Around him was only the barren shed, illuminated by the morning light slotting through the high window; outside, somehow, some way, the sun had continued shining. His clothes clung to him, and where he sat, his muck stained the floor, leaving a brown outline of his figure, like chalk from a crime scene; or perhaps the remnants of the crime itself. His own sludge made physical.
He let out a heavy sigh, lay back down, and began to weep.
Not for anything or anyone in particular. Not for the stupid kid who'd killed himself in the CAVERN, who'd pressed a knife to his neck, who he knew in his heart would never shed a single tear if Sun had been slaughtered in his place. Not a one for Mizuki, or Mizune, or for anyone else in that collection of broken kids masquerading as a family. And...
And... yes, he did spare a few tears for Lillie. Lillie, who didn't know anything of this, who didn't know him, who knew nothing but her own innocence and, for some ungodly reason, believed in the wholeness of people. He didn't know whether to pity her or to envy her.
He clicked his Poke Ball a couple times before remembering Harmony wasn't conscious to keep him company. It surprised him they'd allowed him to keep Harmony at all - or, as he reached into his pockets, the crystal or the Z-Ring. Perhaps they hadn't thought of him having things on his person: the backpack of his they'd confiscated held mostly his school papers and notebooks he'd been too lazy to take out for the summer.
And his library book. If they didn't give him that back - oh. Now, that would be something worth weeping over.
Finally, once he'd wiped the snot from his nose, he sprawled out his limbs to relieve his muscles' tension - and, to his surprise, his hand brushed something solid. Sitting up again revealed its identity: a wrapped square of chocolate with a note taped to it. Under both was a larger sheet of paper, which he pushed aside for now.
Hi Sun. We all wanted to give you a big hug to welcome you but we don't want to frighten you since apparently you're so scared of us! Instead we got you this. Well, I got you this. I've been hoarding my Righteous Tickets for like five years but I decided to dip into my stores just for you! I'll come by with lunch later and I'll make sure you thank me for it then! - Mizuki
Huh. As much as the idea of Mizuki sneaking into his personal space while he slept disturbed him, Sun wasn't going to turn down free dopamine, no matter the source. He unwrapped the square, placed it on his tongue to let it melt in his mouth, and picked up the larger sheet.
Stage Zero Lesson Zero - paper copy
DIAGNOSTIC TEST
Answer these questions with complete honesty. Give as much detail as you possibly can.
- What is the worst thing you have ever
Sun balled up the paper and pitched it against the wall.
With nothing else to occupy himself with, and such intense fatigue weighing down on him, he lay down once more atop his sludge to rest his eyes. His body, however, had already decided it had suffered all the sleep it could handle, and he was at its mercy. So he endured the agony of the purgatory between dreams and waking, helpless to cling to the half-formed lucid dreams which passed in front of his aching eyes, until another thud shocked him into full consciousness.
An unfamiliar woman had pried the door open and now leaned against its threshold in profile. A ray of sun caught on her glassy dark brown eyes, and they twinkled mischievously.
"Hi, Sun," she said, her voice hushed, as if she were addressing a wounded Stufful. "That's your name, isn't it? Sun, ess-you-en?"
Sun glanced around the room in search of the other Sun she certainly meant to speak to.
"That's the name I was told was yours," she said. "Sun. Quite an unusual name, isn't it, Sun?"
He'd never met another, it was true. But now it didn't even sound like a word at all to him - and with each repetition he came more into awareness of himself, of the dirt under his fingernails and the muck splattered on his pants. All he could offer her was, "I didn't come up with it."
The woman stepped inside, allowing the heavy door to swing shut behind her. "People rarely do, do they? But sometimes it's the names we don't choose ourselves that suit us the best." She clasped her hands together, looking over her nose at him in a manner he decided was quite condescending; an unexpected burst of territoriality arose in him: how dare she intrude in here, intrude in on him and his sludge, which could peel off him in sheets and felt like his very best friend, or maybe his son. "The one I was given was Flora. Flora. It matches yours in a way, doesn't it?" She let out a whistling guffaw that bounced wildly into a register unfit for her voice. "Flora and Sun. Flora can't live without you."
