2019-03-26 - TIMELINE 3: Let's Go Home

Title: TIMELINE 3: Let's Go Home
Summary: When Wild Animals Fight - does anyone truly win?
Who: Kozue Kaoru, Sayaka Miki, Miki Kaoru, Hitomi Shizuka
Where: Asakusa Traditional District
OOC - IC Date: 2019-3-26 - Timeline 3

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Hitomi Shizuki's feet are sore. Normal school, cram school, then classical dance. It's night already as she walks home from her station, following the winding path of the Sumidagawa beneath bridges and across walkways. Concrete is frequently both above her head and beneath her feet, but the faint warmth of dusk glitters purple on the water.

Swaying a bit as she goes, Hitomi considers a side trip to a ramen stand. She's supposed to be sticking to a diet, but would it really hurt after she burned calories at dance? She can just tell her mother that she's not hungry, when she arrives home. She's beginning to talk herself into as she nears the staircase that would lead her up from the riverside and into the town proper again, where her much-desired dinner awaits.

These are normal problems, at least. Things are getting back to normal.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed. <SoundTracker> Umbra Nigra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O1oOeAoKcw

Prim, proper, ... and even a dancer. She wasn't a musician - the two had nothing in common - however there's something about Hitomi that rankles Kozue Kaoru. It gets under her skin and makes it crawl, like this is who her parents would prefer she were...

...this is who her brother would prefer she were...

...this is maybe even who Sayaka would prefer she were...

...after all - the two were friends, weren't they?

Tailing her she'd worked herself to a boil that was about to simmer over. And while her victim was undeserving of such fury, she got it anyhow.

It's in the form of Kozue appearing at the top of the staircase, the street light above her shading her in silhouette. A hand resting on the rail. The other raised up in what appears to be a friendly wave. It's hard to see who she is - but she's wearing the Ohtori girl's uniform - so surely it must bear the face of a friendly classmate?

At least until she's up close, "Good evening - Shizuki-chan..." And that's the moment that Kozue's waving hand grabs Hitomi by the bow, twisting her around and shoving her against the opposite rail so hard that she's lifting the other girl up off her feet and shoving her against the opposite rail. The metal rail becomes a fulcrum to the skin of the small of her black, precariously overbalancing her upper body over the side

"...don't struggle." Her hand taut as it pulls against her bow, such that the little stitches feel like they might rip if she holds her like that long enough. "... or you'll fall..."

There's something pregnant with menace in the blue-haired girls tone as she leans just over the other girl and murmurs, "You have a bright future ahead of you don't you? Well - you'll continue to have one so long as you tell me /exactly/ which magical girl that shiny key you had went to."

The hand on Hitomi's bow twists even harder. "I don't know how much longer I can hold you like this..." Her assailant observes casually, but the threat of what will happen if a hasty answer isn't offered is unmistakable.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Hitomi has both hands on the handle of the bag in front of her when Kozue approaches her. She regards Kozue politely, if without special warmth. Sayaka's friend or no, Kozue has never given Hitomi much reason to like her. Nor, as it happens, is Kozue looking to start doing so tonight.

Hitomi ends up a fulcrum over the railing, grabbing onto Kozue's wrists to try and avoid falling. Her bag is on the ground, tilted over, her little knit ball charm splayed on a short chain off to the side of it. She's making a constant whine of fear, though the water is not so far below.

"Kaoru-san!" Hitomi gasps. "What are you doing?"

"Kozue," Miki calls, his voice tightly controlled. "That's enough."

Miki and Sayaka stand atop the stairs, from the same direction Kozue came. Miki is in his Council uniform, Sayaka the simpler cream blouse of a normal student. Both have a similar, mournful expression, though Sayaka's is a bit sadder and Miki's more shocked.

"K-kaoru-kun," Hitomi whispers, in a tone of such keen relief that Sayaka glances at Miki's face to see his reaction. Kozue may be happy to know that it's not enough to distract Miki from his twin right now.

"Hitomi-chan, it's okay," Sayaka adds, muted.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Kozue whispers, seeming not to care about Hitomi grabbing onto her wrist.

She allows Hitomi's angle to subtly dip, an illusion of her grip slipping by simply allowing her hand to jerk downward. "Now talk."

However - there's a familiar voice behind her. Too familiar. And Kozue looks over her shoulder with a single eye.

"Is it really in your best interests to stop me /Miki/?"

The girl asks, still holding Hitomi over the water.

"Do you really think I don't know /anything/..." There's something in her gaze that lulls as it looks upon Sayaka. "...about what my twin brother is up to?"

There's something vicious in her smile and it feels like perhaps for a moment - she might just let the girl go, "It's just /like you/ - to get squeamish about dirtying your hands. But..."

And then all of a sudden, Hitomi is yanked back, so suddenly that she might feel thoroughly gaslit about it. Kozue even takes a moment to fluff the girl's bow, before adding- "...if my /onii-chan/ is asking me to stop... it's not like I have a choice."

