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“AND NOW, DOWN TO THE LAST HAND, STILL 2 CHIPS TO 124 — SAOTOME MARY, FORCED TO PRAY FOR A MIRACLE. IS GOD LISTENING? HERE WE GO, THE SHOWDOWN! AND IT’S — A FULL HOUSE TO A ROYAL FLUSH! IT’S OVER! IT’S OVER! THE RISING FIRST YEAR, THE SOLITARY STAR, JUST A STEP AWAY FROM THE HEAVENS, FALLS AT LAST!”
Bombs detonate all around Mary, cracking apart the scorched earth. In the ringing silence, warm blood leaking from her ears, she watches her infantry lines collapse into cards. She looks up to see the glint of the incoming bayonet, then up further to the sky. It’s so suffocatingly bright.
The tip of the bayonet stops at the second button of her blouse, the center of the cross. In the wake of victory, the bayonet’s wielder reveals an unmasked expression. And Mary’s grip goes slack, her musket falling in a clink of chips.
God wasn’t listening because she — she as in god, divinity; two rows of teeth bared in an elegant smile — was already seated opposite Mary. And god was utterly bored.
Mary thinks of sun-bleached bones clattering like dice, blood-stiff school blazers rustling like shuffled cards. Bodies piled onto bodies into a tower grasping for god. A whole year of war, over in her defeat. So then she wants to be destroyed completely. She wants nothing left of hope. Saotome Mary died at the age of sixteen when she showed her final hand, and this is just a formality. Blood is pooling in her mouth. God, jam the bayonet through and fucking kill her already —
“No, not yet.” A finger replaces the bayonet. “Claw your way back up here. Struggle.” A push.
Mary's feet skitter past piles of thumb bones and she falls, plummeting back to the realm of humans. Denied even of death. Her mouth opens for a scream but all that comes out is blood, floating up in crimson globules to reach the heavens.
⚁
GOD’S LISTENING HAND — SOLITARY SAOTOME MIRACLE — she hasn’t gone a night without dreaming of some garbled version of the final announcement, but the school gates are before her again. She’s seventeen and still alive. Through the gates, infantry marches to resonant war drums.
Her ears never did heal fully. Always, even in silence, she hears god’s last word: ‘struggle’. So she’s entertainment, she’s nothing more than this shame that she lugs around like a dead child, trying to scare someone else into pity.
Yet her sluggish heart has jumpstarted itself to the war drums’ beat. The faint scent of cherry blossoms morphs into something rottenly cloy and thick, almost tangible. A moment of hesitance, then she parts her lips and drinks deep.
This shame can only be buried under corpses to create a new killing field, fertilising the soil with blood. She steps through the gates. Always, war.
⚁
A transfer student enters Mary’s territory. Mary leads the charge with her cavalry, crashing into enemy lines. She urges her horse over the trampled cards, towards the black-haired enemy general.
Then her horse skids to a halt and she’s flung through the air, thudding down on her sides. Two whirlpools of blood stare down at her. The transfer student offers a polite smile, which stretches till it splits her face open and out slithers a human-sized snake. It swallows Mary’s cavalry in a single bite, then her infantry, and grows large enough to blot out the sky.
Mary lowers her head, sweat rolling off her chin. Her body trembles like a house of cards, lungs tumbling out through the gaps. The world is lit only by the red of the snake’s eyes, convergence points of extinction. Its jaws snap open along the horizon line.
Mary finally understands — ‘Jabami’: snake devours. And since god exists then that is Jormungand, World Serpent, cosmic annihilation. Mary shuts her eyes; a second defeat is nothing to see. At least being devoured means there’ll be absolutely nothing left of her, nothing to send home in a letter saying she lost. She lost so she’ll have to die.
“I had an absolutely wonderful time, Saotome-san. Let’s consider this repaid.”
Mary opens her eyes to Jabami Yumeko, 2nd year Hana Class, human body backlit by the scarlet setting sun. A small smile curls beneath her brown eyes, long black hair swaying as she leaves.
The classroom pulls in around itself like a wounded animal. Nothing moves, except for the breeze chilling Mary’s sweat-drenched uniform. Her own heartbeat sounds redundant, a reminder that she’s still alive.