"Okay," Sun said.
Presumably believing this a sign of his compliance, Flora smiled at him. "Now, then. I'll be the one keeping an eye on you today. You should have received a..." her gaze flitted across the room, and she batted her eyelashes, seeming caught in a daydream. "A worksheet. Mr. Kazakami sent his oldest to give it to you; did you get it?"
"I'm not filling out any worksheets."
"No? None at all?" Glum, Flora squatted down to make a simple eye contact with him. "You won't be willing to work with us today? Sun?"
"No. Stop asking."
Finally, Flora's eyes landed on the ball of paper at the base of the wall; she sucked in a breath, and procured a Poke Ball from... somewhere Sun would prefer not to stare.
"Leafeon," she said, and a large feline Pokémon materialized at her side. Its cream fur stuck out in curly tufts that turned a pale green at their ends; a question-mark shaped crest of a similar hue adorned its head. Its tail resembled a large palm leaf after a drought, puckered and crinkly at its edges: a few chunks were missing, perhaps having been lost in battle, or nibbled away by an errant Caterpie. "Leafeon! Got a - oh, we've got a..."
She trailed off, chuckling, as the Pokémon craned its neck at her before settling its lightless, dead-leaf-colored gaze on Sun.
"Leafeon. Follow the protocol."
The Pokémon nodded and began its approach on silent paws. It made only slight indents in the padded floor, and by the time Sun figured out what it intended for him, it was too late: a sweet herbal scent wafted towards his nostrils, and by reflex he took a deep inhale.
A splendid mix like - ah, let's see here - cardamom, cinnamon... a hint of peppermint. Kukui drank tea often, and Sun had come to learn these scents in his time staying with him. Stuck in the mix as well was another, stronger scent, a less pleasant one. One like decaying flowers.
"My Leafeon has something unusual about him," Flora purred. "An ability that is very rare among his kind. Would you like to know what it is?"
"...Mmph."
"Leafeon has a special organ in his body," she continued. Sun prepared to contend he didn't want to hear about Leafeon's special organ, but he found at that moment his jaw muscles did not want to cooperate with him. "Many Grass-Types do. It allows them to produce this wonderful scent - we call it, 'aromatherapy'. It makes your heart stop beating so fast, and it makes all the little thoughts in your head causing you to worry stop, too. Isn't that wonderful, Sun?"
His extremities tingled - the tip of his nose, too. His ears, his tongue, his brain cells, every last mitochondria and ribosome. He lolled his head back, rendered dumb in all the ways that mattered.
"Shshhhwondfuh," he said.
Leafeon touched his nose to Sun's shoulder, and the boy ran his fingers through his fur. Although much of it was clipped close to Leafeon's body, what he could grasp of it felt close to what he imagined was the texture of clouds, or the coat of a Mareep in winter... he ought to get himself one of these, if this could be pleasure on Earth...
"Msshmnshmhahwtahgit? Alleefeon litaat?"
"That's right," Flora said, dodging his question - he furrowed his brow. "Now, I'm going to go back inside to get you a fresh worksheet, and once I come back I'll help you through it. It's just a couple of questions that'll help us determine the way to help you best." She gave him a wink before reaching for the door handle. "Because, I assure you, you need help."
"Yshlocksshyushhlfin," Sun said.
She ignored him, tugging on the handle.
"YSHLOCKSSHYUSHHLFIN," Sun said once more.
She released her fist at last, her face a perturbing shade of puce, and turned to face him once more. See? Why shouldn't she listen to him? He knew what he was talking about.
"Sun," she said, "I appear to have made a mistake. But it's fine. It's perfectly fine. We'll just have to put off the worksheet for now, or salvage the discarded one..."
She sauntered back to the other wall, her hands skating the surface of the floor like a fishing trawler, grabby. But her attention soon turned away from the crinkled globe at her feet: by now Sun's tingling had subsided to an uneasy buzz he could at least try to shut out, and he felt confident enough to attempt rising onto his feet, reaching out to the wall for stability. He rocked on his joints, and as he rose to his full height, an inferno shot through his ankle -
"Oh no," Flora gasped. "Poor boy..."
