blood and cigarettes

For a while, I didn’t really know why I went. Never been much of a music person. Heard more than enough shitty J-pop in my life just living with…the High Priestess and Nakajima. It was spur of the moment, and it cost me a lot to get a ticket at the last minute. …I guess I knew she’d be there. I mean, I knew she’d be there, but…

…Heh. Maybe I just wanted to be Miracle Midori for a while. Never did dress up like this on my own. Guess I grew on me after the millionth time. Miracle Midori for her Murder Mayumi. Not like we’d see each other. Not like she’d even be on stage, I figured. Sure, they were teasing her getting up there and singing on the stream the day before, but there’s no way they’d get her to do it.

...That’s another Murder Mayumi, right? That Midori idol slut is just tongue-fucking somebody else’s throat, right? I gripped the edge of my seat. Dug my nails in hard enough to hurt a little.

…Yeah. …Yeah, it had to be someone else. She wouldn’t…She doesn’t sound like that. And she wouldn’t learn the routine. Couldn’t picture Murderface ever dancing without punctuating it with gunfire. It had to be someone else. …Maybe I’d drag it out of that idol bitch later. It’d only take a few minutes. She wasn’t…No. Dammit. No. Miss Tomoe’d be up my ass if she found out I was even in the country. Fucking with superstars was a quick way to get the wrong kind of attention.

The girl next to me made some weird noise, like a cat getting oral sex for the first time. …Must have been a fan. She was recording the whole thing. Probably planned on taking it home and playing with herself.

…She caught me looking at her. Red eyes. Kind of pretty. Too bad nobody probably ever looked at them, the way she was built. Didn’t see many Japanese girls take puberty to the chest like a bullet train, and when she’d mutter to herself, she had a really weird accent. Probably another foreigner.

---

A few songs in the set came and went before something in the stadium changed. A buzzing, gnawing feeling that made my heart race, that made every hair stand on end. The stadium smelled like the sweat of ten thousand lonely girls just a second ago, with a hint of whatever the hell they sell at Japanese ballparks. …Now it had an undercurrent of blood, like the smell of rain before a big, ugly storm.

‘Waltz of the Spider Lilies’. …A song for a final parting. If something was going to happen…

Yeah. There she is, walking out onto the field like she owns it. And on the other side…

Some bitch with a stupid sword. Why does anyone think those are a good idea? I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could tell from here she was the kind of person to talk way too fucking much. Like picking a fight with the High Priestess. She struck me as familiar, somehow. Think one of acolytes mentioned somebody with a big, stupid sword and all the trappings of a smug, self-righteous dickbag.

I could only guess she was lecturing Kong…lecturing Warmaster Matsuda about her sins. …There was a tiny glint in the air as she threw…something, and

Red light. Green light.

my heart skipped a beat. She’d moved, skipped into a different position, but...did something kick her out of it? She didn’t even dodge. Didn’t fill what’s-her-sword’s tits up with lead while she was out. …Fuck.

She’s a Vindicare. FUCK. She could handle herself in a fight, sure, but…I watched her dance around the field, barely avoiding a big fuckoff sword that’d split her in half even on a glancing blow, and I had to stop myself from moving. From going to help her. …She was the Shieldmaiden. The Blessed Lady wouldn’t abandon her. She was supposed to be the Chosen that stood above the rest. She couldn’t die. She couldn’t.

The piranhas-in-the-air feeling coalesced all at once. It seemed to flow toward the Warmaster all at once as her…body changed.

As she claimed the Flesh of the Fallen Angels. …It was an ability that felt familiar. A weapon I thought I’d seen before. The idol – Kirishima, I guess – yelled something out on stage, and the crowd lit up with screams and cheers.

The girl next to me started meowing or something. …It was kind of contagious. I caught myself screaming for Murderface to…to fuck her in half.

Heh.

…Wish I knew where the hell Murderface learned to fight like that, though. It was brutal. It was amazing, it was like…I don’t even know. God, she’s beautiful when she works. …Dammit. …Goddammit.

“HEATHEN! HERETIC!” …Yeah, that was about what I expected. I could barely hear it through the noise of the concert, but she was screeching out exactly what I figured I’d hear since she first showed up. Threw a big fucking tantrum, right then and there, and called in her own little bitch patrol. …Heh. Three for the price of one, right, Kong?

…She would have laughed. She would have agreed. Guess she did, because it was like she heard me. Tore into them like they were eyefucking Miss Tomoe. The way she moved reminded me of somebody I bumped into once. An Honorary Rabbit, at the end of it. Seventh girl, nice kid. Dragonpunch, that’s what she went by. Or that’s what the High Priestess called her. Shit. What was her name-

Wait, those things have –guns-? The fuck do they have guns? They anti-materiel, too? Is every single one of those golden weapons a gun somehow? …Not all that proud to admit it, but that’s kind of awesome. It was like something Nakajima would make up. Giant robot fists with guns in the fingers.

It went south in a hurry, and that’s when I moved. ...She’d be fine. This was…well, this kind of shit was what the High Priestess…what Alice thrived on. Running you through just meant they stayed in fucking-up range. I slipped away from the crowd, past the other girls in the seats. Security was light – seemed like they were all worried about something else. Probably had something to do with Swordbitch and her imminent demise.

Just in time. The stadium lights went out, and I was just in time to pick up the pieces. She didn’t even notice as I sidled up beside her, and it took a second even as I caught her.

…Blood and cigarettes. She smelled like blood and cigarettes. Not liquor, kind of unexpected. …Heh. Didn’t know what to do. Just…walk her out. Pretend it’s nothing, I figured. Probably wouldn’t even notice.

…Then she grabbed my ass.

---

-Is everything alright, Wendy?- Dorothy chirped as I reassembled in my shitty hotel room. I forced out a response, my body collapsing on the bed behind me. My body felt like tingling lead. I hate teleporting. I really do. The whole place was pitch black compared to the stadium, aside from a little light on the phone and the glow of the hallway creeping in under the door. Managed to crawl over to the lamp after a few seconds and tug the chain, but it only helped so much.

My bed was lit up. A spotlight in a sea of black, a small bastion of safety in a checker-tile world. The glow from the hallway was gone. …Maybe the hallway was gone, too. Not like I could tell. I stared up at the ceiling as old whispers filled my mind.

Are you afraid of me?

…A voice from the corner. A figure approaching from the darkness, a glint of light off of red-framed glasses. A blurred form in white and faded purple-gray, a blot of uncertainty in the universe. Her eyes were sunless holes that seemed to suck me in, and her face didn’t budge from its eternal scowl.

I thought you loved me.

It crawled up onto the bed, and the mattress tilted down a little to accommodate. Closer and closer it came, leaving divots in the sheets.

Why did you leave?

It crawled over me, on top of me. I could feel her cold hand on mine, I could smell blood, and cigarettes, and whiskey and maple syrup as her face drew close to mine, the gaping holes behind her glasses swallowing my vision.

…Get a grip, Cooldown. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real…