dreaming, or is it
Ayaka wakes up and can't quite comprehend herself.
For one, Ayaka feels larger than herself. She’s not a child, not here. She’s unlimited and vast and beautifully devastating, and Ayaka doesn’t understand it.
For another, Ayaka is drifting, mind half asleep and consciousness a slight burn at the back of her head.
It’s comfortable. Not the same type of emptiness, floatiness Ayaka experienced at the void before.
This is… grounded. Heavy. But peaceful. Steady and calm. It’s another sort of headiness, leaving her a little blank and winded.
Ayaka stays, still and calm and just that shade of danger carved into her soul.
It must have been ages, or so it felt to Ayaka. It’s hard to focus and answer the soft call that’s out for her, insistent and consistent and unending.
Pulsing and pulsing.
Ayaka is curious, at least.
She surfaced to a glimpse of the world, condensed into human shape and carefully concealed against her senses, but still that tiny bit wild.
It’s exhilarating, in a sense. Ayaka has hers so dulled down, so spread out that it barely ting on her mind.
It’s… an interesting sight. The… being looks feminine, but Ayaka can’t really be sure. Black veils decorated with butterflies, shifting patterns that span the entire thing. Just long enough to hide half of her face, leaving not enough to recognize. Shadows cast down on her eyes, hiding any color.
The dress is… Victorian? At least, close enough in style. Corset and laces, in black and white with hints of green. Ceremonial, or royalty in nature. Long, as it drags across the water. Her hands are covered by gloves.
“Hi.”
Ayaka knows her voice is distorted, weird. It reverberates in her mind, echoing off… something.
Ayaka isn’t a human right now, but the being makes her want to react. A desperation sort of feeling.
What happened to them?
What happened to them?
The being smiles, and why is it so familiar?Ayaka flinches a bit. The water underneath the beings feet wavers, circle upon circle. Ayaka felt that.
What?
“Greetings.” The being speaks, and it reverberates through her, reaching everywhere, places she doesn’t know exist. “You’re finally awake now.”
Which. No? Ayaka has been awake her whole life. She had laid sleepless beside her twin, knowing that it isn’t good for her, isn’t the right thing to do, but did anyway. She had nightmares and dreamless sleep that woke her up in sweat and took hours before she calmed down, staring at her twin. Ayaka knows consciousness. Ayaka isn’t unconscious. But Ayaka also isn’t awake right now.
“Not awake-awake, silly.” The being chuckle, and how does Ayaka keep reacting to her-him- the being? Ayaka is preening. Weird, but okay? Really? Clara never preened, not like Ayaka is doing. And it’s just a chuckle! A small show of some praise, and Ayaka is already melting.
Why?
“Ah, you must be confused. Water isn’t your primary form, after all.”
That’s- what? Again, Ayaka doesn’t really manage to compute the answer. Of course water isn’t her primary form, whatever that is supposed to mean -Ayaka is human.
“It has its use… but, let’s get you back to your main form, hm?”
The being hums. It’s a soothing sound, all things considered. But then it raises its hand, and Ayaka
Reformed
Pushed into shape
Remade
Be again.
Ayaka takes a breath, salt water assaulting her nose and the distinct smell of sea clouding the air.
It’s familiar new, to be so surrounded by the ocean. The water is solid wavering under her hand and feet. She’s crouching, half bowing to the being. But their gazes are meeting, Ayaka is sure.
“Hello.” The being, in all its absurdity, in all the weirdness, sounds amused.
Ayaka is definitely out of her depth, floundering in a way she has never had before.
“Hi?” It’s more of a question than an actual sentence, but who cares?
Ayaka doesn’t.
Okay, Ayaka does, but how the hell is Ayaka supposed to speak with a- a - an eldritch something?
“Who are you?” The question blurted out before Ayaka could actually think, but she already knew, didn’t she?
Who else would this be?
Clara never prayed, never believed in deity and cosmic intervention. Ayaka doesn’t have a religion either.
They - she, both of them are one or are they? -has only ever interacted with one being, who could actually be counted as a deity.
This is the one that answered their prayer.
Please please please, I’ll do anything, anything. Let me be with them. Let me keep them close. They’re mine mine mine - the first one that’s ever mine please I’ll do anything. Take whatever you want, let me be with them-
Ayaka remembers the day. Remembered fevered praying, desperation clawing at her.
Remembered bloodied floor, cut off cry, remembered pain, her body pinned in place, every muscle every breathe heavy and painful -
Remember praying until she no longer had the strength, a whisper on cracked lips and dried throat, mumbled words as the world faded to black.
Remembered nothing more.
But this is it, isn’t it? This is what answered her, what made her a new form, gave her another life and changed her.
This is what promised her her wish.
Ayaka - Clara - she promised this being. But did it respond in kind?
“I think you know already. For the sake of formality… I am ————. Your… let’s call it creator, shall we?”
The name was blurred out, the whole world buzzing over it, unwilling to let Ayaka even recognize the symbols and sounds. Her own consciousness collapses inward, shielding her from what is likely knowledge mortals shall not know. There have certainly been tales about similar occurrences.
And- creator? How can Ayaka be created when she remembers a life as Clara, knows that she lived and died bearing that same name? Was her whole existence as Clara simply a lie?