- and he tumbled onto his ass, leaving Leafeon to scramble out of his way so not as to be crushed. Flora glided to his side, continuing her consolations: "poor boy, poor Sun, you've been injured, don't exert yourself now..."
With both his mind and his jaw yet to regain control over themselves, he managed an "mmmshhokay."
"Lie down," Flora instructed him. "Yes, lie down, keep your ankle elevated. That might alleviate it for you. Leafeon, you can help us..."
As Flora rolled down his sock, Sun braced himself for another dose of Aromatherapy - grinned at the prospect, really - but instead Leafeon placed his almost plush muzzle onto his bare ankle and warbled.
"Leafeon has a healing nature," Flora explained. "He's never had any interest in battles, you see - no, not even as an Eevee. His evolution was written in the stars. Fate calls us to be who we are - you'll learn that very soon, if everything goes right. But, ah, your ankle's concerning us, Sun... we think it might be sprained."
Sun, no longer mute but lacking the will for words, shrugged.
Flora leaned down to press her ear to his chest; Sun's eyebrows shot up at the contact, but his morbid curiosity outweighed his discomfort, and he let her remain there. When she came back up again, she'd taken on a grave disposition.
"Your breathing is irregular," she remarked. "What have you been doing to cause such harm to yourself?"
Had Sun the ability, he would have confessed it all - the trauma of the trial in the CAVERN, the midnight dash, the frigid pond - every last moment leading up to his capture, the abuse every cell of him had taken. He didn't recall the exact moment he could have sprained his ankle, but it didn't shock him to hear he might have: the sloped topography of much of the Alolan jungle wasn't the ideal terrain for a run such as his. He'd heard stories of marathon runners only feeling the brunt of their injuries once they'd crossed the finish line. He'd heard of their toenails falling off, too.
Athleticism had never been Sun's forte, but he'd never been a slouch, either. Facing off against the other boys in his gym class in sprints, he'd always placed anywhere from fifth to second, and had been content with that. He prioritized finishing before Hau, and succeeded about three-quarters of the time; however, Hau could consistently perform more push-ups than him.
It didn't bother him. When Tapu Koko came after you, push-ups wouldn't do shit for you.
"I think you may have contracted pneumonia," Flora said, breaking him out of his stupor.
A word suddenly entered Sun's mind, one he had not heard or thought of for a very long time: whackadoodle.
"There is fluid present in your lungs," she explained. "I think you may need to go to a..."
No way. Pneumonia took a while to develop, and Sun knew he hadn't had an illness beforehand it could have developed from. His breathing was uneasy, but he'd know if he was in mortal danger. He wasn't struggling.
But.
"To a hospital," Sun said. "Yes, a hospital! Please, ship me off to the nearest hospital! I'm dying, I have a sprained ankle, pneumonia, rabies and cholera! If I don't get treatment now, I could be gone within the hour." He glanced at his wrist as if to check his doomsday clock. "I have twenty minutes max, I think, so you'd better hurry."
Flora nodded. "Yes, we have an infirmary here, in the compound... I'm a registered nurse, and I'm not the only one here." She took out her flip phone, and Sun's heart plummeted. "I'll call Mr. Kaza - "
The door flung open behind them, and Flora whirled around, her expression brightening. Sun squinted past her, at first deluding himself into believing it wasn't who he knew it was, and then clinging on to his diminishing hope that this meant rescue and not yet another recurrence of misfortune.
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Mizuki had done her hair up since last night. Brushed it, at least. Whether for them or for another, Sun could not tell, and frankly, did not care.
"Oh," she said. "Flora! Hi! What are - what are you doing here?"
"Your father sent me to aid the patient," Flora said. "He meant in the matters of the soul, but, ah, I believe his physical health may be more critical at present. He may..."
