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It was akin to waking up from a nightmare. The dizziness of appearing in a new place, the adrenaline crash now that the danger was gone— it was nauseating.
There was no solace in waking up. Because once Hiruko opened her eyes, she knew that the nightmare wasn't over, it had really just begun.
She hadn't kept track of how many times she came to consciousness on this bed. It was identical, every time. The night of the second day.
She gripped at the sides of her head, flashes of the previous loop seeming just out of grasp. It was never easy to parse through her memories. Much like an actual dream, the more she tried to force her way through them, the more the memories seemed to sink away into nothingness.
This time, she felt impending doom. The last loop must have ended terribly. Most of the routes where she died horribly had her waking up with the feeling, a relic of death staining her psyche. Other times, she was lucky enough to reset at the end of the hundred days, trapped forever in the cycle.
This time, she had a strange compulsion to let Takumi know that the number '2' was prime.
Whatever that meant, Hiruko didn't care to know. There were more important matters to attend to.
She gripped her fists together as she tried to pull any memory into her field of vision. Just something that could help her figure out what went wrong last time.
Instead she found herself relaxing in a hot spring. Two faceless entities were with her, and if she thought about it just a bit more, she could place them.
Realization dawned on her. It wasn't what was there, but what wasn't. The more memories she scried through, the more absent her heart felt, tightening at every happy memory with a sickening guilt.
Because every memory was laced with the preceding tragedies. Nothing good ever came for free.
There was a certain price Hiruko would never pay. And that, was the price of Darumi Amemiya.
The air was filled with a certain righteousness. The moment when Hiruko woke up always had one of two distinct feels to it. The other was more complicated to place. The only way she could describe it, was a monkey's paw of endless possibility.
Hiruko could confirm her suspicion in the morning. She needed to keep her composure, and figure everything out one step at a time. Taking on too much would just muddle everything, and nothing would get completed. She failed last time; the fact that she was here at all proved that.
This time, she would save Darumi. She had to.
It would be a whole lot easier to prevent certain actions from happening if any of the circumstances surrounding the actions were apparent. Hiruko's memory was falling flat in that department. Darumi must have died at some point, but unless she could pinpoint when, there wasn't much she could do about it.
Her lucid memory was failing her, but subconsciously she felt a deeper pull. Other teammates had died, and some of those deaths she could even recall. Darumi was left a blank mystery.
There was no doubt about it, Darumi had been important to her, at least in one of her other lifetimes. And Hiruko would do anything to make sure she lived through it all
If only she could remember how she went out… The worst possible outcome flashed into Hiruko's mind. It made her sick to her stomach to think about.
As long as she didn't leave Darumi alone, nothing could happen.
"Such unruly manners, did no one train you to be respectful?" sneered Hiruko. She cocked her head at Darumi, a sadistic smile on her own face. Darumi grinned, and brought her hands limply up, letting them dangle like puppy paws. Hiruko didn't let her smile display any sadness. Any form of weakness here would break the immersion of two thespians putting on a show for each other. The second there was a sliver of genuine feeling, the illusion would be broken.
"Dad tried to beat them into me, but he must have broke my head instead."
Hiruko knew it was a joke. But it was also a cry for help, whether Darumi realized it about herself or not. It was moments like this where she was most vulnerable.
"Well, then I'll just have to put extra effort into forcing you to behave."
She slipped her finger underneath Darumi's choker, and gave it the slightest of pulls. Darumi's blue bangs fell a bit into her eyes. The blue and pink paired nicely together. She was rather pretty, though with a scary and dramatic makeup, people tended not to give Darumi a second glance.
To Hiruko, she had a face she could never forget.
Darumi's cheeks pinkened as she caught Hiruko staring at her.
It was cute, seeing Darumi fall for her all over again. And yet it was sad, that Hiruko would never be able to authentically experience her own feelings ever again. She deeply cared for Darumi, and loved her, her feelings lingering from whatever previous horrors she endured.
But just once, she would like to fall in love for the first time all over again.
Maybe that was selfish of her.
"I've been good today, Mistress Hiruko, I swear!"
Darumi had truly done no wrong. The joys of acting dabbled in lies on occasion, especially when they served a functional purpose.
"Good puppies only speak when spoken to," said Hiruko. She wrapped her hand around the small of Darumi's back, and pulled her closer until she was practically sitting on Hiruko's lap.
"Woof!"
"Did I ask you to speak?" asked Hiruko. Darumi shook her head. "Excellent. She's already learning."
