The Heart of a Lion

Idk what to call this but here you go

She was tired. Always tired. Maybe not physically, but mentally she was stretched taught like a wire about to snap, just barely holding on by a thread. Her nerves were frayed and there were times she couldn't think straight, too distracted by the sounds only she could hear, or little things darting around the edges of her vision.

Her sleep was constantly haunted by nightmares where Fumihiro would appear before her, fingers missing and dripping blood slowly in the floor in a steady tap, tap, tap as it oozed from his open wounds and down his legs to form a  thick puddle at his feet. He was always so pale, his bright hair a stark contrast from the dark blood and his milky skin, his eyes a deep haunted blue and ringed with tiredness. He often had the same deep wounds from that day, his abdomen methodically cut open to expose the muscle beneath, his throat cut down the center and blood running down his face. She didn't even know how he could stand with his Achilles' tendons slashed, but she always assumed he was a puppet on strings.

Sometimes he was crying, other times not. He would beckon to her, and as soon as she would take a step, the ground would leave her and she'd fall into a swirling dark pit, sinking past her family, Tanya, Yasuyori, Ibuki, Sei, Ahmaha, all bloodied and cut up, and they always reached for her, but she was never able to catch them. Her voice made no sound as she screamed and cried for them, and then she would wake up in a cold sweat, her throat sore, and her blankets drenched.

At first when she woke up, the horror would easily fade into numbness, something she had gotten accustomed to to the point of liking it. Why wouldn't she, when the only other thing she felt was panic and despair in her dreams?

She never forgot Fumihiro's face, and for hours on end after she awoke, she'd hear his screams rattling in her head, her own macabre playlist, and her own voice viciously commanding, "You can't tell them anything! For the good of all those people, no matter what happens, we have to keep our mouths shut!"

How she regretted those words now, although it was in the vaguest sense that she dully wished she could go back and change things. She wished she was the one on that table, having her fingers being slowly cut off, having her stomach sliced open and her tendons severed.

But in the end, a wish is just a wish, and there truly was nothing she could do about it.

It was as fine as it could get, until she had people come up to her no matter where she went and thanked her and—some ignorant people—congratulated her. It was annoying at the time, being reminded of everything she'd seen and heard with a few words and immense gratitude, and no, it didn't make the experience better. No ones gratitude could take away the numbness, or pain.

Yuuto hardly seemed to notice, let alone care, so whenever she was with him she tried to be gracious on his behalf even if she spoke too much and seemed frantic. Nobody seemed to be unaffected by the way they acted, and she would almost always catch a few sideways glances and pointed whispers about how strange they were, even for withstanding mental torture.

Yuuto no longer had the mental capacity to get mad at those people, but she more than made up for him in terms of wrath, firing off in short, devastating bursts that had the potential to fell cities. Usually there was always someone in standby like Tanya or Ibuki who was more than willing to hold her back while her temper quickly subsided, and on the plus side less and less people dared to come up to her. She slowly began seeing it as a game, seeing if the people brave enough to voice their criticism of their torture could face the consequences. 

There were many times when Ibuki said she'd gone to far, and scared Kiharu stiff, but Sei seemed to be nothing but entertained.

There were even times they'd been confronted by CCG workers who somehow knew who she was but didn't know of her untouchable status, and someone had to yell on her behalf, "Stop! Those two are protected by congressional law!"
It was always funny to see their expressions go from mirth to shock to disbelief, and finally apprehension as she pulled out her Distinguished Service badge.