Saotome Mary, death twice denied. Once may have been a mistake, but twice makes it mercy. And what the fuck can she do with that — something she can’t kill with or be killed by?
⚁
The next morning Mary woke up with glass shards in her mouth. She grabbed her chest for a heart that refused to stop. Now she stares down at her spoils of defeat on her desk: a twintails doll bleeding from closed eyes, an arm and leg hacked off.
But it still has two other limbs and unspilled guts. Look how it can't fucking die properly either. Look how she's still pulling on her uniform and coming to school. For what?
“MI-KE, MI-KE, MIIIIIKE!”
For this? Surrounded by yesterday’s lapdogs, grown fat on her failure? She grips her desk, suddenly dizzy. Their bones used to be the foundations of her tower. You give trash an inch and they’ll think they’re as good, they’re better — to laugh at her —
She slams a hand onto her desk. The recoil shakes her lungs awake, and she sucks in a deep breath. She can’t die with trash thinking they’re better than her. She’ll only accept oblivion from god or a monster, from the cleaving hands of something frightful, grotesque.
Somewhere on the battlefield lies her trampled dignity. Already her body is picking up scents of bloodlust. You take a child soldier out of war and you get a child soldier. You take war out of a child soldier and they’re better off dead. All she knows is war.
So back to war.
⚁
“A [SWORD] THROUGH 22, AND THE [SWORD] IS [DEATH]! THE DEBT COMES TO 496 MILLION YEN!”
Mary glances up from the sword buried in her chest to see chains lining her future. There’s no quick death for someone like her. She knew that before she demanded a public match. Yet she thought if she can’t die from divinity then she can’t die at all. Her head snaps down, nape exposed.
“Someone lead her outside. I’m done with her.”
A final sword descends from the heavens and shatters Mary. Stumbling to her feet, she spots a living wound torn into the fabric of the world. She blinks — Jormungand. Jormungand is here at her end, watching with a hand clutched to its chest. Mary’s ears start ringing again: Jormungand’s opened jaws, the silence of the world, resigned and waiting.
It wasn’t mercy, she wasn’t spared by Jormungand — she was cursed. Cursed to live a half-life, poisoned by fate, a draugr with a beating heart. The old Mary would’ve never requested a public match. But the apocalypse with its bleeding eyes, its pristine red blazer, ah — she's tainted by fear, by the mad rush to prove she still lives, touching her blood to make sure it’s warm —
Saotome Mary, driven to ruin by a monster in the form of a black-haired girl.
⚁
The only thing more stubborn than Mary is her body. Like a loyal soldier, it pulls on her uniform, drags her to school, and makes her listen to algebra 2. Her debt jolts her awake some nights, mouth dry from a dream where she has both hands around the throat of a dark figure and she’s squeezing. Later, she can’t decide who she wants the dark figure to be. Lately, she thinks she wouldn’t mind if it’s herself.
Her body retorts that she just picked a poor opponent. If anything, she must take advantage of her current self, shattered dignity rattling against her chest with every step. No one will think she's still a threat.
And it works. It takes four victories to jam her bayonet through the throat of a pleading enemy, and feel only the pressure of blood gushing out. She’s thinking ruined she may be, she’s still better than these trash. She should’ve been halfway back up to the heavens by now. But Jormungand — Jormungand listening raptly in class, Jormungand’s deceitfully soft voice answering a question, Jormungand’s skirt twirling down the hallway.
A full-body shiver consumes Mary. That fucking monster. Did it feel good, trampling all over a human, disgracing her beyond salvation?
Fuck that. Fuck it. She’s still a fear-poisoned heart chained by shame, but there’s something else remaining. Something that belongs exclusively to child soldiers thrust into an unforgiving war with nothing but their wretchedly faithful bodies. Something she can use to kill. It has both hands around her heart and it’s squeezing out beat after beat.
Saotome Mary rediscovers her anger. God help them all.
⚁
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE DEBT SORTING ASSEMBLY.”
“This is quite the charitable move, isn’t it? I wonder what the student council stands to gain from this.” Quiet as death and close as a friend, Jormungand steps up behind Mary.
Mary nearly stumbles in her haste to back away.
“Good afternoon! Saotome-san is participating in this too, right?”
