for a long time. Then she meets
     Kana, and she's not alone anymore - but that doesn't always make
     things easier. Still, they will keep going.
That night, for the first time in a year or so, Chisato starts to cry while
brushing her teeth.
She barely even realizes it until she hears her mom's footsteps down the hall.
She spits out her toothpaste and tries to wipe her face dry, but her eyes have
already gone red and puffy, and she's breathing in little sobs. It's too
obvious to hide it now.
There's a knock on the bathroom door. "Chisato? Are you all right? Did
something happen?"
Chisato opens the door. "It's nothing, mom," she says, with her best
embarrassed smile. "I... um... I'm under a lot of stress at school right now,
and... well, it's that time of the month for me, so..."
Her mom doesn't respond, but her face says she doesn't quite buy it.
"I'm sorry." She can't meet her eyes. "I'll be fine, I promise."
"Chisato," says her mother, gently, "you know you can talk to me about
anything, right?"
Every time her mother says this to her - and there have been many times over
the last two years - she wishes so badly that it were true. That she could let
her know why she's so tired all the time, why she has trouble keeping up in
school, why she sometimes cries at night before bed. Why she sometimes looks
around the streets of Futsuyama as though she's seeing something different.
She just can't bear to do it. There are things nobody should know about, and
since she's the only one who can do anything, it's for the best if she keeps
them to herself.
"I know," she says, and without saying anything more, she hugs her mom tightly,
pressing her wet face into her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Her mom puts her arms around her with a wistful sigh. "You have nothing to be
sorry for," she says. "I trust you, honey."
"Thanks, mom."
Too soon, she has to let go and continue her preparations for bed.
Chisato has worked out an evening routine that soothes her enough to sleep,
regardless of what might happen in the night. She makes a pot of chamomile tea,
then listens to her favourite CDs while she reads something that doesn't
require too much thought on her part: a light novel or classic children's book.
Sometimes she even does a bit of homework, if it's easy.
She sleeps in a four-poster bed with a fluffy duvet and brightly-coloured
patchwork quilt. The bed and the quilt were both birthday presents from when
she turned seven, a time when she was going through a phase of fascination with
fairy tales. Gradually, she's given up most of her childhood stuffed animals,
but a few of the most treasured still sit by her pillow.
Just before bed, she lets down her hair from the buns she wears at the nape of
her neck. There's a hairbrush on her dresser, and she brushes her hair with it,
gently and carefully. It reminds her of when her mom used to do her hair for
her. The memory is comforting in the face of uncertainty.
"Good night!" she calls, pulling off her slippers and climbing into bed.
"Good night!" her mom calls back from down the hall.
That night, like every night, she says a silent prayer to whoever might be
listening, asking them to give her courage.
She lets her head fall back onto the bed.
***
Ironically, when she opens her eyes an hour later and sees only darkness, she
is perfectly calm.
Even from her bed, she's learned to immediately recognize that she's gone to
the Shadow World. Her alarm clock and the little red light of her smoke alarm
are both dark. The neon sign across the street advertising the neighbors' store
has disappeared from her window, replaced by the branches of a gnarled black
tree. Mostly, though, it's just a feeling, an unease she's only ever felt in
this one situation.
She slips out of bed and pulls her power talisman out of her pyjama top. It's
about the size of a cellphone charm, shaped like the sun and made of a
strangely warm metal she's never been able to identify. She keeps it on a chain
around her neck at all times.
"Power of the sun," she mumbles, and she is enveloped in a blinding golden
light. When it fades, her transformation is complete.
Chisato's magical girl costume is beautiful, with a frilly skirt and long,
lace-up boots. It fits to the contours of her body, but not too tightly, and it
never tears or wrinkles. Her hair is tied up with shiny red and yellow ribbons.
Sometimes, when she's alone in the house, she transforms during the day just to
admire herself in the mirror. Cute clothes like the kind her classmates wear
are usually too small for her, and it feels good to see herself all dressed up.
She used to feel conflicted about this - how could she enjoy anything connected
with the Shadow World? But life goes on. She has to find happiness where she
can.
Tucking her power talisman into the top of her costume, she opens her bedroom
window and jumps out. The fall would be dangerous in her everyday life, but as
a magical girl she seems to glide down to street level.
The Shadow World is clearly a parallel of her hometown, but with everything
somehow askew. The pavement of her little street is cracked and blistered, so
that it rises and falls like waves as far as she can see. The buildings are
crooked, with narrow doors and windows scattered haphazardly around their
shadowy facades. The cherry trees that line the road become black, twisted
skeletons that tower above her. "Scary" isn't the right word for it, not quite,
but it's unsettling, and Chisato shivers a little as she scans her surroundings
for Shadows.