Mizuki didn't even feign interest. "You forgot to bring his clothes," she said, holding up a wrinkled set of the dour gray Starlight uniform.
Flora beamed at her. "Clean clothes! That'll take away a bit of his sorrows, at least. Thank you, Mizuki."
Mizuki, the beloved child, the blessed child. Mr. Kazakami's eldest.
Leafeon pushed his nose up the length of Sun's leg, as if to remind him he truly was here as Sun, and not as the patient. Sun murmured, there was something else they could do to cure all his sorrows, but of course his words went unheard. When Mizuki tossed the clothes to him - without even sparing a glance in his direction - his hands quaked as he caught them, and scooted away to renew himself in the shadows of the corner.
"Now," Flora began, "I was just about to take him to the infirmary, but - "
"It's no trouble," Mizuki said. "I'll take him for you. I have to go back down that way anyway. You should go prepare for the leaving."
Visible disturbance crossed Flora's expression; she dipped her head, picking at her kneeling calves. "There's a...?"
"No one told you?"
Flora shook her head. "No, I'm so sorry... they don't usually... on a weekend, too?"
"Yep, on a weekend," Mizuki said, and turned around to find a (now fully clothed, thankfully) silent version of her best friend. "Okay, Sun! Get up now! You're coming with me."
As Sun had put the uniform on only out of desperation, and loathed every single second it spent against his skin, the idea of letting her lead him to the infirmary seemed tantamount to letting her lead him to the electric chair. "I'm not - "
Mizuki placed her hand on her hip.
"Now."
Now. Okay. Sun closed his eyes. He could do this.
What was it, he thought as he forced himself up onto his good foot, about the mere mention of a 'leaving' that had turned Flora to stone? Leafeon rubbed her ankle the way he had Sun's; she ignored him, and held a dead stare in her eyes as Sun hobbled past, holding his sprained foot limp.
To his great annoyance, Mizuki didn't temper her walking speed. Even when Sun was healthy she outpaced him, and by the time he'd shambled his way out of the shed - resisting the rogue temptation to knock the wooden block free, and serve Flora her just desserts - she'd reached the compound's side door, and was searching through a thick ring of keys.
"Sun?"
Sun turned Tamato red. "What?"
"You can drop the act, you know," Mizuki said, brushing her bangs from her eyes. "No one's here. She won't see you."
"I'm not faking it," Sun said, gesturing to the sac of blood he now called an ankle. "The ankle, at least. Pretty sure I don't have pneumonia."
Mizuki narrowed her eyes. "And how the heck did you hurt it when you didn't even come to the trial?"
"I beat the trial," Sun said. "I spent three hours running away from it."
"Sure you did," Mizuki replied. "It's only a twenty minute walk here from the trial site. If you spent three hours running here, you spent three hours running in circles."
The words entered Sun's ear canal, attempted to cross the check-in border to his brain, and were swiftly turned away; deferred, they floated away back the way they'd come, leaving Sun's psyche pristine and unharmed.
"Wait," he said. "If you didn't think I was injured, why are you taking me to the infirmary?"
"I'm not taking you to the infirmary," Mizuki said, and to his endless annoyance, did not elaborate. She pushed her key into the lock, pulled the door open, and allowed Sun the courtesy of limping in before her.
"Here's the incinerator," she said. "They put newbies' stuff here. Yours, too."
Sun stared into the machine's gaping jaws, thinking his heart belonged there with the ash - all those untouched pages. He hadn't even been a quarter through, dammit; and that was even before considering the fee.
He shivered as she led him into the gloom of the labyrinthine hall, which, though he may have molted his layer of muck, caught on him in a manner not too dissimilar. This was the west wing, she explained, and though it may have been his first look at the Children's actual facilities, it wasn't representative of their quarters. Stacks and stacks of files piled up behind endless near-identical doors - pure madness, slashed straight from one of those nightmares Sun had used to have where he'd be sentenced to life in maximum-security prison for his crime of breaking the door off a plastic toy car at the grocery store when he was six.
"So, what does the 'E' stand for?"