It feels almost like a parody of submission, like simply because a White Knight - or perhaps Prince - has asked her to stop, then she does so. Like it simply the way of this world.

Yet one can feel the contempt radiating off of her as she lets the other girl go free. "Go on then. Take her." She says venomously - like poison directed specifically at Sayaka - before taking a few steps down the stairs, stretching out the arm that was holding Hitomi over her head, "I've got a busy night ahead of me though - so I'll be home late - Miki."

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

From the look on her face, Sayaka clearly came here determined to get tricked by Kozue a bit less than she normally does. This reference to Miki's doings, though, has the backing of enough unexplained memories that Sayaka is taken aback by it, glancing again to Miki. He makes no denial.

But before the two Mikis can press on the matter at hand, Hitomi's feet drop gently to the ground. Hitomi's luxuriant green hair seems frayed as much by stress as by struggle, and she stares at Kozue carefully, unmoving at first even as Kozue cossets her. Watching Kozue, she takes a step to the side, then forward, cringing lest there be a reaction. Then she hurries forward, climbing the steps, her bookbag abandoned behind her. Sayaka moves to embrace her, but Hitomi reaches Miki first, throwing her arms around his neck. Sayaka looks down at Kozue as she tries to sort out how she feels about that, and for just a moment it's as though the two girls are twins, not Miki and Kozue.

"She wasn't serious," Miki soothes Hitomi awkwardly. Maybe he's trying to convince himself.

"Wait," Sayaka calls. Dropping her own bookbag to the ground, Sayaka unzips it, and lifts a rolled up tee-shirt she's wrapped in tape. Even from this distance, Kozue can hear a whisper of music coming from it. "I answered your question," she says. "So will you tell me why you wanted to know?"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Kozue appears unfazed by Hitomi's state, though perhaps her vision sharpens at the way Hitomi hugs her brother - instead of her friend who had tried to hug her first.

Staring at Sayaka in that moment where the two seem like twins, more than the boy who's hugging the green-haired girl she's already turned around by the time her brother is soothing Hitomi with that reassurance that is denial.

The girl is in mid-stretch when Sayaka calls out to her, Kozue is all the way to the bottom step, but hasn't quite stepped off, turning around to look at it.

There's a smile.

"Well that's convenient..."

And it feels like Kozue just might.

"No."

Lowering the out-stretched arm, she then holds it out to Sayaka palm up.

"Though if you give it to me right now... you'll save yourself - and your friends a lot of trouble later."

That threat is unmistakable. Kozue doesn't even try to take the edge off of it by implying it might be someone else that comes for it. Someone less nice.

Instead Kozue /is/ that person. The bottom rung of enforcement. She knows very well that she'll be back. That they'll send her rather than one of their Golden Boys.

"I think that's a pretty good offer - don't you Sayaka-chan? No fuss that way. Then you don't have to worry about what happens to Shizuki-chan when she's clumsy around stairs again. Or your best friend's little brother - what was his name again?"

Kozue puts her opposite finger to her chin, "Tat-su-ya-tan?" She sounds it out, like she was simply remembering it.

"He's at that age where kids just... wander off... get into anything..."

The girl just offers this smug little smile, like she's totally uncaring about how this makes her seem to her. "...and his big sister can't exactly be there to watch him while she's at school..."

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka and Miki both seem frozen. Hitomi knows Tatsuya very well herself, and she's beginning to tremble in horror, shaking her head minutely. Kozue has the stage to herself for the duration of her threat.

Then Sayaka drops the rolled tee shirt back into her bookbag. With three half-step, half-hops, she gallumphs down the staircase, continuing her momentum to rush up to Kozue. Her hand pushes Kozue's shirt beneath the collar, forcing her back a step, then pulls her back to where she started as it twists in. "Do you listen to yourself?" Sayaka demands. "I don't know if you mean that or if you just like hurting me, but either way it has to stop. Your own brother and--" Sayaka struggles for a moment to define herself, "--and /me/, followed you because we were so worried, and this is what you've been doing? Now that SEARRS lost, most people with YOUR part time job were literally born yesterday, out of evil purple smoke and some sort of object you find lying around!"

"Sayaka-chan," Miki warns nervously, nodding at Hitomi.

"I know already." "She knows already!" the two friends say in unison. Sayaka continues on alone. "So what's your excuse? This isn't what wild animals do!"

Miki blinks at that. Separating Hitomi from his shoulder gently, he whispers, "I think you should go, please." Hitomi glances down at Sayaka.

"Thank you," she tells Miki, holding eye contact with him for a moment, before she starts jogging. Miki had scarcely been paying attention to her at that moment, but suddenly he's confused, and glances after her for a long moment before he turns back to his sister--his two sisters, perhaps.

"Kozue," he implores, his boyish voice kinder than Sayaka's right now. "Let's stop this... okay? Just for tonight, don't worry about the key or the council or whatever you're trying to do. Just... come home on time tonight."

There is a scorched expanse of earth between the two twins which both know not to cross. Miki isn't crossing it, exactly, but he's definitely set foot on it for the first time in a long time, and his anxiety is visible.