Everything felt so rushed. There was no time for subtle flirting, for the phases of getting to know each other. Hiruko already knew her, more intimately than Darumi would ever believe. And Darumi… Hiruko couldn't waste her precious days on opening up herself.
The hours would just keep coming. Anything superfluous was a waste.
Hiruko slammed her hands against the door of her room. How could she have been so careless as to get killed during battle. Darumi was only out of her sight briefly.
While she was regaining life, Darumi lost hers.
Irreversibly.
Hiruko held back the tears, hand over her mouth as if she would scream her soul out of her body if she let it escape.
Everything hit her at once. How many times had Darumi died, only for Hiruko to be powerless in stopping it? How useless was she, with knowledge of the timelines, to not be able to prevent one simple event from happening?
In two months, the timeline would reset. Hiruko could reset it as early as today if she really tried.
"You look sad."
Darumi's chipper voice didn't match the expression on her face. She rested her head against Hiruko's chest, holding her closer. Her hair trailed around the two of them, like ivy that had grown on the side of a tower. Hiruko loved to brush her fingers through Darumi's long hair. It was tangled sometimes, so she'd use her own brush to make it nice. Sometimes, she would even convince her to join her in the shower, indulging in the intimacy of a closed space, steamy air, and wet slippery bodies.
Today, Darumi's hair was tangled, and her makeup was poorly applied.
Hiruko didn't hold her back. She was nearly catatonic; one may assume she was deep in thought, though it was far from the truth.
She was tired.
Every loop began the same. She would wake up, she would feel the ominous winds, and she would check on Darumi. She would realize that Darumi wasn't in the future of her last memories. She would woo Darumi. And then, just when everything was starting to settle down, Darumi would die.
"I'm not sad," said Hiruko. She wished she could be sad.
A kiss was pressed to her lips. Usually Hiruko was the first one to initiate. She was driving the relationship, after all. She knew every right and wrong thing to say, all the way to what made Darumi tick.
Darumi wasn't getting anything out of this. She didn't even know she would die. She was blissfully unaware of her impending demise, and Hiruko needed to keep it that way. There was no good that would come out of telling the truth.
"What was that for?" asked Hiruko, almost snapping at poor Darumi. She really did look like a puppy, meek and scared as she shied away from touching her.
"I just… wanted to?"
She said it like a question, as if Darumi were unsure if she was even allowed to want something like this, want Hiruko in these ways.
She didn't know any better. She didn't know that every display of affection made Hiruko's heart ache for a love that could never be allowed to live.
Hiruko kissed Darumi on the forehead, soft and chaste.
Would it have been easier if her memory faded? Hiruko stole a glance across the cafeteria. Her beloved was just fine without her, engrossed in a conversation with Takumi.
If Hiruko never made a move, Darumi would ignore her presence. She would be none the wiser, unaware of the history between the two of them. Maybe it was better this way, so she wouldn't grow so attached.
Her death would still hurt as much as it always did. Hiruko would never know when it was about to happen, but the pain was embedded deep into the psyche. The mental scars were forever.
How did things come to this? Hiruko lay on the battlefield. She was losing far too much blood. Such a fatal mistake…
She begged for the sweet release of death. It wouldn't change anything for her. But it would for Darumi. If Darumi could kill her, she would live a full life.
Even if that meant Hiruko wasn't there to see things through.
They couldn't both exist. Two sides of fate were at war with each other. If she wanted to keep her own life, Darumi must die.
Darumi must live.
"Darumi… Kill me, absorb my cryptoglobin," panted Hiruko. She grabbed the side of her chest, as if putting pressure to a wound the size of a sheet of paper would help hold in any blood.
"Mistress Hiruko? I can't do that-"
"Yes you can! Live, Darumi!"
The knife plunged through her abdomen. She hadn't expected Darumi to be so sudden with all of it.
But this wasn't the same Darumi she was intimately familiar with. That Darumi was pieced together by hundreds if not thousands of different cycles.
It hurt, most than anything Hiruko had felt before. She was face down against the rubble, feeling Darumi's hand tremble on the knife.
Darumi was in good hands now. Takumi and Yugamu would take good care of her. Hiruko made sure Takumi knew about this. Just in case something like this were to happen. Hiruko wished she made the best choice.
She breathed a sigh of relief, as the world around her faded to black.
"Why do you call me Mistress?"
It was a valid question. After many variations, Darumi had never given an answer. Perhaps it was just a quirk.
Darumi twirled her noodles around in her soup.
"You always have everything in control. Including me," said Darumi, before a genuine grin crept up on her face.