Mizuki stopped and cocked her head at one of the doors. Brought a finger to her lips.
"Wait," she said. "Which direction is...?"
"On a map?" Sun asked. "West is left. East is right."
For a moment he feared Mizuki's brain had short-circuited, she remained so still.
"Oh," she said. "Guess I had it backwards, then. Sorry. This is the east wing."
By this point, Sun could tell his lack of speed irritated him - as if it were in his control - and, as the two squeezed through one particularly unassuming door into the atrium, she stopped bothering to slow down for him.
"To the ea - to the west wing now. To the end of the hall," she said. When Sun halted to lean against the wall and get his bearings straight, she wrinkled her nose at him. "Hurry up. We don't have all day. People could be coming!"
Few had permission to pass through the east wing, she had said; but this space was the heart of the cult's entire complex, and Sun still didn't spot a soul in sight. "Where are they now?"
"Getting ready for the leaving," she said, pointing past him to a pair of doors. "In there. In the auditorium."
A dull thrum of primal music radiated from it: the pounding of a dirge. The longer Sun stayed against the wall, the more the ache in his head matched its rhythm, and the stronger he desired to flee. He pushed himself off, almost toppled over flat onto his face, and narrowly avoided spraining his other ankle with his awkward landing.
So they passed through these halls like ghouls. Every so often Mizuki would cast a look back at him, saw him struggling, and started to slow; when she had reached the point he would stay in earshot of her, she cleared her throat.
"A few years ago," she said, "my dad asked us girls to each write on a sticky note the name of someone we wanted to see saved. And, afterwards, we were all supposed to reach out to that person, to get them help. I remember looking over at Ne - at Mizune to see what she'd written, and..." she chuckled, stopped dead in her tracks, and brought her hand to her brow, surveying those odd paintings lining the hall. "I thought she didn't understand the assignment, because she'd written her own name on the slip. I remember asking her how she meant to save herself, and she started bawling at me. Just full-force crying like a baby. Dunno what her problem was - hormonal issues, 's my guess. And the worst thing is, she never even answered my question."
Sun had almost passed her by when she took off again, her pace even brisker. He would have grumbled the whole way down the hall had she not begun again:
"But, once I thought it over, I realized: she did actually understand the assignment, didn't she? Maybe the most out of all of us. It's not necessarily the worst person you know who's the one you want to save. It's the one you know in your heart could be better than they are, if they just had the time or the courage or the right person to lead them down the right path. And who's more aware of your own failures than yourself?"
She stopped again. Turned to him.
"Do you want to know whose name I wrote down on my slip, Sun?"
"Whose."
Mizuki smiled.
"Yours."
The revelation wasn't what surprised him. What surprised him was his reaction: it was not disgust that coiled in his chest, but pity.
"I wrote your name down on that slip, and it stayed at the back of my mind for a while. I saw you at school, and I thought of it. But, to be honest, I was terrified. Terrified of what you'd say to me. Terrified you'd stop being my friend if you asked too much, and I couldn't risk that, because you're my oldest friend! I let my fear get in the way of what I wanted for my life. What I knew was best for my life.
"Sun, a lot of things aren't turning out the way I'd like them to. I always dreamed growing up of having a Popplio, a girl Popplio - nope. I always dreamed growing up I'd get to stay close to my older sister - nope. I always dreamed of being a Pokemon Trainer, of rising to the occasion, of becoming island challenge champion - "
Like that, she deflated.
"Sun, I'm not going. I couldn't even make it to a single trial, much less defeat one. And, well..."
Mizuki lifted her head, basking in the fluorescents.
"I never thought I'd be as okay with that as I am at this moment."
Sun lost his balance. The wall rescued him from a complete faceplant, and the softness of his cheek cushioned its blow.
"You aren't coming with us?"
Mizuki shook her head.
"What?" As Sun's pulse climbed, his ankle ached with it, as if offering him some sullen sympathy. "What do you mean? We aren't going to leave you here."
"You don't have to leave me here," Mizuki said. "I want you to pledge yourself. Not to the Children of Starlight, but to me and me alone."
