Sorrowful Exam

She glared back at him not liking the direction the demon took things. It felt reminiscent of Manekamaru as though it was all the demons seemed to care about. “Are you claiming that I’m weak?” Yumi found such an idea groundless with their current situation in the battle.

“Not in the sense that you’re thinking of.”

“Then what does it matter?!” she shouted charging back in to clash with the demon. The force of her collision with him sent quaking vibrations through the cave echoing deep into the earth. She went into a straight strength check against the demon trying to prove a point to him.

The Lord held his own against the determined woman. “Lying to one’s self is not a healthy way to live or fight.” He kicked her in the stomach breaking her free from her hold on his hands. Her body crashed through wall after wall slowly coming to a stop. It did little to actually harm her or drag her movements.

“Dammit,” she groaned, pushing aside rubble that fell on top of her. “He’s getting into my head!”

He appeared in front of her. “I just want to see the honest warrior in you. The one you’re trying to suppress from me.”

Throwing rocks at him with her telekinesis, his aura blocked all of it. “I’m not suppressing anything! I’m not like you!”

“Is that a problem if you were? Does it change who you are?”

Yumi ground her teeth together further as he pressed his questioning. She recoiled back a little at his presence as though his eyes knew something more than she did. The piercing gaze from him paralyzed her. Her mind warped upon itself, trapping her within.

Chapter 460 – Sorrowful Exam

Her mind traveled back suddenly, dropping her into a familiar yet different scene. She was back when things were still normal in Japan and she wasn’t trying to fight to live. It was a little strange for her. Yumi didn’t really understand why it was happening. In front of her was her brother, before things went crazy. “Yori?”

Dressed in his school uniform, they were seated out in the courtyard of the school, likely when it was lunch judging from the array of food at their side. “It’s fine Yumi. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” She stood up looking around trying to figure out if she was in some sort of mind game or prison that the demon had created.

“It’s safe here. You don’t have to fight.”

“I have to fight! That’s why I’m here!” All around her was the school and beyond their city. Yet there were no other students. They were alone in some sort of strange version of their past. “What’s going on here? Why am I here? I was fighting!”

“But you don’t want to fight. That’s why you’re here.”

“I have to fight! I must!”

Yori stood up holding her hands trying to pull her away from her goal. “That’s just what Yuki has convinced you of doing. Deep down you don’t want to do it. Right, Yumi?”

“Yori…I…”

“You just want to be a normal girl. Nothing special about you, just going to school and having lunch with your friends.”

“What?!” She backed away from him with confusion settling into her mind, suddenly conflicting her. Yumi shook her head trying to stop his words. “No, I’m not! That’s not it! I can’t!” Suddenly, the scenery changed for her. She was back in the court of Atlantis, but rather than being in the crowd watching as she had been, she was in the center before the judge locked in the stocks. Her school uniform disappeared for only a basic brown tunic.

“What does the accused have to say?”

The change of scenes made her even more certain that someone was doing this to her. She tried to move to find whoever it was that orchestrated this farce, but the stock prevented her from turning. “Where are you, Demon?! I thought you wanted a fight? Mind games shouldn’t be your style!”

No response.

However, the crowd shouted at her curses and horrifying offenses. The battery of insults thrown at her started to wear on her mind a little. She knew it wasn’t real, but the court of Atlantis had too many memories for her that she couldn’t leave behind. The nameless voices that wanted her dead were things that she couldn’t escape. They were right.

“Yumi, you can come back,” Yori’s voice suddenly tore through the scene, breaking down the illusion further. He appeared before her in his uniform standing in the court ignoring any of the mob that wanted her life so desperately. “This is not your place.”

She hesitated in replying to him. Her eyes looked around at the crowd and the judge before her. “No, that’s not my place anymore.”

Flames ripped through everything, completely destroying the court. They bathed her fully, but didn’t cause any pain. The stock disintegrated into nothing. Everything was wiped away from her sight. Strange sounds like a horror movie echoed in her ear.