The very thought of control made Hiruko feel sick. What 'control' did she really have here over the situation, other than the façade of future foresight? She could scry for everything, except the one that meant the most to her.
"Do you trust me?" asked Hiruko. The words felt stale in the mid day air.
Darumi nodded her head enthusiastically.
"Of course I do. Mistress Hiruko knows what's best. I'd even let you kill me," said Darumi, as if it were nothing. She slurped up her noodles, the strands dangling down from her mouth. It looked rather silly.
Had she let Darumi die before? There had to be a good reason that Hiruko couldn't save her, unless she was truly so incompetent that Darumi's demise was pointless. Her stomach twisted inside her. But was a pointless death truly the worse option, the alternate pointing towards Hiruko's cold and callous heart using her dear Darumi as a righteous sacrifice.
It didn't feel wrong, and that was the frightening part.
"Oh? You'd so easily give your life up to me like that? It's like you're asking for trouble," said Hiruko, resuming a haughty attitude. Live, Darumi.
Dying was easy. Living was hard.
Hiruko knew this better than anyone.
"Maybe I am," snapped Darumi.
Oh, so she'd struck a nerve there. She somewhat meant to. Darumi could joke about death all she liked, but no good would ever come from it.
Sometimes, it felt like that was all she talked about. It was exhausting.
But she couldn't help it. None of them could. How many idiotic conversations had Hiruko heard enough times that she could recite them from memory? How many scenes had she walked in on, playing out almost the exact same ways? No one could grow, or develop, or learn from their mistakes. Everyone was frozen in time, just where they were on the second day.
Hiruko sighed.
"Then I suppose I really do have to decide things for you, don't I…"
70 days since Darumi died, and only a few more until the route would reset again.
Sometimes it felt that nothing she did ever mattered.
Hiruko powered up the Parallel Leap Machine and stepped in. She wanted something far from here. It didn't really matter where, she didn't even know what she was looking for.
But the second she set foot in the new timeline, she could feel it in the air.
She later confirmed it as she looked her own corpse in the face, a rather grotesque final emotion left to rot. Hiruko pulled the tarp over herself. It was best not to dwell on morbid things.
She glanced at the other corpses, trying to remember any loops where any combination of these other students died before she did. Her memory strained to find an answer, but it didn't really matter. She could have no memory of being here, because it hadn't technically happened yet.
And then she found her, in the rec room, playing cards with a few of the others. Hiruko kept her distance, only sparing a glance where she could. If any of them saw her, chaos would break loose.
The ache in her heart returned. Darumi looked just fine without her. It was a sickening mixture of relief and longing at the same time.
She'd never know how Darumi felt behind her painted smile. She could never ask.
This wasn't her timeline. So why should Hiruko care about preserving it? She could grab Darumi by the wrist and run, back to the PLM, and the two of them could finally make it to day 100 back where she came from.
What was the use, though, when everything would reset the moment the fighting was over?
It was pointless.
Everything was so incredibly pointless.
Hiruko broke out of the kiss with a gasp and gripped tightly onto Darumi's shoulder. Her makeup wasn't smudged; she shouldn't be as surprised as she was, given the amount of times Darumi had to explain this to her.
Hiruko leaned into the touch as Darumi removed her bra, the cold air of her dorm room causing her nipples to harden. Like clockwork, she found Darumi's hand against her right breast, cupping it and running her thumb back and forth for stimulation.
She kissed Darumi again.
If Hiruko invited Darumi into her room the fifth night, they would always hook up. Darumi would always undress Hiruko first, and if Hiruko touched her too soon, she'd burst into tears.
It was addicting, in a way that Hiruko felt sick about. It was a cheap high. There was no love from Darumi, there wasn't enough time for the love to form, to grow. And it wasn't like Hiruko could be honest with her. She'd scare the poor girl.
Every time Hiruko revisited the scene, it never felt as good as she remembered. She needed more to get the same feeling as her first few loops. But she couldn't do that to Darumi. She would never urge her past her breaking points.
So she bargained for this, exchanging kisses until their lips were red and raw, and their breaths were synced together.
Darumi slipped her hand between Hiruko's thighs. Her touch was electric; Hiruko almost flinched.
Hiruko grabbed Darumi's wrist.
Not this soon, Hiruko knew better than to let Darumi push herself.
"Tomorrow."
She couldn't tell if Darumi was disappointed, or relieved that she wouldn't have to prove her worth. Still, she wished for the former.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Darumi. The courtyard was just a bit too warm for Hiruko's liking. Darumi's too, as she seemed uncomfortable in her striped sweater.