Sun's eyes went wide. "What are you - "
"I'm asking you to rule by my side."
Across the compound, a gong sounded, reverberating through the hallways, through the foundation, into the earth. Mizuki stared at Sun, unperturbed, unmoving.
"We can be co-Spiritual Guides," she said. "I'll help you save yourself, and we won't have to leave each other. Don't you remember what I said back at the cemetery? I need a barometer. If I keep you on the straight and narrow, you could do the same..."
She faltered, blushing, and looked down at herself. At her garments, at Sun's, each an inmate in this prison of faith, of love, of acceptance.
"I want you in my life. I want you saved. I'm losing everything, so, please, just let me have this one thing."
All those years spent reading strategy guides, plotting out every moment of her island challenge in advance, learning the in and outs, the tricks of the trade, the proper jargon and the local lingo. And she wanted to throw it all away.
This wasn't Mizuki.
Not the Mizuki Sun knew. Not the strong one, who could sprint faster than Sun and do more push-ups than Hau and got the best grades out of anyone in their class, who'd written and given a graduation speech in front of the whole school all on her own, who might have been pretentious and sanctimonious but still knew how to stick with him through thick and thin.
Should he have mourned her at the cemetery that night? Chasing her into the trees, unaware the next time he'd see her she'd be covered in her own blood.
He saw an obvious flaw in her plan, one he had to cling to: "what about your dad?"
Mizuki's features curled into a smile, and she clutched her arm with her other hand, so clearly unable to hide her delight.
"I know a way to deal with him," she said. "Don't you worry about that. It's all accounted for."
A plan. Mizuki wanted to 'do wrong', Lillie was hesitant, and Ishmael needed him to facilitate it. Sun's mind churned out a thousand thoughts a second, each one pushing him to a hasty conclusion: he had nothing left to lose.
Sun nodded.
"I will."
(Black hair and streaks of blood.)
Now it was Mizuki's turn to gape.
"Oh, Sun! That's perfect! Perfect, and wonderful. I knew you'd be able to see right through my scariness in the holding shed last night..."
"I..." Sun's throat went dry. "I wouldn't say that. I was concerned about you, and you..."
"Betrayed you, you thought," Mizuki supplied. "Well, turns out I was only doing the best for you. But it turns out doing the best doesn't always look like what you think it should." She shrugged. "That's hard. But, you know, as they say - no pain, no gain."
Dear Harmony,
I'm sorry you couldn't be my friend. I don't know what was wrong with you: maybe it's that you weren't good enough for me. I needed someone strong and you weren't that, and you still can't be that.
One for you.
"You looked so scared of my blood. Are you so afraid of blood?"
Her words ricocheted off the confining walls, reverberating, echoing, through the foundation, into the earth, into Sun's skull. Each open door the duo passed revealed an empty room: each room the same. No signs of life save for a sheet stripped off, a propaganda book out of place, a mahogany chair pulled to an odd angle. A sea of gray and white and a deep, sludgy maroon.
"It's just blood, Sun. It flows through your veins, too."
Dear Sun. Hau.
I'm really sorry to the both of you. You both messed up really badly and you don't even know it. I still like you guys a whole lot. I wish I could travel with you!
But I can't.
I don't think you're going to like the path I'm taking my life on. I'm sorry you won't understand. But I also get why.
Two, one for each of you. Little light grazes I'll shake off in a heartbeat.
"It flows through your veins as much as anyone else's," Mizuki said. "Your mom let you go to the puberty education class, right?"
She had indeed. The fifth-grade class had been split in two - girls in one room, boys in the other - and their grade didn't have any male teachers, so Sun, Hau, and forty other lads had been subjected to Miss Emily stuttering her way through tepid explanations of the things she lacked in common.
Mizuki nodded. "So you know, then, how we start from two and split into many. Our cells."
Hey, Mom.
Why is it you couldn't love Nene like she was your child? You manage to love Mirai, and I guess you managed to love me too. Was it because you were too good for Nene, or because she was too good for you?