She sees one further down the street, but it's not yet facing her way - she can
still take it by surprise. It's humanoid and roughly her size. Like all Shadows
its outline is fuzzy, expanding and contracting slightly with every move it
makes. When it opens its mouth, a greasy black smoke pours out, rising up into
the equally black sky.
"Fire Lily Strike," she calls, and a vaguely flower-shaped fireball grows in
her palms, then launches itself towards the Shadow. Before the creature has
time to turn around, it is engulfed in flame. There's a hissing sound as the
fire burns itself out, taking the Shadow with it.
Chisato takes a cautious step closer to the place where it was standing. The
only thing left is a perfectly round black gem.
She crushes it under her heel in one firm stomp. It's impossible to be sure,
but she thinks that some Shadows regenerate after they've been melted down.
They might even become stronger. To avoid the risk, she destroys the black
stones whenever she has the chance.
Sensing something behind her, she whirls around.
Behind her is a Greater Shadow. It's at least three times her size, and looks
like a goat standing on its hind legs, but with huge, splayed claws instead of
hooves. Its horns twist absurdly from the top of its head, so big and
asymmetrical that no living creature would be able to support their weight. It
has no eyes, of course, only a gaping red mouth in what is otherwise a sea of
blackness.
Chisato is hit by a near-paralyzing wave of fear. Fortunately, over time, she's
learned to ignore her reaction to the grotesque appearance of most Shadows. She
springs backwards as the creature swipes at her with its claws.
It was careless of her not to keep to the walls. Attacking a Shadow in plain
sight, forgetting to observe her surroundings, she's let a Greater Shadow sneak
up on her unnoticed. It's a mistake she made often enough as a beginner, and it
was only luck that kept her alive back then. Now, there's nothing she can do
but hope she has the strength to take it down.
She readies another Fire Lily Strike.
"Freezing Ambush."
The Shadow's mouth contorts horrifically as the blade of a sparkling crystal
sword emerges from its mouth. Stabbed through, it crumbles into nothingness,
its crooked horns the last thing to disappear.
Behind the remains, gripping the hilt of the sword with both hands as she lands
on the ground, is another girl. She too is wearing a costume: a blue and silver
corset with a pleated skirt and long, white gloves. Her hair is in a high
ponytail and there's a tiara on her head.
It's Ryuuzaki Kana.
"You're... Tanemura-san," she says, as she shatters the Shadow's remains with
the point of her sword. "You should be more careful."
"I, um- yeah..." stammers Chisato, too surprised to thank her.
Ryuuzaki Kana is in her class at school, but she's only lived in Futsuyama for
a few months. Chisato doesn't know much about her. She's thin and beautiful,
with a kind of angular, mature face, and she's one of the taller girls in
class. She's an average student, the same as Chisato, with Gym as her only
stand-out subject. Some of the sports teams have tried to recruit her, but
she's turned them all down. She's popular in such a way that everyone admires
her and no one gets too close.
This is the most they've ever said to one another.
"Thank you," she says finally, remembering her manners.
"It was nothing." Kana's not even looking at her. Instead, she scans their
surroundings intently, sword in position to attack. "We need to move. I saw
another big one headed this way."
Chisato has a million questions, but they'll have to wait. The Shadow World
isn't the place. "We should get to higher ground."
"Right."
Together, they run for the four-way stop at the end of the street, which in the
Shadow World is a hill tall enough to see most of the neighborhood from.
Instinctively, Chisato puts her back up against Kana's. There are several
Shadows approaching from the left: all about as small of the first one she
killed tonight, but threats nonetheless.
"River of Flame," she cries, and a pathway of fire springs up from the concrete
at her feet, then blazes its way to the nearest Shadow and envelops it.
"Nice aim," comments Kana, glancing her way for a moment before taking out
another Shadow with her ice sword.
"Thanks."
They hardly speak for the rest of the night. The Shadows come faster than
usual, as though the presence of two magical girls attracts them twice as
strongly. Chisato fires off Fire Flowers and Rivers of Flame and watches
admiringly when, once, Kana summons a line of ice javelins which fire
themselves into the crowd of Shadows and disperse them momentarily.
Chisato loses track of time, which is already malleable in the Shadow World.
Finally, though, she sees the faintest light on the horizon, an almost
unnoticeable change in the shade of the black sky.
Instantly, the world returns to normal.
The streetlights come back all at once, the neighbor's neon sign once again
advertises their convenience store. Chisato and Kana are standing in the
intersection of the perfectly flat street which leads back to Chisato's square
two-story house, and the cherry trees are bare but alive.
They take a step back out of the intersection, and Kana de-transforms in a
column of silver light. Chisato can just barely see the outline of her body as
her costume fades away. She's always wondered what that must look like.
In her normal form, Kana is wearing a black t-shirt and sweatpants. She pulls
her cellphone out of her pocket - dark blue, with no charms or decorations -
and checks the screen. "Four-thirty."