"Whatever's wrong, we'll figure it out together," he concludes shyly.

Sayaka, her anger cooled, turns back from Miki to Kozue. She's still holding her shirt, but she gives her a little encouraging nod, too.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Kozue gets a few seconds of smug satisfaction for so long as the echo of her threat within their skulls is the only sound she can hear.

And then Sayaka rushes up to her. It's not entirely unexpected. She does not even try to avoid it. Allowing the tomboy to push up her shirt and force her back out.

The girl still keeps that look on her face, though perhaps there's something in her eyes that's more dangerous during this time. Her lips crease together though as she's compared to a creature born of Dark Fall's arcane might.

She simply keeps silent. Even as they sent Kozue away. Even as Sayaka implores her, tries to reach out to her.

And her eyes are past her, on the double image of Miki - a twin of himself.

It's there her eyes are looking at - when Sayaka concludes.

"You don't know anything." Kozue Kaoru says, "I keep trying to tell you - and you just won't listen. You act like everything that happened there was just some battle to be won. Yet all the lives lost - all the real sacrifices made of any consequence... they were all girls - ne?"

There's something in that slasher smile.

"That's the truth of the world that we live in. Everything magical and miraculous doesn't belong to us. Girls like us live and fight - to be used..." She whispers in a sotto voce, "... and abused."

She's still made no motion to wrest herself from her grip. "And wild animals? Heh. They either die-"

Something shimmers into Kozue's hand, a sickle-kama in it's current form with the chain retracted. It glides up to the other girl's neck, where she keeps the blade just shaving length away from their skin, "-or they're tamed. There's no middle ground."

In that reversal of fortune, there's this twitch of her muscles, as it feels like Kozue is about to step forward a split second before she actually does, the sickle held against the skin of the other girl's neck.

"We'll figure it out? Just come home on time tonight? Don't be stupid."

And another twitch before she takes another step, in her inevitable drive to move her to the opposite rail.

"There's no figuring this out. There's no going back to how it was. Besides - do you really want to go back? Do you really want me to come home on time?"

Her eyes glint off the mirror like edge of her Element. "... or would you prefer to walk my /brother/ home and comfort him about how horrible I am? Do you want him to invite you in so you can /see what happens/ when you're alone together?"

The smile disappears into an affect that feels like it might belong more to a cold-hearded serial killer, "Why not tell me just how long you think it'll take for him to 'domesticate' the wild animal in you - Sayaka-chan?"

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into HiME Kozue!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka shakes her head distantly, her eyes wide. "I try," she says--she tries to listen. "But nothing you say makes sense to me anymore." She's still gripping Kozue's shirt, but it seems like perhaps she does not want to be anymore.

Then she's standing erect, her chin up, Kozue's kama blade resting against her skin. The metal has much in common with moonlight. The whites of Sayaka's betrayed eyes have more. Kozue manages to trade hurt for anger, as she often does lately, needling her captive until Sayaka no longer seems to fear the blade. Isn't that a sort of trust, too? Much as she worries about Kozue killing others, she and Kozue can't help but know that if either really, really wanted the other dead, it would happen. Grimacing, Sayaka touches her throat instinctively as the blade leaves it.

"K-kozue," Sayaka half stammers, half growls. Kozue has such a talent for saying things outright, right in front of the worst possible people. Her final barb startles Sayaka with its audacity, and she jerks, trying to contain her reaction enough to avoid getting herself slashed over it. Glancing to the side in panic over the damage Kozue may be doing to their tripartite sibling relationship, Sayaka expects to see Miki up on the top of the stairs, still, with Hitomi. Instead, neither of them is there, and Kozue is moving forward to force Sayaka against the opposite rail.

Instead, Kozue's kama shrieks as a thin blade slides across it, driving it down to waist level and containing it for now. Sayaka falls ingloriously onto her ass, startled by the sudden blur of motion from just the angle she'd been expecting an attack.

"Kozue!" Miki objects sternly. "Sayaka-chan doesn't think of me like that. We were practically raised together, all three of us! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Sayaka stares mutely at Miki's back for a moment.

Putting his shoulder against the flat of his sword, Miki shoves into Kozue, walking her step by step back towards the water. "If you think things are unfair for girls at Ohtori, then talk to the Chairman! I'll go with you and make sure he listens."

Faintly, Sayaka shakes her head at Miki.

A moment and a rush of water later, Sayaka stands behind him, girded in her armor, a sword in her hand. She does not rush to join the fight, however, instead lowering her head slightly and biting her lip, unsure. This isn't what she and Miki came here to do, and Sayaka's aware that that's her fault, not Miki's. He used words when she started using force.

"She's here for /you/, Kozue," Miki insists. "Don't be so selfish you can't even see that."

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Kozue keeps piercing Sayaka with her pupils more than the blade of her kama. A penetration by her gaze that just seems startlingly vicious. It's like an accusation. 'Do you?' to her plea that she's trying. 'Doesn't it?' to it making no sense. She's always considered Sayaka smarter than most people give her credit for. Even when she acts like she's stupid - says it.

