"Look, I really didn't mind the fact that I died and reincarnated into Ansatsu Kyoushitsu. I didn't really mind that you gave me a hole in the heart. That was a real dick move, but I didn't complain. So god, Void, whatever, I'm sorry I punched a stu...
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21. Rewind
"Look, Nao," Kazu held his younger brother by the shoulders-- "Kazane may be your sister, but it'll be better if you don't go near her too often."
Nao watched, curiosity brimming in his eyes as he observed his older sister-- sitting by the window, looking out-- and talking sweetly into the phone, so enamoured by the conversation she seemed absorbed into her own world, forgetting her family.
"She's different," Kazu didn't sugarcoat the phrasing, "soon she's going to go and live in a world neither of us can enter."
Nao wavered on the strange words-- did it mean his sister was like him, a world-leaper? It didn't seem to make sense in that context--
Nao, still a child holding the mind of a teenager, he seemed to put the pieces together rather smoothly, bit by bit understanding the reason and the fear in his brother's grip.
"Even if it's only you, Nao," Kazu made him promise this, "never stoop to the underground."
His sister was a mafioso, and she was dragging her twin down with her.
The smile on her face will never seem any less warped in Nao's heart-- that lovestruck, senseless woman, tearing apart her own identification papers, shredding every family photo that held her smile in it-- destroying every piece of furniture that once hid her tears in them--
After madness overtook her and nothing could stop her anymore-- she simply threw her belongings over one shoulder, and waved goodbye as she walked right out the door.
Nao will always hate Kunomasu Kazane.
And he will also hate the underworld that she loved so much.
ー
At first, maybe it hurt.
Everything just stopped, and from her shoulder a sharp cramp broke her shoulder blade into two, stabbed through to her left palm from the inside out-- and crescendoed to to other arm like a myriad of centipedes gouging at the speed of light.
Her teeth had bitten her tongue till it shed, but the pain was barely registered. Even the taste was absent from her senses-- her eyes were wide open but she could see nothing.
Did it hurt? The numbness was deafening; the itch in her back rubbed at the back of her mind; it may have just felt like a tickle. Excruciating agony shot across her as quickly as it left, but the phantom reminded her of the pain every second it didn't feel like it'd left at all.
Before she even realized, she was losing altitude-- her body and her limbs were loose from all nerve functions, and a cold waft through her skin reminded her of a sunburn experience.
It was only when she hit the ground the she gasped, the pain shredding across her burned skin so sharply it must've drawn blood, but she couldn't even muster the will to get her teeth out of the soil. Not even a finger was twitching in her control.