"That's smart," says Chisato admiringly. "What you're wearing." Her street is
usually deserted this early in the morning, and as far as she knows she's never
been spotted in either her magical girl costume or her pyjamas, but she has
worried about it.
Kana shrugs her shoulders. "I like to be prepared."
Chisato's not sure if that was meant to be an insult or just a statement of
fact. Either way, she hardly cares - dawn and the discovery of Kana have made
her too happy to be offended. She's about to burst into a rush of questions,
but when she opens her mouth all that comes out is a yawn.
"Excuse me!" She puts her hand over her mouth, belatedly, and laughs. "I think
I might go home and sleep for a bit. But, um...."
"We'll talk at the school," says Kana, answering her unvoiced question. "If you
want."
"Of course!" Chisato smiles, wholeheartedly. "I can't believe... well. See you
in class."
Without another word, Kana jogs away.
***
From the moment she wakes up and starts the day, Chisato is overflowing with
nervous joy. Usually her mornings after going to the Shadow World are a
struggle, but today she feels as energetic as if she'd had a full night of
sleep.
"You look happy," comments her mother mildly, as they eat a quick breakfast of
cereal together.
Chisato nods. She hasn't been able to stop smiling. "Yeah! I feel a lot better
now."
"I'm so glad, honey."
As usual, she has barely enough time to get to class before the bell rings.
Kana is already sitting in her desk when she bursts into the room. Her eyes
flicker to Chisato, staying focused on her until she takes her seat near the
back.
It's not much, but it's enough to keep her on the edge of her seat for all of
their morning classes.
At lunchtime, when Kana goes to the school cafeteria, Chisato goes with her.
They take seats together in a quiet corner and talk in whispers over plates of
curry rice.
"When did it start for you?"
Kana's expression is unreadable. "Two years ago, I think. Maybe three."
"Me too," says Chisato, trying to sound calm, although her heart is racing. "I
mean, it's been two and a half years, for me. Since I got the talisman." She
reaches into her shirt and pulls it out, cupping it carefully in her hands so
that no one else will see it and wonder. "I found it in my hand one morning,
after I dreamt about the Shadow World."
"Why do you call it that?"
Chisato pauses. "I don't know. It just came into my head. Why, what do you call
it?"
"The Shadow World." Kana frowns. "Those words came into my head, too, the first
time I woke up there. With my transformation phrase."
"It's not 'Power of the sun,' is it?"
She shakes her head. "Power of the moon."
"So we match!" Chisato can't help smiling at the thought. "And after you
transformed, you just... knew how to use your powers?"
Kana nods. "There was nothing strange about it to me at the time. Even when I
saw the Shadows." She looks bitter. "I thought it was another dream."
"Yeah, me too," responds Chisato with an awkward little laugh. "Until a Shadow
grabbed me and the bruises were still there in the morning. I had to wear a
scarf for a week." The memory still makes her wince, and she hurries to another
topic. "So, um, you never met, like--"
"A talking animal guide?" finishes Kana, a bit sarcastically."No. There was
only the dream, and then I was there for real. I don't know what the Shadow
World is, or why I have magic powers." She stares down at her plate. "I just
fight. That's all."
They're both quiet for a while.
"I never knew if the Shadow World was everywhere," says Chisato, slowly, "or
only in Futsuyama. I don't know if I ever thought about it before."
"I hoped it might just be my city," responds Kana. She laughs, unpleasantly. "I
guess that was too much to hope for."
"Is that why you moved here?"
"Partly."
"And your parents...?"
"I live alone."
Chisato frowns. "So they let you move here by yourself?"
"None of your business," snaps Kana.
Shocked, Chisato flinches. "Sorry," she says, nervously. "I shouldn't... I
don't want to pry."
"No." Still looking frustrated, Kana closes her eyes and takes a deep, faintly
shaky breath. "No, I'm sorry, that was rude. You were only asking." She looks
uncomfortable, even nervous. "I've never... talked about this before. With
anyone."
"We don't have to talk about it at all, if you don't want to." Chisato smiles
shyly across the table. "I'm just glad that there's someone else."
"Me too," replies Kana. Almost hesitantly, she adds, "Chisato-san."
The sound of her first name on Kana's lips makes her heart beat a little
faster, but she tries to ignore it.
***
They decide to signal one another the next time they wake up in the Shadow
World. A few nights later, Chisato does. After transforming, she hops out of
the window and aims a Fire Lily Strike into the black sky, sending it up like a
flare. A few seconds later, there's a reply: tiny beads of ice shooting up into
the darkness, like a hailstorm in reverse.
Chisato thinks it's close, but can't be sure. Following the twisted pathways of
the Shadow World, she continues to send out signals every minute. It seems to
take forever, but finally she turns a corner and sees Kana running towards her.
"Hi," she says, shyly, unsure of what to say to express her gladness.