The past, mostly, if she were to respond in honesty. Hiruko found herself once again piecing the puzzle together on how to approach the mess. Every timeline was starting to muddy together. She'd been in this one so many times before, she could feel it. She couldn't remember what to do.
"The future, mostly. I've decided that when I get to the satellite, I'm going to acquire a harem," said Hiruko. Darumi's jaw dropped open.
"What?! Am I not good enough for you? I'm going to kill myself," whined Darumi. Hiruko rolled her eyes.
If only Darumi knew how much she meant to Hiruko.
"I need someone to do all the chores, and the child rearing. I'll have much better things to do," said Hiruko. Darumi grabbed onto Hiruko's arm with both of her hands and hugged it.
"I'll do all of it."
Darumi said it with such sincerity it made Hiruko laugh. It was cute, and more importantly, it was new.
Hiruko was really starting to appreciate new.
"You can't even keep your room clean. I never said you wouldn't be one of my suitors," said Hiruko. She gave Darumi a pat on the head with the arm that wasn't being taken hostage by her clingy girlfriend.
"What if I kill the other suitors then? I'd be the only one."
"Yes, I suppose that is how that would work."
"It's just one big killing game, and the winner gets Mistress Hiruko. Though I bet if I were actually in the game, I'd get killed first…"
Hiruko smiled sadly.
If only Darumi knew…
If only she knew a lot of things. Hiruko stiffened her posture.
"Hey, Darumi.."
What was there to say? That she'd been looping in time over and over again, and each time she'd either failed to save her, or died herself? That she was in love with Darumi, cherishing memories of hundreds of lifetimes that this version of herself had never lived? That there wasn't a single happy ending where they were both alive? That even if they did survive, all would be ripped from them when the clock hit 10 am on day 100?
It wasn't worth it. It would just bring more pain and heartbreak.
Hiruko steeled herself.
"Hm?" asked Darumi.
Hiruko narrowed her eyes.
"It's far too warm in here. Just the humidity alone is making my skin crawl. I need to take a shower."
She couldn't tell her.
There she lay again on the battlefield, this time just out of reach of the revive o matic.
She'd figured it out. She met V'exhness before she could choke out Darumi, but at what cost? Hiruko tried to inch herself towards the school boundary, stopped by a boot stepping on her skirt.
And then a sword plunging through her back.
"Foolish humans- Though I should make a correction. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have thought to turn my back on our outdated taboos and customs. I've tasted the real power of hemoanima. Though I wouldn't call you smart, more in line with sacrilegious."
Did V'exhness ever shut up?! Hiruko was so over it.
Hiruko winced as she felt the sword plunge through her back, her life being siphoned away from her. It felt like she was burning, on fire. This wasn't how it felt when Darumi had taken her. That felt like a warm blanket. This felt like a burning building.
If only she could remember this time… She could save Darumi the next.
She came to on the night of the second day, with an unplaced rage and a feeling of sickness in her chest.
And still no memory of saving her.
"Why do you call me Mistress?"
It was a valid question. After many variations, Darumi had never given an answer. Perhaps it was just a quirk.
Darumi twirled her noodles around in her soup.
"You just seem so much older, and wiser, and it just fits."
Hiruko stiffened.
This wasn't how the conversation was supposed to go.
"Oh? Do I really?" said Hiruko, playfully.
Everyone was frozen in time. Everyone, except her. And for the first time, the proof of her looping had finally reared its ugly head.
"Yeah. I think it's the way you talk. Or your composure. Or how you seem to know everything already. Say, you're not a commander spy, are you? Because that would be messed up," said Darumi.
"Of course I'm not a commander. Who's been giving you all of these silly ideas."
"Gaku."
Well that took no pressuring or sleuthing at all.
"Gaku is an imbecile," said Hiruko. Darumi shrugged her shoulders.
"That would make for a pretty good plot twist though, wouldn't it?"
"It would suck."
"No fun!" exclaimed Darumi.
"Let me get this straight, you would enjoy if I were an enemy spy?" asked Hiruko. Darumi nodded her head.
"It would make for such a sexy betrayal," said Darumi. "We could even be star crossed lovers, fated to never be together."
Hiruko laughed, and she couldn't stop no matter how much she wanted to. If only Darumi knew.
… Knew that Hiruko couldn't save them, no matter how hard she tried.
Darumi laughed nervously too.
"See? It's thematically fitting."
"It sure is."