Nutmeg 10. one by one; Cranberry 12. Justice;Sangria 27. From the ashes a fire shall be woken; pocky
Author: Marika Kailaya
Title: i grew up fast and i grew up mean
'Verse: Nagekawashii; MeYu
Challenge: Nutmeg 10. one by one; Cranberry 12. Justice; Sangria 27. From the ashes a fire shall be woken - JRR Tolkien
Toppings/Extras: Pocky
Wordcount: 600
Rating: R
A/N: pocky chain. hotoma raizu goes to kill her past foster parents. (some of them. she had quite a few, mostly good people.) now i'm wondering if meki & yuku know her real name. she was unidentified when she was abandoned, and given a new name. her age on paper is also only an estimation (she appeared to be about 2 months old at the time). she only sort of exists at all.
She has names and titles piled atop each other, contradicting each other: the name her parents gave her has disappeared; the name the orphanage gave her sparks fear in the hearts of good men, whispered in black places; she was, wrong, someone's queen in red, and she was a bright yellow sun fading fast and, once, a white star burning herself out before she could be burned.
And she is old.
And she sleeps now in soot and coal, dying.
From the grey, cold ashes of the soft bed in her husbands' house, she glows and lights up and revives.
***
Hotoma Raizu has scars like constellations all over her body, and they number the way stars do: in infinities. There are names for them, like stars; there is a name to each tooth mark, knife stab, whip line, cane stripe, bullet wound. Some of them signed her, so that she doesn't forget. Some of them have been forgotten or dead anyway; there is a fading puncture wound on her stomach made by someone she repaid by ten, gutting him open and watching his entrails spill from him.
Well. She cannot remember everyone who marked her. She must be only human.
***
It isn't that the ropes around her ankles left scars that lasted for forty years. It's that she remembers them enough that they may as well.
And so their makers are forty years older. The woman has died, leaving behind an elderly man and a caregiver and the same closet she had fallen asleep in. There are cracks in the floorboards. The money is long dwindled away on healthcare.
She comes in the night with knives in both hands, and slits the man's throat without waking him. She removes the oxygen mask that had been keeping him alive, and leaves.
***
Thirty-nine years later a once-beautiful woman and a once-wealthy man are alive. The wrinkles on the woman's face have not covered up where Raizu's little fingernails dragged in deep, awaking from dreams. She was sorry.
Raizu's back has now experienced worse than canes.
She slips into the house and stands before the couple where they sleep. "Wake up," she says. She doesn't quite hear the screams, removing her blouse and tossing it to the floor. She turns her back to them. "Are you sorry?"
She does not allow them to respond; two shots and their brains are on the walls.
***
It is a matter of asking her husband to find someone. Her husband once found someone who he personally erased from history. She suspects he is not human at all. Not really.
Chi Yuku and Kobayashi Meguru don't ask her why she needs such names. They try not even to look at her sideways.
But they slip gifts into her purse before she leaves: a silver lighter engraved with Yuku's butterfly; a tin of gasoline; a gun the color of Meki's hair. Just in case she needs to burn the bodies.
They'll wait all night for her to come home.
***
The man at this address hasn't moved in decades. His wife has died.
"In 1966, you gave up a baby."
She undresses for him too, baring the damage. He stands terrified, clinging to a walker, ready to call the cops. "Apologize," she spits.
"We thought-"
"Not for that," she says, advancing on him.
He is weeping. "You look-"
"No," she says, "I don't. Apologize for giving birth to me! You say you're sorry for what you have wrought! Now."
He wets himself.
"Never mind," she snarls. She shoots her father in the head and sets him on fire.
Title: i grew up fast and i grew up mean
'Verse: Nagekawashii; MeYu
Challenge: Nutmeg 10. one by one; Cranberry 12. Justice; Sangria 27. From the ashes a fire shall be woken - JRR Tolkien
Toppings/Extras: Pocky
Wordcount: 600
Rating: R
A/N: pocky chain. hotoma raizu goes to kill her past foster parents. (some of them. she had quite a few, mostly good people.) now i'm wondering if meki & yuku know her real name. she was unidentified when she was abandoned, and given a new name. her age on paper is also only an estimation (she appeared to be about 2 months old at the time). she only sort of exists at all.
She has names and titles piled atop each other, contradicting each other: the name her parents gave her has disappeared; the name the orphanage gave her sparks fear in the hearts of good men, whispered in black places; she was, wrong, someone's queen in red, and she was a bright yellow sun fading fast and, once, a white star burning herself out before she could be burned.
And she is old.
And she sleeps now in soot and coal, dying.
From the grey, cold ashes of the soft bed in her husbands' house, she glows and lights up and revives.
***
Hotoma Raizu has scars like constellations all over her body, and they number the way stars do: in infinities. There are names for them, like stars; there is a name to each tooth mark, knife stab, whip line, cane stripe, bullet wound. Some of them signed her, so that she doesn't forget. Some of them have been forgotten or dead anyway; there is a fading puncture wound on her stomach made by someone she repaid by ten, gutting him open and watching his entrails spill from him.
Well. She cannot remember everyone who marked her. She must be only human.
***
It isn't that the ropes around her ankles left scars that lasted for forty years. It's that she remembers them enough that they may as well.
And so their makers are forty years older. The woman has died, leaving behind an elderly man and a caregiver and the same closet she had fallen asleep in. There are cracks in the floorboards. The money is long dwindled away on healthcare.
She comes in the night with knives in both hands, and slits the man's throat without waking him. She removes the oxygen mask that had been keeping him alive, and leaves.
***
Thirty-nine years later a once-beautiful woman and a once-wealthy man are alive. The wrinkles on the woman's face have not covered up where Raizu's little fingernails dragged in deep, awaking from dreams. She was sorry.
Raizu's back has now experienced worse than canes.
She slips into the house and stands before the couple where they sleep. "Wake up," she says. She doesn't quite hear the screams, removing her blouse and tossing it to the floor. She turns her back to them. "Are you sorry?"
She does not allow them to respond; two shots and their brains are on the walls.
***
It is a matter of asking her husband to find someone. Her husband once found someone who he personally erased from history. She suspects he is not human at all. Not really.
Chi Yuku and Kobayashi Meguru don't ask her why she needs such names. They try not even to look at her sideways.
But they slip gifts into her purse before she leaves: a silver lighter engraved with Yuku's butterfly; a tin of gasoline; a gun the color of Meki's hair. Just in case she needs to burn the bodies.
They'll wait all night for her to come home.
***
The man at this address hasn't moved in decades. His wife has died.
"In 1966, you gave up a baby."
She undresses for him too, baring the damage. He stands terrified, clinging to a walker, ready to call the cops. "Apologize," she spits.
"We thought-"
"Not for that," she says, advancing on him.
He is weeping. "You look-"
"No," she says, "I don't. Apologize for giving birth to me! You say you're sorry for what you have wrought! Now."
He wets himself.
"Never mind," she snarls. She shoots her father in the head and sets him on fire.