I saw her skin turn that dark blue skin ought never to go. Her fingers hurt a lot, and swelled up like sausages. I called her sturdy cause she never broke but she cried at me because she thought I was calling her 'healthy'.
Thinking back on it, I don't know if the fact you spared us the rod and not her meant you loved us any more. At least you taught her how to pay for her sins early.
Mom, is that why you hold Mirai so close to you? So she won't make any sins to pay for? So you'll never teach her good again? Is that what 'selfishness' means: to deprive your kids 'cause you think you love them?
One for you. It's not deep, but it hurts more than it looks like it should. If I'm not careful, it'll get infected.
Mizuki swayed from side to side, dancing more than walking. Her sneakers skidded against the floor, producing a squeak with every step.
"Evil lives in every cell of my body," she said. "It flows through my veins, and no matter what I do, that'll always be the case. And I don't fear that anymore. It took me a long time to accept it, but, at long last, I've done it."
Dad. Tenshiro.
Which of those are you? Are you my loving father, who held me and fed me good food and rocked me on his knee and told me bedtime stories and told me to reach for the stars?
Or are you the man who changed his name, who changed his whole life; whose whole life, sense of self, and the lives of every single one of his children, have all been irreparably forced into this charade? Our minds have been broken by the very thing you sought to fix us with. I looked it up on the computer, and it said that's called iatrogenesis.
You give someone medication to treat an illness, but it comes with side effects that hurt worse than the original ailment. That's iatrogenesis.
You go in to amputate someone's leg, but you lop off the wrong one. That's iatrogenesis.
You tell your kids from the moment they're born they're born to hate, and only through a lot of hard work can they be anything more than the sludge they're made of. You tell them they're evil for being born but you love them anyway because you're good and only through you can they ever have a hope of being like you - of being perfect, or even good.
That's iatrogenesis. That's the cancer living in the body and soul of the Children of Starlight. The illness is self-created and self-perpetuating.
I won, I guess. Or - we won. I'm just like you now, and you made me all of what I am. But you made Nene what she is now, too. I hope you never forget that.
There's eight of us, soon to be nine, and you live on in all of us. That's nine for you, then, and they'll be the deepest.
"I had a dream a few nights ago. A real vivid one. I saw Mizune, and she talked to me, and told me I had to fight. Fight hard for what the truth needed from me."
Dear Nene.
I guess you did the most wrong out of all of us. Which is a feat. Maybe you thought you had a reason. Maybe you did.
Whatever it was, I don't care. When the world-dreamer weighs your heart, the justification won't make it a single gram lighter.
I'm sorry Dad called you a slut that night. Not because he was wrong, because he wasn't. But it was a cruel thing to say to your face.
If I shed all the blood your sin required, I'd be dead. I'm sorry. Don't ask so much of me.
"And you listened to her," Sun concluded.
Mizuki grinned.
"Oh, I listened, all right. But not to her. Because that wasn't Mizune. Mizune's not good, or powerful." She jabbed her thumb into her own chest. "The only person I can rely on is myself. These things I've been thinking - I'm not cut out to be my father's puppet. I know I could do better than my unborn brother could at his job, at least."
just that Frostfire, the poor little Litten, couldn't handle the stress - or perhaps he was soaking it in, bathing in it. his claws, her skin. her red, his white.
The claws lengthened, as did his tail. His shoulders widened, his frame restructured itself, became stockier. The ecstasy of evolution was second only to the ecstasy of repentance; the two of them laughed and laughed until the air caught in their throats and their giggles turned to hiccups and her vision went as white as a Kissaki winter.
"You're a good kid, Sun," Mizuki said. "I think you know how to hate yourself just as well as I do. For that, I'll let you stay my friend."
They'd reached the end of the hall and come to a blocky door marked 'W167'. Mizuki hovered beside it, waiting for her companion to reach her, and once he did, grabbed his shoulder to steady him.
"Lillie's waiting, and she'll be happy to see you," she cooed in his ear. "We'll break bread together tonight. Now, let's hope she'll be able to keep you on the right path."