There's a glint of a reflection, and Kozue is jerking the blade away even before Miki's thin blade fully slides across it. Reflex perhaps more telling than any of her words, as it's already out of the way of her throat even before Miki's parry with that skinny epee drives it down to waist level.

Her chin lifts up a little at Miki's challenge of whether it means something.

"What makes you think I want to change anything Miki?" The girl slides her kama blade all the way up to the guard of her brother's, over Sayaka on the ground, as she scrambles up to join him. "What makes you think I'm talking about just Ohtori?" She whispers.

And now as Sayaka girds herself, Kozue is leaning over their crossed blades, in a strange sort of fencing duel. Like she were leaning in for a kiss. "Don't you really like it - the way things are?" It's a position that would be terribly vulnerable if this were a fencing match. Kozue makes no move of her sickle, keeping it locked against her brother's blade, the upper part of her leaning over the low cross.

As Sayaka watches right on.

The way she leans in so close - using her sexuality as a weapon even on her own brother. "Hmmm? Because-"

She whispers so close to his lips, "-I /love/ it."

It's the same moment that her knee viciously jerks up below his Solar Plexus, as she roughly shoves with a motion from her Kama, sending him hurtling towards Sayaka in what's certain to be a collision.

She trusts the other girl not to impale him on her sword at least.

"Silly boy - you can stuff your outrage on her behalf. For a genius - you can just be /so dumb/ and /so blind/. If you'd only read between the lines..."

The girl makes this little motion at the bottom of her sickle's guard, and the chain suddenly violently drops - descending with enough force that the concrete stair that Kozue's standing on has a large dent on it. Concrete dust floating through the air.

"... then this wouldn't be necessary. You have your letters." Oh yes - she certainly found them. "And I have my orders. We both answer to someone - and all of Sayaka-chan's concern means nothing compared to what a man in power wants. And as for you..."

She gives her own brother this look of complete contempt.

"...you've reached the limits of where you can order me around - compared to someone like that - Oniichan."

The girl takes a short hop backwards, except her hop carries her off the stairs and to the railing that marks off the walkway from the riverside, the chain giving a scrape of metal off concrete as its jerked backwards to slide to the barrier.

"Cassandra."

Her image doubles for a moment, to that like a photonegative, then in the water of the river behind her - a giant geyser of water erupts, like a creature from the sky had belly flopped to create the largest cannonball the two had ever seen, showering them all in water as if they'd come just too close to one of those bridges that are strategically placed near water rides.

"Now - hand the key over and go home."

COMBAT: Kozue Kaoru transforms into Kozue and Cassandra!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Miki startles at first, and Kozue can see the guilt that flickers across his eyes. He blamed himself briefly, didn't he? He thought himself at fault for the fact that their closeness felt intimate. Not /too/ intimate, perhaps--what can be a greater intimacy than twinship?--but the wrong /kind/ of intimate. Sayaka had already been indecisive, but now she is outright frozen, not quite believing this.

It would probably take a lot for Miki to realize his twin sister was hitting on him, but unfortunately Kozue supplies a lot. Gritting his teeth, he shakes his head minutely. What is it Kozue thinks she's understood that the Council hasn't?

His eyes get wider the closer Kozue's face gets to his. He pulls his head back, but he can't /step/ back without releasing the kama, so Kozue is able to pursue deeper past their crossed blades. An incestuous whisper tickles his lips, and his sword rattles quietly with the tremble of his arm. One of three things seems like it's going to happen in the next few moments: he overpowers Kozue, he retreats and gets slashed, or the Kaoru twins kiss on the mouth.

Kozue elects for an option that wasn't on the list, which is typical of her. Miki woofs, taken utterly by surprise, backpedalling bent over like a crab, his sword lifting to defend his retreat as best he can. He doesn't realize Sayaka is behind him, however, and tries to yelp when she catches him unexpectedly, the sound coming out as a cough instead. Miki and Sayaka look at Kozue together as she points out his folly, his face cold, Sayaka's more pained. She picks him up onto his feet, concrete faintly dusting his shoes. Both turn more and more stunned as Kozue continues her reasoning, Sayaka's cheeks warming slightly with humiliated anger.

Now faced with two opponents, Miki and Sayaka glance at one another. Sayaka seems to think they came to an unspoken accord, and suddenly erupts forward, a pale blue circle of music fading where she stood. Miki, from the hand he extends after her, did not have the same interpretation. Sayaka sails past Kozue, tucking her legs to her chestplate to just barely clear Cassandra's dangerous beak. "You gotta be joking!" she calls to Kozue midair. Her boots plant onto Cassandra's metallic back, her sword lifting high.

Miki charges immediately, realizing the danger Sayaka will be in if Kozue and Cassandra can team up against her--in a body of water. His crisp bladework is far superior to Kozue's, and at once he's got her on the defensive, boxing her in and controlling space, trying to force her to rotate away from Sayaka and Cassandra. But that's all he has: that classical fencing of his. Kozue is more well-rounded.