This is the first time Jormungand is speaking to her since that extinction event. Mary finds her mind blank, then anger surges up reassuringly. “Don’t talk to me like we’re close. Whose fault do you think it is that I’m here?”
Jormungand takes a step closer, playful brown eyes peeking up from its bangs. “Don’t say that, aren’t we friends from the same class?”
“Have you lost your damn mind?” Mary stalks away. She can’t get distracted. Jormungand can only be dealt with on a battlefield, and they’re not on one yet.
“GROUP F: 2ND YEAR HANA CLASS, JABAMI YUMEKO. 2ND YEAR HANA CLASS —“
And Mary hears the clatter of a die being thrown from the heavens.
“ — SAOTOME MARY.”
The die’s clatter slows. Here’s her battlefield against Jormungand. Here’s her musket. Be a good soldier and —
“Saotome-san, let’s have fun together!” Jormungand pops up beside her like an ill omen.
Mary doubles over and buries her face in her hands. Why did she think she’d be safe? She’s already been cursed. Will she fight or will she die like a dog?
Think, Mary’s body punches her back upright. The other two players are definitely colluding. Her eyes flick up to see Jormungand’s excited smile. Will she fight alone and die so gruesomely it’ll make even god blush? She must have learnt something from her last defeat.
"Come on, Saotome-san. Shall we head to the room?"
That almost makes Mary break her resolve to shove that human voice back down its throat. Instead, through gritted teeth, she asks. “Can we speak for a moment first?”
And finally silence — the die is cast, now and forevermore.
⚁
The table is too fucking small — Jormungand will always be in Mary's sight. This is no place to wage war but the bugles are already blaring, armies marching forth.
Then beneath the table, on her palm resting on her knee, she feels the firm weight of a finger tracing out a number. She scowls deeper at Kiwatari to disguise a shudder. Jormungand just touched her. It touched her with the same hands that will one day cup the world like a handful of water, and swallow. But it did not feel like devastation.
When it’s Mary's turn to trace the number, she does it as quickly as she can. Still she feels the crease of Jormungand’s palm lines, the slight stretch of its skin, the faint warmth.
Monster, she thinks. Monster. The monster glances down demurely at one of Kiwatari’s taunts, even as its finger finds its way onto Mary’s palm again — hidden from all sight, even their own. And this time it feels just a little more like devastation.
Kiwatari catches on after a few turns. Or rather, they reveal it out of pity. Watching him blunder like a headless bull, Mary laughs so hard she's breathless. Is this how god — how Jormungand feels? She sees its same slanted grin, and her laughter continues.
Then three fingers come to a rest on Mary's palm. She fights to keep her gaze straight. What the fuck is Jormungand playing at? They already know each other’s number. The fingers deftly slide upwards till their fingers are touching, and before she can slam her hand up —
“Call, one Jabami chip.”
“Huh?” Mary snaps. “What do you think you’re doing? We were going to win if you just kept quiet!”
Looking straight at Kiwatari, Jormungand lowers a chip with a hand, hooking their fingers together with the other. “I’m betting on Tsubomi-san to win.” It turns to Mary with a smile. “Mary-san, may I ask for your cooperation?”
Mary can’t see it so she can only imagine the unsightly interlocking of their fingers, like a lattice, a mesh of flesh. She tries to retract her hand but her dry throat walls scrap together and she retches out a cough. Jormungand has poisoned her through touch. She should’ve known. The poison has been spreading all this time. She must cut her hand off. She must — she closes her eyes. Not even god can see their joined fingers now.
She grips Jormungand’s hand till bone grinds against bone. Jormungand doesn’t even blink. “Alright. I’ll play along with your bad taste. Raise, 3 Jabami chips.”
Jormungand beams then lets go. At Tsubomi’s near surrender to Kiwatari, Jormungand’s face pulls tight. “Tsubomi-san, are you fine with being oppressed like this?”
And Mary, first victim of the World Serpent, watches it step to a human girl and offer her a string of hope. Mary’s stomach churns. As the string is seized, Jormungand tilts its head with a pleased smile.
Mary wants to throw up. Why is a monster saving a human? Jormungand is nothing but primal gluttony with a pretty face. If a monster won’t stay a monster, how will Mary’s anger lead her to a body on the floor?