"Hi," responds Kana. "Anything follow you?"
"I don't think so...."
"There was a Greater Shadow trailing me, but I think I lost it." Kana glances
over her shoulder, as if to make sure. "Still, we should be careful."
"We can shake it off," says Chisato, and she gestures to the house beside them,
a crooked and shadowy monster of a building. "I don't think they sense us as
well when we're indoors."
Kana raises an eyebrow coolly. "I'm sure the people inside will be thrilled to
see us."
Flushing, Chisato shakes her head. "No, that's not a problem." She pulls the
door handle. It's open, of course - people don't lock their doors at night in
this town. "I'll show you."
The door they come through is tall and crooked, sitting in the wall almost
diagonally, so that they have to duck going through it. On the other side of
the wall, though, it looks perfectly normal. There's even a little peephole
through which Chisato can see the Shadows passing by outside. Other than the
darkness, which could easily be the result of a power outage, there's only one
difference between this house in the Shadow World and the real world.
There's a middle-aged man sitting on the couch in the main room, across from a
blank-screened TV. His index finger touches his glasses as if to push them up
his nose, but he is completely still.
"What's wrong with him?" whispers Kana, taking a step closer.
Chisato replies by waving her hand in front of the man's face. There is no
reaction. "He's frozen. It happens to everyone - I don't know why." This is why
she always leaves her house by the bedroom window - the sight of her mom as
still as a wax figure makes her nauseous. "And people who are outside when the
Shadow World appears just..."
"...Vanish, and then reappear in the morning," finishes Kana. "I know. I've
seen it too."
"I think that's why the Shadows come after us," says Chisato. "We're the only
living things in this world."
"Have you ever seen the edge of town?"
Chisato shakes her head. "I try to stay close to my house." That's not the
whole truth. Really, the Shadow World scares her so much already that she's
been too terrified of what she'll see to wander too far from the relative
safety of her neighborhood. She braces herself for a frown or a cutting remark
from Kana.
Kana responds with neither. Her face is calm, almost gentle. "I went to the
edge of my city once," she says, adding, "Only because my old apartment was
close." She goes to the door and looks out through the peephole. "Do you want
to see it?"
"Sure," says Chisato, after a moment's hesitation. "Okay." She's pretty sure
that Kana wouldn't take her anywhere too dangerous, and travelling through town
might be easier with two people. She goes to the door and checks the peephole.
"I think we're clear. For now."
"Let's go."
They run through the streets, firing off occasional attacks into the crowd of
Shadows amassing behind them. Chisato's lungs are burning. She's not used to
running this fast, and eventually Kana has to grab her hand and half-pull her
along.
"Sorry," she wheezes.
"Don't be," replies Kana, sounding slightly winded herself. "I used to do track
and field."
That does make her feel a little better, and she tightens her grip on Kana's
hand.
She loses track of where they are. The Shadow World has a uniformity which
makes it difficult to tell, but she's pretty sure she's never been through this
part of town before. Once she thinks she sees, a few blocks away, a Shadow the
size of a skyscraper, but they turn the corner before she can be sure. It's
probably for the best.
As they continue into the outskirts of town, the Shadows thin out and finally
disappear altogether. Chisato can't quite be happy about that, though: there's
a kind of foreboding atmosphere around them that makes her worry something
worse might be up ahead.
"We're here," says Kana abruptly.
Chisato gasps.
At the edge of town, everything fades to black. The street before them gives
way to a deep, seemingly endless darkness, dwarfing them and the whole town.
"What's out there?" asks Chisato. She has to force herself not to whisper.
"I don't know."
Chisato summons a flame into her hand, but it doesn't help - the darkness seems
to swallow it up. Beside her, Kana fires a spear of ice into the darkness in a
shallow arc. Some distance away from them, it hits ground and shatters.
"Well," says Chisato, letting out a sigh of relief, "at least it's not just...
empty, or filled with Shadows..." Still, the void is overwhelming. "Have you
ever tried walking into it?"
Kana shakes her head. "I was--" She hesitates, then frowns and continues, "I
was scared."
"Yeah." Chisato laughs nervously. "I'm scared just to be here. What do you
think is out there?"
Kana shrugs her shoulders. "Maybe it goes on forever."
Chisato shudders. "I hope not."
"I don't really think so," says Kana almost at once, as though trying to
assauge her fears. "The Shadow World existed in my city, too, so it must be in
other places. Maybe it's all connected." She gestures out into the darkness.
"Other towns. Other Shadows."
"Other magical girls?"
"I don't know."
Chisato shakes her head. "We can't be the only ones," she says, sounding more
certain than she really feels. "It was one thing when I was alone, but I'm sure
there can't be only two of us. Maybe every city in Japan has one!"
Kana looks like she doesn't buy it, but she doesn't argue.