"Kozue," Miki says, consciously forceful. "A-are you saying that if I become more powerful," he disengages from a bad exchange and reenters into a better one. "That if I become someone like that..."

He jukes back to avoid Kozue's chain. "--you'll listen to me?"

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Like HiME like Child, Cassandra could simply attack Sayaka, but she chooses the option that doesn't seem on the list. As Sayaka plants her feet, the Child suddenly lowers her beak rather than turning it upon her.

Lurching underwater - she dives like a bird that's fishing - spoiling her footing as her back angles upwards abruptly and /rolls/ in a diving twist as she enters the water. The Sword blade screaming down the Child's flank, yet off-center, peeling off a metallic plate with a screeh of sparks.

Of course her Child would be like her HiME in this way too. Kozue was always so incredible in the pool.

Simultaneously, as the Child dives - the water rises before Sayaka can follow. A geyser like blast that erupts dead center, and continues to pummel her with short blasts that might feel like musical keystrokes to her. Pressurized streams of water.

The Child looms below like a dark shadow below - twin crimson orbs becoming the only distinguishing characteristic other than its eyes. A creature of the Black Lagoon, a shark in a horror thriller.

Or perhaps it simply calls to mind Kozue holding her breath.

Meanwhile the girl dances on the railing as Miki slices at her feet, forcing her to take short hops as he tests her ability to work her feet on it. A blade swipes at her calf with an elegant blow. And the girl realizing her error - with that leg struck starting to overbalance and topple off.

As she does so though, her arms tosses out a loop of chain, to snag his blade arm before he can capitalize upon her fall.

Landing upon her side - she pulls on the chain hard enough to bring herself up to a knee, and starts to tug him towards her with controlled force. It feels like a dangerous position for him, but she simply holds his tremulous blade at bay, it pointed down at her.

The girl smiles in this way that seems almost smug. "I'm saying if you become someone like that..."

She cranks back on the chain with both arms, trying to keep his arm entrapped - like a spider drawing in prey. There's something dark and terrible in her whisper like she's unveiling one of the cruel truths of the world in a way that seems akin to temptation, "...I won't have a choice. What girl could even think of refusing a guy like that..."

Another tug - the girl is still down on her knees. Her sickle arm not setting up for a strike at all. What is she doing? "Wouldn't you like that Miki- having the power to force me to do-"

Abruptly she lashes out with a leg - trying to hook his ankle and send him sprawling. "-ANYTHING?" Her perhaps figuring that the best way to 'trip up' an elegant fencer is to turn this into a street brawl. To bring him down to /her/ level.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka tucks her feet again, having lost her feathered platform. She knows Cassandra pretty well by now, enough to preemptively cover her face. It pays off as jets of water batter her back and forth like a ball.

"Kozu--stop--!" she gasps. "Listen to us!" she manages. Then she drops like a cannonball into the water, bubbles trailing behind her, many caught beneath her billowing cape. Opening her eyes beneath the water, the mermaid knight with puffed-out cheeks stares down at the shadowy bulk beneath her. Shuddering either from the cold of the water or the heat of those avian eyes, she summons a circle behind her and uses it to jet through the water.

Despite the water theme of her transformation, Sayaka doesn't visibly use much water in her magic. She is, however, at least reasonably suited to combat underwater, as the summoning circles function well there where many other magical girls' means of mobility would be hampered. Grasping onto Cassandra's wing as she passes, she starts hacking at the pinions. It seems likely that Cassandra can hold her breath longer than Sayaka, but maybe if she's hurt enough, she'll try to escape upwards...

Miki grimaces as Kozue so openly uses his greatest weakness in this fight--he's not willing to hurt Kozue badly. The safest place for his sword is pointed right at her throat. Step by step he's dragged towards her, in the paradoxical position of resisting Kozue's efforts to give him a lethal opening. Glancing towards the water as if hoping Sayaka will save him from this stalemate, he glances back down in horror at Kozue.

"That's not what I meant!" he exclaims. But isn't it? Just because he would make it sound good and Kozue makes it sound bad, is it not the same goal?

And does he have another choice?

Miki's ankle slides from beneath him and his chest hits the ground painfully. It's the right way to fall, actually; he collapses well. But being on the ground is the real problem. Miki hacks at the chain around his ankle, but it's too strong for a light sword like his to break, save perhaps with leverage, and all it does is waste time and strength. As Kozue gets closer, he lodges his sword inside the kama blade again to keep it away. It's less clear to him how badly Kozue is willing to hurt /him/.

Unexpectedly, Miki cuts loose a bit. Kozue's not used to him being willing to shove her this hard, and so he drives her onto her back, straddling her stomach. Forcing her kama down, he pins it next to her head with some effort. "Fine! You think I can't win? Who is this guy?" A casual mode of address like that is as potent as a curse word when it's Miki saying it. "Who do I have to beat for you to listen to me?"
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Another time - another place. Another summer after summer camp. It would be nice to believe it was then. That Sayaka's cannonball drop into the water was indicative of fun and mischief between the trio. Not that the girl was sinking down to deal with a monster summoned from the girl who taught her how to swim. The bird launches forward at the same moment as Sayaka Miki in this underwater joust. It's wings swinging out like arms stroking before the forward momentum is simply enough that it folds them against its side. It was supposed to deal with her cleanly.

