[Unbridled Might: Usable once per day. Can cause one character within the Simulation to lose emotional control — for example, shifting from calm to visibly irritable, or from anxious to a full breakdown. Cost: two days of lifespan.]
You know it already. I've always been a wicked woman.
No.
I'm merely a good woman who happens to play a few little tricks.
...
The mist drifting through the night rain was a piece of Chiose Noshiro's soul, torn away and left to wander.
"Sakiko... Sakiko!"
The blue-haired, twin-tailed girl's figure grew hazy and distant, while Chiose Noshiro, her slight frame braced against the wind and rain, looked like a kite with its string cut.
Her steps grew ragged, her breath lost its rhythm, and the endless ache built up from days of strain was breaking loose from her body.
Still, Chiose kept running.
Until, at last, the girl truly vanished from her sight.
Thud—
Chiose simply collapsed to the ground.
The world spun, and in that dizzying whirl her hearing aid flew from her ear.
Sprawled in a puddle, Chiose lost every last bit of strength.
"Little Chiose!"
Taki caught up to her in time, and when she saw the state of the girl she had once kept so carefully protected, the anger inside her crossed some threshold.
Chiose Noshiro was someone she herself hadn't even dared to touch carelessly... so why was that woman, Togawa Sakiko, allowed to hurt her like this!
Why... why!
A boundless frustration pressed against her chest. Taki forced down her fury and pulled Chiose into her arms.
Neither of them had an umbrella against the rain; the two girls simply huddled together on the wet ground.
"Taki... Taki... the band's gone... ugh... my band... it's gone..."
Broken sobs spilled out, thick with endless hurt. Chiose clung to Taki like a wandering spirit that had finally found the abandoned husk it once called home.
[You're nothing but two defective things huddling together for warmth!]
Nothing but two... defective things... huddling for warmth!
You two...
"Ha..."
Holding Chiose tightly, Taki found herself thinking that, in some twisted way, Togawa Sakiko might not have been entirely wrong.
"It's okay... Little Chiose, it's okay... I..."
Noticing that Chiose's hearing aid was gone, Taki had no choice but to loosen her hold and switch to sign language.
[I'm here. I've always been here. With me here, can you lean on me a little more, as your friend? Aren't we the best of friends in the whole world...]
"But Taki... the band... our band... ugh..."
The moment they let go of each other, even briefly, the cold rushed in on both of them. Taki had no choice but to pull Chiose close again.
Warmth passed between their small trembling bodies as April's cold rain poured down without mercy.
The puddles on the ground kept deepening, and the silver-haired girl in her arms kept crying.
Taki could feel Chiose's warm tears mixing with the rain, running down and falling onto her own soaked clothes, leaving behind only the heat that belonged to tears alone.
That heat began to scorch both their hearts, over and over.
"Don't cry anymore... don't cry... I'm here. I'm here."
Even knowing Chiose couldn't hear a word, even knowing everything she said now was wasted breath.
Taki Shiina just wanted to keep saying it anyway.
"Ugh... Taki... I... I never thought friendship could be this fragile... why would it be so fragile, so easily broken?"
"Sakiko promised me... she said forever, all that... so why..."
"I told you so, didn't I! She's a liar, a shameless, scheming, damned liar!"
Taki ground the words out through clenched teeth. Chiose couldn't hear her, but she needed to say it anyway.
Yet even as her words came out so sharp, the hand patting Chiose's back to soothe her stayed impossibly gentle.
"Taki... I want to go home... I..."
"Home. I'll take you home."
She scooped Chiose Noshiro up into her arms, and the girl buried her face against her chest.
As Taki passed by a storm drain, something caught her eye, flashing faintly.
She crouched down and dug out, with her bare hands, a mud-caked hearing aid.
That's how it happened.
...
"Pat..."
"Pat..."
"Pat..."
The whole way, Chiose kept tapping her small hand against Taki's back.
Her touch was impossibly gentle, like a mother soothing an infant.
[What are you doing?]
They'd reached the gate of the Noshiro residence. Taki set Chiose down.
"Keeping the beat... my heart is so tired... I'm tapping out the rhythm of Time Heals the Shattered Heart... I..."
[If you're tired, don't talk anymore.]
Taki, aching for her, gently brushed away the tears at the corner of Chiose's eye.
Only now could Taki Shiina finally look quietly at Chiose Noshiro's face.
It was so pale. Where had it gone — the glowing, healthy, rosy-cheeked face Taki remembered?
What on earth had turned Chiose Noshiro into this...
"Taki, do you think... I'm really stupid? You told me — right from the start, you told me — that my health should come first, that I should be able to tell right from wrong... but I still trusted Sakiko so much..."
Chiose looked like a child who'd made some terrible mistake, but in the next instant Taki heard something that made her heart skip several beats.
Biting her lip between her teeth, Chiose's voice was drenched in sorrow and self-blame.
"Taki, tell me... did I not do enough? I love this band so much... I gave so much to it... so why am I still not good enough? Why did Sakiko say..."
"Say I didn't..." Chiose paused, "...try hard enough..."
[That's not your fault. That's not—]
Taki fumbled to sign back to her, but in her overwhelming distress she kept getting the gestures wrong.
"So... I guess it really is my fault... Sakiko told me before..."
"Told you what?"
Where Taki couldn't see, Chiose's eyes went dark and hollow.
"She said she understood what I was chasing. She said she saw the value in me... but today she ran away... and said my ears were the problem. It hurts so much — she was one of the rare people who truly matched me, who understood what I was so obsessed with, but... but..."
Chiose's hand gripped Taki's arm with all her strength. Pain spread through Taki's skin, but she didn't stop her.
"But I... I really had such high hopes for Sakiko... how could she do this to me..."
"I'm... I'm here. I'm here."
Taki repeated the words numbly, her mind now filled entirely with Togawa Sakiko's face.
That woman — how dare she fail Chiose like this! Ha!
But in the very next instant, Taki Shiina suddenly remembered — it was she herself who had dragged Chiose into the band in the first place.
She'd allowed it — allowed her to become the guitarist too, allowed her to grow close with Sakiko, allowed her to recklessly wreck her own body with sleepless nights and relentless overwork...
[Really, it's all my fault. Taki Shiina's fault... it's mine.]
[I failed her. I failed my duty.]
The fire of Taki's anger went out all at once. Now it was Chiose supporting her as they walked back inside together.
The rain and the mist were, at last, shut outside in the wet night.
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