The overwhelming presence of the empty darkness brings their conversation to an
end. Chisato stares out into it, as transfixed as she is terrified. After a
while, her eyes start playing tricks on her and flashes of light appear in the
darkness, like distant stars.
Without really thinking, she puts out her hand and touches Kana's. At first
she's afraid this will bother her, but she barely seems to notice, so Chisato
keeps it there until they finally turn around and head back towards the centre
of town.
***
Chisato hasn't had any close friends since she became a magical girl. She was
part of the choir in middle school, but eventually she decided that she needed
to drop out. Nights in the Shadow World were leaving her exhausted during the
day. Going home after school let her take an afternoon nap, and that was more
important than club activities.
In high school, she never even joined a club. She's friendly with her
classmates, and sometimes she joins them to go shopping or see a movie, but she
doesn't have a strong connection with anyone, and that's okay with her.
Pretending to be a normal teenage girl takes a surprising amount of energy, and
she couldn't keep it up long enough to maintain a serious friendship.
With Kana, of course, she doesn't have to pretend. With Kana, everything is in
the open.
Soon they spend most of their free time together. Chisato has never realized
how badly she's needed someone to talk to, someone who understands what she was
going through. Just knowing she isn't alone makes her feel light, like a weight
has been lifted from her shoulders.
She tells Kana everything she's been holding in: how scared she is, how much
she worries that nothing will ever change, how badly she just wants to go to
bed without knowing that she might wake up in a few hours in the Shadow World.
"Sometimes I wonder what we're doing this for," she says, in a quiet moment
late one night. "Fighting Shadows. I mean, nobody ever asked me to, and...
well, it's dangerous, right?" She pauses for a moment, thinking. "But I also
have this feeling that something terrible would happen if we didn't. I don't
know. What do you think?"
Kana says nothing. Her face is inscrutable.
It's not always easy, being friends with her. There's a part of Kana that seems
to be constantly on edge. Even in the daytime, her eyes dart from left to right
as though Shadows might be everywhere, hidden, waiting for the right time to
strike unexpectedly. She clearly doesn't get much sleep at night. Sometimes it
seems like nervous energy is all that gets her throught the day.
The downside to this alertness is her irritability. There are days when it
seems like Chisato can't say anything without making her grit her teeth or snap
at her.
Kana herself tells her, early on, it might be better if they didn't hang out.
"Look, Chisato-san," she says, a few days after they went to the edge of town
together. "You need to know that I'm not..." She stops, then tries again. "I'm
not good at talking to people. Sometimes I say things I don't mean, or in a way
that I don't mean to say them. I might hurt you."
"It doesn't really bother me," says Chisato, grateful for her honesty, and
trying to be as frank as possible in return. "I know that you don't mean to,
and you always apologize." She smiles, but it probably looks a little forced.
"I do worry about you, though."
"I'll be fine."
"Have you ever... thought about talking to someone? Like a counsellor?" Afraid
Kana will take this suggestion badly, she braces herself.
She shouldn't have worried. Kana doesn't look upset, only very tired.
"Of course I've thought about it," she says. "But who would believe me?"
Chisato has nothing to say to that, but after school that day, she pressures
Kana into coming to the mall with her. They go window shopping and drink
smoothies and go to a Print Club and get photos with heart-shaped borders. It's
almost like being a normal teenage girl, except that they're both a little
awkward, overcome by the novelty of it.
When Kana tucks the printed photo carefully into one of her textbooks to keep
it uncreased, Chisato feels a little rush of pleasure, then a pang of guilt
immediately after.
She's so happy, but at the same time, she's suspicious of herself. She's scared
of the way she feels sometimes when she's with Kana: like the Shadow World is a
secret place where the two of them can be alone together, and not a dangerous
mystery. Sometimes the thought of waking up there gives her a sweet, sick
thrill that she hates.
If what she's feeling is love, she wants no part of it. She doesn't have the
energy to figure it out, let alone worry about Kana's reaction. Her life is
complicated enough.
****
For the first few weeks they fight back-to-back, surrounded on all sides by
Shadows. Eventually, though, Kana suggests that since Chisato's powers are more
suited long range attacks, she should stay out of the fray as much as possible
while Kana uses her sword up close. The first time they try her plan, they find
that Chisato can take out enough Shadows from a distance that Kana only has to
fight one or two at a time, making defeating the Shadows far easier.
Once they've practiced their strategy on smaller Shadows, they start taking on
some Greater Shadows instead of avoiding them. Then, gaining confidence, they
start exploring new areas of town, rooting out the Shadows there before they
have a chance to attack unexpectedly.
"Ready?" asks Kana, as they come upon a group of Shadows in front of the
shopping arcade downtown. They're mostly small, with amorphous bodies and
writhing tentacles that expand and contract sporadically. It shouldn't be a
problem to destroy them.