Now she's holding on - and hacking. Hacking away. Bright flashes with every strike as metal is tested by her steel.

Bubbles wrench through the water as the thing shrieks - it must be. It's horrible noise distorted. Then as if it were simply a vessel getting its barnacles scraped off, it twists to the side in the cold water, and scrapes its back against concrete. The concrete giving as it's momentum pulverizes it into a canal shaking explosion of concrete and debris, pulling away in a sharp turn to try to rake what few pinions remain against it - and thus force the girl off of it.

Catching her brother in those loops, it's a sibling wrestling match. Onlookers if there were any compare it to roughhousing to more innocent times.

... except ...

Kozue and Miki were never like that. Never. As young children the idea of hitting each other was unthinkable. Most parents would have trouble conceptualizing the idea of a brother and sister that didn't ever fight.

Look at them now. Just look at them.

Trying to leverage her advantage, her sickle descends, and his blade parries it. Just as he shoves her off-balance, and catches her on the ground, straddling her stomach, blade forced down beside her head, the chain crossing over her torso as she holds it white knuckled in the other hand. It feels like he's won - right?

"Oh? That's what you're worried about?" Kozue has this smile, as if even beaten - she's not truly, "Come on Miki - you've got me." She raises her other hand to her throat, fingers playing with the chain, wrapping it around her hand in little loops, "All you have to do is put your other hand right here - squeeze just right... ... force me to call Cass off..."

It's like he's goading him for his priorities right now, trying to prod him into greater viciousness.

"If you must know - Touga Kiryuu." There's this motion in her eyes in the way she's looking. It's one of those little tells that she's lying - at least obviously. Too obviously for her. "That has to be him right...?" She whispers, baring her throat further - like a wolf before a pack leader in a contest for dominance. "Or maybe you wouldn't believe me even if I told you... he's as high as you can imagine? Isn't he?"

She leans her neck upwards, murmuring, "... there's higher though... men powerful enough that you can't even begin to understand. The fact you think you can fight someone like them... is just..."

The angle of the hand she has at her own throat is such that the elbow is pointing down parallel to her body. "... adorable."

At this angle and distance, the way her fist jerks down to slam into his groin would normally not be so forceful...

... except that her fist is wrapped in chain links. Waiting for him to go slack with the sharp blow to somewhere so vulnerable, she frees her blade, ramming the handle against him to try to shove him off of her.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Churned down through the water, Sayaka abandons the wing, reluctantly but hastily, shoving herself free just as it rips through the concrete. And it really is 'just'--her body strikes the ground hard, squeezing out thanks to the smoothness of the wing. Chunks strike Sayaka, bruising her but thankfully slowed by water resistance. She smacks one away with her sword, though the impact sets her arms to ringing. Letting out a few bubbles from her mouth accidentally, her lungs starting to burn, Sayaka shoves off the floor of the canal and charges sword first, her cape wobbling in a stream of bubbles.

The blade doesn't strike head-on, and armor deflects it. Sayaka improvises, scraping it along Cassandra's side, knocking a feather free as she goes, then grasping on to hook her momentum and land atop Cassandra's back. She lifts her sword...

"Stop messing around!" Miki demands. "Like I'm going to choke my own sister!" He tucks his chin slightly, eyes narrowing as Kozue tells him a clear mixture of truth and lies, with no obvious line between them. A look of discomfort crosses his face as she bares her throat as if in ghastly invitation.

Disbelief is almost as painful as the actual impact, when Kozue strikes Miki where she strikes him. ...almost.

Visibly gagging with agony, Miki doesn't resist at all, shoved off to topple back over onto his butt. Keeping one hand against his injured groin, Miki tries to hurry back onto his feet, but takes a false start or two before he can stand, and his posture is still a bit awkward.

"You idiot!" Miki expels. "You don't /get/ it!" Lifting his sword, he grimaces, eyes damp. "You don't think I'll fight Touga Kiryuu? You don't think I'll climb higher than him? I'll do it! I'm tired of things being this way! I'm tired of YOU being this way!"

It's tremulous when it forces out, as if it's bubbling out on pure rage. It's an honesty he hasn't had with her in a long time... perhaps even before he got the flu.

"I want you back," he confesses weakly.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.

Kozue uses the opportunity to rise back up, The knuckles of one hand white as the other sickle, she holds away from Miki - though in a position of readiness. She's slower to rise than before, but rise she does.

There's this look in her eyes that's just a little predatorial when Miki yells at her. Like it truly is meaningless. However then there's like this flicker of disbelief, and for a moment it looks like Kozue is biting on the inside of her lip.

Miki might even catch it. That little nervous habit she had when she was a kid - when she was swinging Aotori-chan around when she was in a particularly shy mood and the situation was getting to her. It's the sort of thing only a twin might know.

