Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 53: Slade, Yukie, Rose: White As Snow

It was Victor Fries who saved them. As the mass of ice and snow plummeted down, he met the threat with a blast from his cryogun, creating an arc of solid ice over them. As he lowered his weapon, he remarked, "Fighting ice with ice doesn't have the same ring to it as fire with fire, but it can be equally effective. I suggest we not linger here for more ice to fall. There's a narrow passage here we can squeeze through single-file—but do so quietly, please."

Rose winced, muttering, "Sorry," and one by one, the group inched their way through. Fries and Slade brought up the rear. Fries looked pensive; as their turn came, he remarked to Slade, "For twelve years, Yukie was simply there. Quiet and reliable, and ever present. I thought very highly of her, when I thought of her, but I paid no more attention to her than I did my own hands. I don't suppose I would have allowed her weekends off if she hadn't insisted—there were times I was peeved she wasn't there, so I called her. She'd have to tell me it was the middle of the night and she had limits. All my focus was on my work.

"For all that I was fond of her, Nora knew her better after twelve days than I did after as many years—I didn't find out about what she had done to settle my debts until after she was gone. Then Cobblepot showed us the video. I do not wonder that you were drawn to her. I do wonder why she was drawn to you...but then I am still amazed that Nora looked twice at me.

"What I am trying to say is that, if anything irrevocable and negative has happened to Yukie, I will find it hard to forgive myself. Other than that, I would be enjoying today a great deal. It isn't often I get to feel the sun and the wind on my face in temperatures I find comfortable."

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According to what Yukie had been taught, if someone willfully took a life or otherwise sinned, even if it was only an insect's life, they went to Naraka, the hell realm, for an unspecified amount of time. Buddhism being, by and large, a reasonable faith, the concept of hell was also reasonable. No one ever went to Hell for all eternity, just for long enough to atone for their sins.

Within Naraka, some said, there were eight hot and eight cold hells. Yukie had never knowingly killed an innocent human being, but she had killed insects and eaten meat, which was a form of participating in taking an innocent life, so she fully expected to spend several hundred lifetimes paying for her misdeeds. Among those misdeeds was the sin of lust and wanton carnality, the punishment for which involved being chained to a bed of ice with more ice for the sheets and bedclothes. Given her relationship with Slade, she would not have been surprised to learn she would be spending a long time there, but she had never imagined the greatest part of the torment, for her, would be the inability to move. Nor that she would have to spend every moment keeping it from becoming a hot hell.

Sooner or later, she would be worn out. Sooner or later, she would not be able to make any more ice. The ice would melt and she would be submerged in boiling water, unable to get out yet equally unable to die. This was the real trap. This was the old yuki-onna's revenge for a thousand years and more of loneliness and sorrow.

She could not have said how long she was trapped there. Time had no meaning when you were anticipating certain agony. Eventually, though, she became aware of vibrations.

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Yukie looked dead. Naked, frozen in bloody-looking ice, her eyes closed tight, fingers splayed as though she were trying to claw her way up to freedom, and her hair a dark swirl around her—she looked dead. It was that simple.

"I'm not picking up any of the usual signs of life," Victor Fries said, playing an instrument over the surface of the ice, "but between the ice around her, the hot spring below, and the volcano itself, it isn't surprising. Too much input. Trying to cut her out directly would be a mistake at this moment—the steam from the spring is under a great deal of pressure at this point, and it would be like piercing a canister of explosive gas with a drill. We need to vent that pressure at an angle away from us, before we carve her out of this."