"Ready," replies Chisato, a fireball already in hand.
The Shadows are fiercer than ever that night, and Chisato can hardly keep up.
She loses track of Kana in the black smoke of the fray, and then a Greater
Shadow with seemingly endless blades covering its insectoid body rears up in
front of her. She's about to attack, but one of the smaller Shadows wraps a
black tentacle around her leg, and she sends a River of Fire in its direction
instead.
There's too much going on at once, it's impossible for her to keep track. She
tries to jump back out of the fight, to a more secure position--
"Chisato!"
Something tackles her, and she slams to the ground. But it's not a Shadow -
it's Kana, and she's screaming. She's been hurt. Chisato is dazed, but she
springs to her feet to see the Greater Shadow from earlier close at hand, a
splash of blood on its long, razor-sharp arm, and Chisato realizes too late
what's just happened.
Her whole body is overcome with horror, then with rage. She lays Kana on the
concrete as gently as possible and rises to her feet with her fists clenched
hard.
"Towering Inferno," she says, and a thousand tongues of flame seem to shoot
from her eyes, exploding in size and number as they sweep over the Shadows. She
doesn't stop until they're incinerated, and even then she focuses the flame on
their black gemstones until they melt and sizzle away.
When she comes back to herself, her legs are shaking with the effort of keeping
her standing, and there's a cold sweat covering her whole body. It takes her a
second to remember what's happened.
"Kana!"
Kana is wearing her ordinary clothes. The attack must have snapped her out of
her transformation somehow. There's a deep, bloody gash down her left side and
a pool of blood forming on the concrete around her.
"It's not as bad as it looks," she says, in a small, strained voice.
Chisato bites her lips. "You haven't even seen it." Kana starts to get up, but
Chisato shakes her head vehemently. "No, don't move yet. We need to stop the
bleeding...." She thinks for a second, then reverts to her normal form.
"What are you doing!?"
"It's just for a second." As quickly as possible, she pulls off her pyjama top
and bunches it up in her hands. "Power of the sun!" Transformed again, she
kneels at Kana's side and presses it to the wound.
Kana hisses in pain, but manages a small smile. "Good... idea."
"Thanks."
They stay there until Chisato is convinced that the bleeding has slowed. Then,
helping Kana to her feet and putting her arm over her shoulder so she can bear
some of her weight, she brings her to the doors of the town hospital. It's
deserted, of course, but it's all she can think to do.
"I wish we had water," she says, laying Kana gently down on her good side, and
sitting down on the curb next to her. "I'd feel so much better if we could
clean your wound."
"Maybe you should cauterize it," says Kana, quietly.
Chisato forces herself to laugh. "Don't be ridiculous," she says quickly. "It's
not that bad. It'll be morning soon enough, and you'll be in emergency."
"'Soon', huh." Kana says the word with a kind of cynical chuckle. The laugh
seems to hurt her, and she winces. "You know how time stretches."
"Soon," repeats Chisato, because it's what she has to believe. "And Kana?"
She's about to add an honorific, but at this point it no longer feels
necessary. "If you like, you can lend me your housekey, and I can go to your
apartment and pick up your toothbrush and things. And I'll bring you a lunch,
if you don't want the hospital food."
Kana is silent for a long time.
"Chisato, I need to tell you something," she says, at last. "If I don't..."
"No. Don't say that, it's ridiculous." She tries to force the tears from her
eyes. "You're not going to die, Kana."
Kana ignores her. "I think it's important that you know what happens if... that
you know why we're fighting." A bitter, humourless smile crosses her face.
"Because I found out the hard way, before I moved here. I... gave up."
"You what?"
"I stopped fighting Shadows. I was so tired... When I woke up in the Shadow
World, I would barricade myself in my room and go back to sleep. I felt like
something bad would happen, but I ignored that feeling. I just wanted the whole
thing to go away. I didn't know..."
A sick feeling rises up in Chisato's stomach. "What happened?"
"They came to the real world." Kana look past her, into the distance. "Shadows.
They came into my house. They attacked my parents. They..." Her voice is hoarse
with pain. "My, my mom, she..."
Chisato shakes her head. "I'm... I'm so sorry."
"I couldn't stay there anymore. I couldn't live in that house, knowing that it
was my fault."
"It's nobody's fault!" Looking at Kana, at the still-bleeding gash on her side
makes her feel sad and angry and protective all at once. "It's natural to be
scared. You couldn't know what would happen." Tentatively, she offers Kana her
hand to hold, a gesture of solidarity. "Don't blame yourself for wanting not to
fight. You shouldn't have to fight."
Kana takes it. "Neither... should you."
"But we will." It's hard, but Chisato manages a smile. "You'll be okay, and
we'll keep fighting. So that nothing like that will happen ever again."
Kana's eyes flutter.
"You have to stay conscious," she says, anxiously.