Like she's genuinely distressed by this after all.

And then he says it...

With that sort of raw truth. "It doesn't work like th-..." Kozue expels, then her eyelids flicker like shutters for half a heart-beat, like she's trying to begin that again, "... Miki..."

There's a note of truth in that too. Like perhaps she might answer his feelings.

It's the same moment that Cassandra surfaces - in a sloshing mass - water pouring off of her all over. The creature flapping its wings furiously like it itself has been caught by the fish it's been fishing for.

And that blade is lifted like a Sword of Damocles. Cassandra thrashes - her neck turning backwards - rearing as if getting in position to inexpertly skewer the girl with its beak.

And something in Kozue freezes.

Jolted out of whatever might have happened by a singular thought.

If you're going to fight - you'll have to put what's most important to you on the line.

Her life ending here and now.

The girl calls out only a single word with a shrill desperation. "-SAYAKA!"

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed. <SoundTracker> I Don't Want to Change You - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYYdQ_Z-c6s It feels like it's been a long time since his sister just... said his name, without a sardonic tone, without mocking him. Miki gently lowers the tip of his sword, still holding it between them, but with the point down. His face is tight. He gave in this far, but it doesn't mean he has much trust left. It took so much just to do that.

But maybe... just maybe...

...Kozue has a little left, too.

"Kozue?" Miki asks, softly, pleadingly. It's all he has in him, to make this easier for her.

Sayaka gasps as a great dome of water is lifted by Cassandra's back, then dumps off her rapidly. Red-faced and dripping, she freezes at the sound of her name, her eyes briefly locking with Kozue's. She hesitates, just a moment. Then, with a cry, she brings the sword down hard, dropping her weight with it.

This time, the blade punctures right through, driving a half-foot of steel into the great swan. "I have to save you!" Sayaka shouts back at Kozue, ripping her sword free violently. It tears a feather up, baring a less-armored section of 'skin.' "This THING!" she cries as she hacks down into that section, her balance pernicious, maintaining even as Cassandra bucks. "Ever since it came around, you've changed! It's hurting you!"

Cassandra finally manages to get her head around to peck Sayaka, and she manages to stab Sayaka's leg. Sayaka hauls back and cracks the flat of her blade against Cassandra's head as though she were hitting a home run, forcing the deadly beak away.

Miki body-checks Kozue, wrapping his arms around hers, forcing them to her side. "Sayaka! Wait!" he cries. "Kozue, don't hurt her--Sayaka, you... don't need to do this!"

Kozue can hear in Miki's voice the doubt, the indecision.

The sword stabs deep into Cassandra, so deep that this time Sayaka pulls and it won't come out. "If you won't protect her, I will! It's a monster!" Sayaka yells at him. "Things will never be the same!" Tearfully, she rips another sword into the air, hacking fiercely at the base of Cassandra's neck. "Until..." A beak slashes her shoulder, but with a choked sob of pain, Sayaka rips her sword savagely through the Child, back and forth. "It DIES!"

Bucking, Cassandra manages to drop Sayaka to her knees, but she clings desperately. Like a tick that won't let go. Like a girl in love. She lifts her blade again, and this time she reverses it. Cassandra will be in position to reach around and knock her loose in a few seconds, but the blade is already lifted, and Sayaka's muscles are already reversing direction.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed. <SoundTracker> ibid

"No-!" The girl gasps, "No-!" Cass and her shared a bond. In a way - it's easy for Kozue to imagine that her Child understood her more than anyone else.

That she was not simply an extension of herself - but that she was... not a blood bond - but something else. Something deeper. Perhaps it's like what friendship is supposed to be like. Something pure.

Which is why of course it'd kill her if she died.

In any other world - the girl might have been touched by Sayaka's feelings of wanting to save her. But in a world where those feelings would kill her Child in a misunderstanding...

"Cass-! Please! Sayaka if you do that- you won't save me- you'll-!"

Her Child is fighting for her life, and Kozue is about to run to her. Which is when Kozue tries to start towards her, even as Miki tackles her and pins her arms, "Miki let go! LET GO! CASS IS GOING TO-"

She shrieks as Sayaka sinks it deep, becoming incoherent for a few moments, a hysteria born out of desperate thought as she watches the girl and Child struggle in their bloody war for dominance. "-PLUH-PLEASE!"

Trying to wrench her arms up and wiggle free, she struggles against her Brother's grip and-

then there's one great moment of clarity that stills her blubbering.

This is going to happen. And there's nothing she can do.

"... Miki... Miki..."

It's said in the same tone before, though now it sounds wretchedly sorrowful, like someone who's on the executioner's block, "... I'm sorry..." She whispers - and the boy is perhaps startled by the sight of tears in her eyes that are now looking at him. The first he's probably seen her cry openly in years. "... I'm /sorry/."

Even resigned, she's no less frightened, sounding like those times she was hiding below the stairs because strangers were coming to visit - or because a girl who was a family friend was showing up for the first time.

