Mother, Daughter, Son

WARNING

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS UP TO MAGI 250

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Other warnings: blood, gore, mental torture…ish?

"She was actually conscious in the end, you know," Arba smiled sickly sweet, the twisted expression strange and horrifying on his sister's, on Hakuei but not's usually kind face. The darkened whites of her eyes made it even worse, transforming the lovely woman into something foreign and utterly petrifying, another creature altogether.

Hakuryuu made an inarticulate, furious noise, any words he might have said choking painfully somewhere deep down in his throat. His nails were digging into his palms but he didn't notice the pain, with all of his focus sharpened onto the woman who was not his sister.

Hakuei -nonononotHakuei's hand was on his cheek, cold and clammy, like the hands of a not-yet-rotten corpse. Arba leaned closer in a terrifying parody of their confrontation in the palace gardens, her honeyed breath warm and nauseating against his ear.

"Poor, poor Gyokuen with her foolish son, with her son who was so malleable, such a pretty puppet for me," she whispered huskily, her singsong voice dropping even further until he was straining to hear, not wanting to listen but at the same time frozen to the spot.

"Her precious Hakuryuu-chan who killed her with his very own hands."

Hakuryuu tore himself from her grasp in a jerky, violent motion. She let him go and kept on smiling that horrible smile at him, her hands still stretched out as if to pull him back into her embrace. He took three faltering steps back, footsteps loud against the cracked ground.

He stepped on a piece of gravel that crunched noisily under his booted foot and froze. There was a sense of impeding horror as he watched the full, rosy lips turn down when Gyokuen- Hakuei- Arba lowered her hands to hang limply by her sides, her head lolling strangely to the side.

"She was asleep for quite the long time, wasn't she?" There was a sort of deranged little giggle coming from Hakuei's throat, the scarred prince noted vaguely. "She woke up in the end, though. She thought that you were Hakuyuu, can you believe that?"

Hakuryuu shook his head slowly, eyes wide and almost afraid, backing up another step.

Stop.

I don't want to hear this.

Stop.

Stop.

…Please, stop.

"How very sad… Her beautiful little boy, grown up in the blink of an eye while she slept the years away," Arba crooned. She sounded disturbingly like Gyokuen, Hakuei's voice sounded like his mother's. Or was it just that he couldn't remember his mother's true voice, and this witch was distorting his sister's voice to become like her own?

But it was true. In the instant before he killed her without mercy, convinced that she was trying to trick him, Gyokuen had mistaken him for her eldest son.

For his brother, Hakuyuu.

"She was so very confused, in those last moments of hers," the monster in his sister's body mocked, her tone sweet. Then it changed, into a cruel mimicry of his mother's own voice. " 'Hakuryuu…? Hakuyuu… you… I had… what happened…..?' was what she said, wasn't it?"

"Don't use her voice!" he raged furiously, face twisting in an expression that was agony and uncertain, tentative grief. "Get out of my sister's body!"

She took another step forward, and in the same moment, Hakuryuu felt his body involuntarily retreat yet another step back, found that his back was against a solid wall, made of crumbling granite.

"She made a lovely vessel for me all these years," the thing smiled, and he cringed as he felt his sister's hand tracing the side of his face. "But this one is newer, isn't it? It'll last longer."

And then his sister's hands were wrapped around his throat, her delicate fingers carrying a terrible, unnatural strength. He choked and clawed at those hands, but

it

wasn't

letting

go

no matter how much he tore at her skin, no matter the bits of flesh and blood gathering underneath his nails

and he was running

out of air

Hakuryuu woke up.

"…"

He raised a hand to touch his unblemished throat. There was nothing there, of course.

It was just his own uncertainties, wasn't it?

His mother had killed their family.

He shouldn't be thinking about this.

…But he was.

'Hakuryuu…? Hakuyuu… you… I had… what happened…..?'

He shook his head with a snarl, trying to physically dislodge the remnants of his dream.

'Hakuyuu… you…'

"Shut up!"

He got hastily to his feet, striding barefoot over to the window, slamming it open to receive a blast of freezing air to the face.

He was panting, and he didn't even know why.

And even with the shock from the cold air, the treacherous thoughts never left his mind. He didn't sleep that night.

Here, a belated birthday gift for Gyokuen-chan on tumblr.

I thought I'd try out a new style of writing? What do you think?