もののけ | monster | soshiro hoshina (Kaiju No. 8)

ななじゅういち | seventy one

もののけ | kaiju | monster

71

TRIGGER WARNING:
This chapter contains intense emotional distress, including heavy angst and sensitive themes that may be distressing for some readers. Please proceed with caution.

[A lengthy chapter ahead]

Soshiro

THE BILE ROSE IN MY THROAT, bitter and burning, as Kiyomi's confessions clawed their way into my brain, each word like a jagged knife carving into my soul. The things she said—God, the things they did to her—made my stomach churn violently, and I had to swallow hard to keep from puking right there on the cold, sterile floor. It was like my body couldn't contain the horror, the disgust that was boiling over inside me. Every fucking detail she shared was worse than the last, each one a new nightmare I hadn't even imagined in my worst dreams.

And she carried all of this alone? For years? The thought made me want to scream, to rage, to fucking tear the world apart. How did she do it? How did she survive this long without breaking into a million pieces?

Then, she started to cry—no, not just cry. It was this guttural, raw sound, like she was being ripped apart from the inside out. Her screams echoed off the walls, filled with all the rage, pain, and despair that she'd been holding back for God knows how long.

She wanted to die.

She screamed it over and over, her voice cracking, her words becoming more frantic, more desperate.

"Die... I want to fucking die... Please... just let me die..." Her voice was hoarse, breaking, as if she had screamed it a thousand times before and no one had ever listened.

My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise, the pressure building until I thought I might actually pass out from it.

Kiyomi wanted to die.

She kept saying it, kept repeating it like a twisted mantra, and every time the word left her lips, it was like a knife being driven deeper into my chest. My Kiyomi, my strong, resilient Kiyomi, wanted to die. The thought alone made my body go cold, like all the blood had been drained from my veins, leaving me nothing but a ghost, a hollow shell.

I couldn't take it. I wanted to tear my ears off, to rip them out of my skull so I wouldn't have to hear her pleading for death. I couldn't fucking stand it. It was too much. Too fucking much.

But she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. The words kept spilling out of her, each one more broken than the last, each one ripping me apart as surely as if they were bullets being fired into my chest.

I wanted to be angry at her, to yell at her for keeping this from me, for not trusting me enough to tell me the truth. But how could I? How the fuck could I blame her for anything after what she'd been through? She was the one who had suffered, the one who had been broken and used and turned into something she never should've been. I had no right to be angry—not at her.