"Goodbye."

The blade is glinting as it's held overhead - she should be watching - but she finds she does not want to watch Cass die - killed by a cruel misunderstanding by a well-meaning girl. Instead right now, knowing she's about to die. Her eyes are only for the brother she's known since before either of them were born.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed. The blade drives down all the way to the hilt, this time, right through the base of Cassandra's neck. Cassandra is pacified immediately, falling limp on the surface of the water, turning as slow as the second hand on a clock. Sayaka holds her sword and slowly lifts her face.

"Kozue," she calls softly, hopefully. There's something so affectionate in her eyes that it sparkles her tears.

Miki keeps holding Kozue as she ceases struggling, but he can feel a chill in his chest. Something has been done that can't be undone. His sword clattering to the ground, he catches Kozue more gently, no longer trying to hold her back, just trying to... hold her. His eyes flick back and forth, as if trying to read hers like a book. He doesn't understand.

"Kozue," he bleats back softly, catching up her face with his hand clumsily. "It's all right... /I'm/ sorry. You..."

That goodbye catches up to him slow, but it catches up to him. He freezes for a moment, then looks over at Cassandra. She is slowly dissolving into green flame. Sayaka, somberly, lets the swan fade from beneath her, then gently touches the tip of one boot to the water beneath her. Still surrounded by ethereal green flame, she launches herself, just gently, enough to step onto the sidewalk with the other two.

Miki looks back to Kozue. He understands now. He's supposed to be the smart one, after all.

"No!" he urges her, squeezing his arm around her shoulders. "L-listen," he stammers. He wouldn't have been prepared for this moment seventy years from now, and he's certainly not prepared for it today. His eyes are frantic. "I love you. I love you!" He nods with a desperately unhappy smile.

"Kozue?" Sayaka whispers softly, in a voice that sounds younger than her own.

"Whatever else h-happened, there's two of us," Miki assures her. "Just two, right?"

"Kozue?" Sayaka whimpers, almost inaudible.

"Let's just--!"

Miki's words die on his lips, his hand still cupping Kozue's cheek. His eyes are looking up past her for a moment, then he lowers them, slowly. He does not know what he is feeling. But he /understands/ what he is feeling.

Every wild animal does.

"Let's go home," he whispers. Motes of light are pulsing all throughout his body, visible right through his clothing and flesh. They are more numerous by the moment. Tired, Miki starts to lower his forehead.

<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed. <SoundTracker> Ensei - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ntxaXHIWo

Kozue doesn't know the exact moment her Element fades, but it's no longer important that she is holding it. The only things that are important is that right now she's holding Miki. And that the three of them are here the moment they become two. Cass is dead now - and she knows it - and something wrenches inside her. Is this how she is supposed to die? With the feel of Miki's arms around her and the sound of Sayaka's boots as she lands.

"I'm listening..."

She whispers, surprised she has breath left, not even realizing the words that Miki had hoped her to say for so long.

"... I know." She echoes, "... I love you too."

Just the two of them? That no longer sounds quite right to her ears. She'd struggle to remember anything but fragments before there were three. And yet she'd felt that was true for so long, in her darkest moments. That the only relationship that can last is one bound by ties of blood.

"I..."

The back of her hand reaches up to touch Miki's hand, and then-

-her vision is flooded with light. And her eyes are just on Miki. And the moment he understands is the same moment she does.

"No... no... it's not..." She stops - starts, tasting bile, "-it's supposed to be...!"

And now it's her holding him up, the weight of him, her arms around him. "Not like this - I don't want to go home /like/ - /this/!"

And now it's Kozue that sounds younger too. Even feeling lighter, he's starting to sink down - so tired, and she sinks down with him, as she clutches him while kneeling on the ground clinging to him like her stuffed bluebird that she just did not want to give up. "Please - don't go. Don't go. I'll do whatever you want. I'll play the piano again with you... I promise!" She bargains with the boy who looks like he's falling asleep, he doesn't even seem like he's heard her.

Of course not. Right now such a thing that came between them, it feels so meaningless to her - compared to having her Brother.

"Onii-chan!" She cries out, as she holds him close to her, feeling a paternalistic hand taking her away from him again. "...onii-chan... onii-chan..."

There's so little of him left to cling to, he already looks half-asleep, like Kozue remembers him when he's just on the edge of sleep. Even like this... even at the end... "...onii-chan... onii-chan..."

... he still has time for just the faintest hint of a smile to show up, like he was freshly awakened from a pleasant dream.. "It's been years since you called me that..." Then even that smile is claimed, as parts of him rise like fireflies, and Kozue's grip just frantically tries to catch hold of one like a child in summer. If she can only catch one, perhaps she can keep him with her. It's a child's sort of logic. They slip through her fingers as if her fingers don't exist - rising unto the night.

The girl's shoulders shake for a few moments at her failure to preserve even the smallest piece of what made up Miki Kaoru before she screams unto the uncaring night, "ONII-CHA---N!"

The three of them - she'd thought earlier.

Now nothing feels right anymore.