"Don't worry," replies Kana, with another cynical laugh. "Hurts too much to
sleep." Then, a kind of helpless expression crosses her face. "Chisato...
don't... let go of my hand."
She doesn't.
***
When the sky starts to lighten, an ambulance and a team of paramedics
materialize on the street, along with a nurse smoking a cigarette on the
sidewalk. As they strap Kana onto a stretcher, Chisato wonders numbly what
these people think they've been doing all night.
She paces back and forth across the waiting room, still in her pyjamas,
stopping only to ask the orderlies at the front desk about Kana's condition.
Listening in on them, she discovers that Kana has an uncle in Futsuyama who's
supposed to be her legal guardian, but he's not answering the phone. Finally
someone takes pity on Chisato and lets her know that Kana was given a blood
transfusion and she's in stable condition.
Visiting hours don't start until the afternoon. She goes home and tries to
rest, but for the first time in a long while, she can't manage to fall asleep.
It seems like forever until she is able to go back to the hospital and see
Kana.
"Hi," she says, entering the room.
"Hi." Kana is lying in bed. She's on an IV, but some colour has returned to her
face.
Chisato puts down the flowers she brought as a gift on the bedside table. She's
forgotten to bring a vase for them. "How's...?" she starts awkwardly.
"It's healing," she says. "Much faster than it should, I think. The doctors
seemed shocked."
"I'm... I'm so glad you're okay." It comes out a little bit strained, but she's
trying her best not to cry.
"They're keeping me overnight for observation," says Kana, with a sigh. "I feel
like some kind of specimen." She pauses, then points to the keychain lying by
her leg. "Um, if you wouldn't mind... can you take my housekey and--"
"Of course!" says Chisato, picking it up. Threaded onto the keychain is a small
crescent moon - Kana’s sigil. "I promised I would."
Kana's apartment is on the first floor of a boarding-house-style building on
the other side of the school. The room is bare and lifeless, except that taped
to the wall above her desk, there's a photo they took at the Print Club.
Chisato cries again when she sees it.
The next day, Kana is back at school again, as though nothing ever happened.
Chisato is desperate to talk with her, but can't manage to get near her. Every
time class breaks, the whole class gathers around Kana, bombarding her with
questions and well wishes. In a way Chisato is glad to see that they care, but
it means she has to wait until after school to ask the question on her mind.
"Will you be okay by yourself?"
Kana stiffens, and her face becomes a mask of stubborn independence. "Of
course."
Instantly, Chisato regrets her choice of words. "I mean," she says, "you're
welcome to stay over at my house, tonight, if you'd like. I'd feel better that
way."
"...Yeah. Yeah, okay." Her face softens, just a little. "Thank you."
Her mom makes nikujaga and they all have dinner on the couch together. Kana's
met her mom before, but only briefly. They seem to like one another. Chisato is
so glad to hear them talking to one another that she hardly says anything the
whole time.
Thrilled that she's having a sleepover for the first time in years, Chisato’s
mom offers Kana a pair of Chisato's old pyjamas when she finds out she doesn't
have her own.They're a bright sunshine yellow, with little white ducks marching
in a row along the hem. When Chisato sees them, she bursts out laughing.
"What's so funny?" asks Kana with a glare. "They're yours."
Chisato nods. "I know," she says, still giggling. "I'm sorry."
They stay up for a while, listening to a new CD of Chisato’s and talking about
nothing in particular. Finally, though, they get ready for bed in a kind of
nervous silence, both knowing that at any moment the house could plunge into
darkness and their night of peace come to an abrupt end.
Chisato wonders if she should sleep on the floor, but the bed is more than big
enough for two, so in the end she decides it's fine. They lie side by side. She
tries her best, but she can't fall asleep. If she concentrates, she can almost
make out the sound of Kana's steady heartbeat, comforting and terrifying all at
once.
"You're awake," whispers Kana.
"So are you."
Kana seems to ignore that. "If it hasn't happened yet, it won't happen
tonight."
"I know," she whispers back. "It's just..." But the rest of her sentence - that
she can't sleep knowing that Kana is lying beside her - she completes only in
her mind.
There's a sudden warmth pressed against her as Kana rolls closer to her in the
bed. Chisato can't help but gasp, and she's sure her face is bright red.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," She swallows, nervously. "Sorry." In the semidarkness, Kana's face
is so beautiful it makes her ache. She's terrified that Kana must hear how hard
her heart is beating, must know everything.
Kana has an expression on her face that she's never seen on her before:
tenderness. "Chisato," she whispers, and leans over, and kisses her on the
mouth.
Chisato feels like the bed is giving way underneath her, like the earth has
disappeared, and she's falling through space. Her arms wrap themselves around
Kana as though holding on to her is the only thing keeping her alive. It's not
her first kiss, but it's the only one that's ever made her feel like this.