“That’s right, you belong here,” a strangely familiar voice called out to her, breaking the flames down. Takako stepped out of the calming flames with the scene altered into the warzone of their school. She grabbed Yumi by her chin pulling her in with a sinister grin. “This is where you are comfortable. This is you.”

“N-no! Get out of my head!” She batted away Takako’s hand getting distance from the crazed girl.

“Running away again? Like you always do?”

Yumi ground her teeth tightly making them scrap coarsely against one another. She wanted to punch the girl so badly for everything that she did. Virtual reality put distance between the events at their school for her, but seeing her once more opened all of the wounds that had been sealed. “I’m not running!”

Takako smirked and giggled at Yumi, only becoming more sinister with each passing second. “That’s right, you have others fight your battles for you. You couldn’t even face me yourself!”

Her hands tightened up with the illusion before taunting her more than she could take. Yumi charged at Takako, taking a swing at her only for her to slip away from her grasp with ease. She flipped around with Takako already flanking her.

“Can’t even hit me! You’re worthless!”

“Takako!”

“Yumi!” shouted Yori, appearing once more breaking through the illusion, grabbing her back into the school paradise that she found at the start of the illusions. “You’re safe now. You can’t be running away like that. It’s dangerous for you.”

She broke free from his pull standing on the edge of the two realities. “No, brother! I’m not running away!”

Yori pulled on her trying to get her back inside. “You don’t have to worry. You can just be my little sister once more.”

“That’s not me anymore!” she shouted, breaking down all of the illusion leaving her only in an empty black void. In the void, she didn’t find herself alone as she expected, thinking that she had cracked the mental game that Hokuren played on her. It seemed to have only continued. Yori, the judge, Takako and Masa stood before her. They surrounded her, cutting off any chance of escape for her. “Not over yet?!”

“Why are you doing this to your brother? I know what’s best for you!”

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Running away again!”

Masa said nothing to her, just staring at her either leaving the others to speak for her or not finding anything of worth in Yumi. It was hard to tell what the glare that she got from Masa was. The woman watched her intensely without breaking for even a blink. Yet she didn’t have anything in her expression. It was empty like Hokuren. What did she want from her?

“Stop it already! Just fight me!”

“You’re not leaving us. We’ve still got so much more time to play, Yumi.”

“Sister take my hand!”

“Speak prisoner!”

“Enough from all of you! I don’t want to hear it anymore from any of you!” Yumi tried to elbow Takako out of the way for an opening to escape, but nothing happened. She just fell through and then popped up back in the circle once more. Turning around she tried to break through the judge, but the same thing happened again. “Why won’t you just get out of my way?!”

“All you’re good for is running away!”

“Shut the hell up, Takako! You know nothing about me!”

She leaned in towards Yumi with an unsettling hungry look in her lips as her tongue slid around. “I know everything about you. You were a part of me, remember! You can’t hide anything from Yumi!”

“Don’t call me by my name you psycho!”

“But you were inside me. We were as one and it felt good inside me, didn’t it?”

“N-no! Shut up!”

Takako laughed, enjoying each moment torturing Yumi. “You liked it. You loved it. It felt like home for you. All of the broken minds, all of the twisted hearts. The darkness, you fit so well inside me, Yumi!”

“NO NO NO! Shut up!” Yumi screamed at the top of her lungs shaking her chest as she panted in pain collapsing to the ground. She shook her head trying to get Takako’s voice out of her mind. Everything that she said wormed through her ears digging towards her heart. “That’s not me! It’s not me! It’s not!”

“Oh, but it’s. Deep in your heart that’s what you believe.”

“Sister…”

“You can’t go back to that, Yumi. That life is gone. It was gone the moment you said those words to Fumiko.” A wicked grin split through Takako’s face zeroing in on Yumi’s heart, nearly shattering it in an instant.

“I’m tainted.”

“That’s right. You only belong in one place now.” Exposed acceptance rolled over Yumi’s face as she stared at Takako. She might have hated the girl for the twisted person that she became and things she did, but there was something right about what she said. Something that deep within Yumi believed as well.

It pulled her into the void. She would be lost forever.