“Ah. You can’t hear it, can you? I forgot about that part. Your soul isn’t quite there yet. Call me… Kurono-hime, ne? That’s how you address minor deities in Japan, right?”
Minor deities? If a minor deities can reincarnate a soul, Ayaka would drown in her own spit.
The snort might not have been polite, but, well, Kurono-hime doesn’t seem offended.
“I don’t think you’re a minor deity.” Ayaka points out. Because “Minor deities can’t do anything as elaborate as reincarnate a soul, right? Not into such a vastly different world.”
Ayaka swallowed her words about chakra, because that doesn’t exist in her world. That energy, invasive and permeating every corner of the world, running beneath one’s skin, wasn’t in Clara’s world. Couldn’t have.
“Why do you think that? Couldn’t it just have been an alternative past or present of your world?” Kurono-hime asks, as if Ayaka couldn’t determine such a fact for herself.
“Kurono-hime-sama, I had read books about geography, politics, history. This world that you put me in couldn’t be the same. Perhaps a similar base, but no more.” Ayaka shakes her head, finally finding the nerve to sit cross legged on the water surface.
Most importantly… “My world didn’t have chakra.”
And that’s true, isn’t it?
Ayaka is sensitive to chakra, in the way that means she is rubbed raw, her nerves burning when it gets too much. The lights in her mind too intricate, too detailed, too much. The energy running underneath her own skin makes her skin crawl, goosebumps appearing every other day.
Some days, it’s too overwhelming, and Ayaka has to hide away, pressing the heels of her palms to her temples, clutching at her hair like a lifeline, as a migraine bloom in her mind. The closet didn’t help, or the wardrobe, or the numerous pieces of clothes Ayaka buried herself under.
Ayaka was is unused to chakra, not just unaware of it. It wasn’t negligence that earned her this situation, no. Her own nerves sometimes burn as chakra runs through it, like a fire beneath her skin. The mind as well as the soul had never known chakra, and it shows.
Kurono-Hime just appeared amused, entertained, really. A soft smile, perhaps just an afterthought to her, plays on the goddess’s lips.
“Ah, quite smart you are. Yes, yes it didn’t. It was quite a boring world, really.” Kurono-hime muses. She acts like there is all the time in the world for her to bash in.
Ayaka, however, had questions. She wants answers to them.
“Why me?”
Why choose her? Why her wish of all thing? Why her?
“Hm… I don’t suppose I can get you to drop it?” Kurono-hime hums, and no, Ayaka won’t. If she requested it, Ayaka won’t ask, but it doesn’t stop her from making hypotheses.
Kurono-hime must have seen the determination in her eyes, because her smile widens and sharpens. Between one blink and another, the goddess was in Ayaka’s face, scrutinizing her. She looms over Ayaka, casting a shadow - except there isn’t any shadow, there isn’t any light here, how can Ayaka see-?
“I don’t normally care about mortals, you see. But you… you intrigue me.” Kurono-hime starts, and how terrifying is it, that a goddess took notice of Clara-Ayaka that way?
“I had heard millions of wishes before, behind each a different life, a different soul, different thoughts and feelings. I had never had one quite like yourself.” The goddess circles Ayaka, the water rippling with each step. “You see, all the others, who made similar wishes to yourself, made it out of desperation and love.”
Ayaka has to wonder, because what’s the difference between her and all the others, really? Clara might not be ordinary, but to somehow be unique?
“You, however. You made it out of possessiveness.” There’s a note of wonderment in Kurono-hime’s voice. “Mothers and sisters and brothers and fathers had prayed similarly before. A plea to, if not able to get their loved ones back, then to let them come along. Always, those wishes were desperation and last attempt and love and so much regret. But you. You were different.”
Okay. That’s- an explanation.
Ayaka doesn’t understand. She thought she did the same as so many out there. She loved them! She didn’t think she was any different. The circumstances were… original, but-
“Don’t confuse yourself, ——. Oh, right. You can’t hear that either. Umi, then.”
Umi. Ocean. That is not a name she had ever had.
(Why does that fit so much? Why does Ayaka- Umi like it? She was Clara before Ayaka now, never Umi. Never Umi Umi Umi-)
“You did it, not out of love, but out of a sense of possession. They were the first thing that was yours and only yours, weren’t they?”
And oh, how the words rang true. Ayaka wants to deny it - Clara does deny it - but the truth is there in front of her, isn’t it?
She did want it, a want a need to own them. And they were hers, for the briefest of moments before it came crashing down.
The ceiling oh god the ceiling please-! My baby my baby why are they on the floor where is the cry why isn’t he-she-they crying why isn’t they crying the blood the blood the blood-!
Clara saw the need to deceive herself. Ayaka can’t keep up the lie.
“So what?” Ayaka finds herself asking. “I’m special. My wish is special. But why me? There’s a first for everything.”
What goes unsaid but not unheard is that not everyone who was first got their wish.
Kurono-hime tilts her head like Ayaka is the confusing one here. Really. How ridiculous.
…And she must be losing her mind if she’s thinking of a god like that. Fuck.
“Well…” the goddess drawls, “The wager you put on is hardly anything to scoff at. And you have qualities I favor. Loyalty, possessiveness, protectiveness. Instinct of something much bigger.”
Anything and everything. Take whatever you want.
The words ring out again and again in Ayaka’s mind. Ah.
Ayaka is fucked, isn’t she?