Kana pulls away, shaking her head with a smile when she sees the anxious
expression on Chisato's face. "Just a second." She throws one leg over Chisato,
lying down on top of her, and then returns to kissing her. Her tongue presses
into Chisato's mouth, gently but firmly. Chisato puts out her own tongue in
response.
There are little wet noises as they explore each others' mouths. Being close to
Kana like this for the first time makes Chisato restless, and she presses her
legs together, feeling a little jolt of pleasure shoot up through her body.
When Kana brings her hands up to Chisato's face, her oversized sleeve drapes
awkwardly between them. With a grunt of frustration, Kana sits up and pulls the
pyjama shirt off. Her breasts are small, almost flat, with hard pink nipples
outlined in shadow in the half-darkness. There's still a white gauze bandage
taped to her side.
Abruptly, Chisato realizes that this might not be the best time for what
they're doing. "Are you okay? Your wound... I..."
Kana shakes her head. "I'm fine." Her hands trace Chisato's face, fingers
grazing her lips, parting them gently like she did earlier with her tongue.
"...Can I touch you?"
"O-of course."
Kana explores her body with a touch so gentle it makes her want to cry.
"Chisato," she whispers, over and over, her lips pressed to her throat, her
collarbone, the plane of skin between her breasts. "Chisato."
She's never thought of herself as being particularly sensitive before, but now
everywhere Kana touches her sends little shocks of pleasure through her body,
making her more restless than before. When Kana's fingers ghost over her
nipples, she can't help reaching down to touch herself.
Kana's hand catches her wrist, lightly. "Let me...?"
"Yeah..."
Chisato undoes the drawstring of her pyjama pants and pulls them down, leaving
herself exposed in a way that is both embarassing and exciting. Somehow, the
embarrassment fades as Kana's hands trace the fleshy curve of her hips, the
roundness of her stomach.
Kana meets her eyes. With an uncharacteristic hesitance, she reaches between
Chisato's legs, tracing a path up her inner thigh before reaching her pubic
mound and resting there, softly. After a moment, she presses into the cleft
between Chisato's legs, to where she is wet with anticipation. Her fingers are
long and slightly cold, and the touch of them fills Chisato with a heady,
terrifying pleasure.
"I..." She feels like she should say something, respond in some way, except
that Kana looks like she's concentrating so intensely and the feeling gathering
itself up inside her it makes it hard to think. "Kana..."
Kana withdraws her hand, looking at her wet fingers with a kind of disbelieving
satisfaction. "Chisato?" She's breathing heavily. "Is that... should I keep
going?"
Chisato's whole body shivers. Unable to speak, she nods.
Kana kisses her again, at the same time bringing her hand back down between
Chisato's thighs. Her touch is more sure this time. Her fingers find her
clitoris, and Chisato's whole body convulses, like she's had an electric shock.
"Sorry!" she cries out, feeling clumsy and ashamed. "I didn't... Didn't mean
to..."
"It's fine," says Kana, hoarsely. Her fingers move away slightly, rubbing up
and down just above her clitoris, so that the stimulation is less intense, less
a shock and more a slow blossoming of pleasure.
It's so good Chisato can hardly stand it. Her hands fist and unfist, clutching
at the sheets. She feels like she'll die if Kana keeps touching her like this,
but she'll die if she stops, too. Tears are forming in the corners of her eyes.
Kana stops for a moment, but it's only to whisper "Shhh." Chisato realizes that
she's been whimpering. Embarrassed, she clamps her hand down over her mouth,
hard, and nods.
"Next time," whispers Kana, in an almost offhand way, "you can be as loud as
you like. When we're alone."
The thought that there will be a next time makes Chisato inexpressibly happy,
but before she can reply, Kana starts touching her again and everything else is
gone. Her fingers go faster than before, brushing lightly against her clitoris,
then reaching inside her, then both at the same time. Chisato's tongue curls at
the pleasure of it. Her body tenses, almost ready for release.
Hazily she realizes that Kana's other hand is inside her pyjama pants, moving
in a jerky, almost frantic way. The thought that Kana is touching herself -
that being with Chisato like this makes her want to touch herself - is what
finally makes her orgasm.
"Kana," and she bites down on her hand as she comes, otherwise she knows she'll
scream.
"Chisato," replies Kana raggedly, and though a haze of pleasure Chisato thinks
that she might be close to coming too. She puts out her hands, running them
gently through Kana's hair, and when Kana responds with a moan she feels so
happy she can't quite believe it.
All of a sudden none of it matters anymore: the Shadows, the fighting, the
unknown. With Kana, she feels like she can do anything.
***
Two nights later, they stand at the edge of town. The void rises up before
them, overwhelming.
"Ready?"
Chisato slips her hand into Kana's.
"Ready."
Together, they step into the darkness.
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