As Jormungand flips over its cards for the last showdown, Mary catches it. A brief reddening of its eyes, lips parted for a pant. Jormungand has played nine whole rounds and liberated a human housepet, just so it can step off the precipice and see which catches it first, the wind or the ground.
It wasn’t to save someone. Jormungand was simply leveling the playing field for its own excitement. And what’s more human than selfishness?
The war concludes with Kiwatari’s spectacular death. Mary’s laughter couldn't drown out Jormungand’s voice, so she spends the whole walk to Suzui thinking of Jormungand’s hands. There’s a chinese idiom, ‘adding limbs to a snake’, about the redundancy of an action. Can she take it literally? The redundancy of Jormungand’s hands to touch her hands.
Suzui gladly passes them the money, striking up a conversation with Jormungand. Mary pockets her share and turns away, shoes clacking —
A hand spins her back around and doesn’t let go. She’s getting real fucking sick of being touched, but Jormungand is so close. Its eyes are a rippling brown in the evening glow. “Thank you so much! We were able to enjoy such an exciting game thanks to your idea.”
Mary looks away. “It worked out because you played along too.”
Jormungand’s hands cover Mary’s, and Mary thinks of entrapment surrender death — she has to escape — “If possible, could I call you ‘Mary-san’ from now on?”
And Mary is nailed to the spot by her own name, a weapon forged from the teeth of a monster.
Jormungand's smile widens. “We’re friends now, right?”
Suddenly Mary realises this is their classroom. This is where she first saw the architect of her ruin. Now she’s letting the monster hold her hand and call her by her name, in broad daylight with the world a witness. What’s more redundant than a monster’s humanity? Than her own?
Yet she didn’t cut her hands off when she should have. So she’ll have to deal with the consequences of her body wanting to say Jormungand’s name the same way: a weapon handed over blade first. This isn’t surrender. This is just an evolution in the art of war. “Sure. Then I’ll call you Yumeko too.”
Yumeko lets out a gasp of delight, shaking their hands up and down. Yumeko. Such a whimsical name doesn’t suit her, but in this single moment of twilight where the world, busy changing from day to night, forgets about the two of them — where neither Yumeko is part monster nor Mary part draugr, and their hands can be touching without any pretext of destruction — Mary looks at her and almost thinks: she’s like a dream.
⚁
God comes knocking on Mary’s door. They take tea in the wide expanse of god's sanctum, Mary wondering if god is crude enough for poison.
“Mary, join the student council.”
No need for poison. God was always going to personally deliver the killing blow. “Please,” Mary lowers her cup with a wary clink, “don’t joke about this. Would you really want someone like me —“
“Don’t humble yourself. You managed to snatch away 310 million yen from the student council.” God rises from the couch.
“It’s just a loophole —“
“Mary. I’m saying you’re a good fit for the student council.” Brown shoes clack to a stop before her.
“And I’m saying that can’t be.”
The air hardens into the tip of a bayonet at Mary’s throat. “Does this mean you’re refusing an invitation from me, the president?”
Mary cannot look up. Her body is remembering its first near-death with a clarity like that of a lover. A pair of hands reaches down to jerk her face up, digging into flesh. Mary finds herself looking into two blackholes encircled by blue rings, the burning origins of the universe.
A slight blush dusting the skin just beneath her eyes, god leans in with parted lips and murmurs with heat. “Why do you refuse, I wonder? I’m sure you know the benefits of being a council member." A silk-smooth knee wedges open Mary’s legs and pushes in, stopped only by the couch. “Are you scared of the other members? Then why did you so casually cause such great damage to the council?” Tilting Mary’s head back further, god hunches lower till the shaded silhouette of her torso eclipses all light. “Do you doubt me? Then you could have deferred your answer. Outright refusal isn’t wise, is it? Why do you refuse?” Mary is stretched out against the couch, body arching taut into the curve of a bow, her exposed throat an offering to appease an enraged god. “I’m asking you a question here. What’s making you do this?” A thumb presses down on Mary’s lips hard enough for silence. Mary is both a drawn bow, quivering with tension, and the arrow god wants to sculpt her into. A weapon pliant beneath god’s hands. Her breathing is quick and erratic, heat rising in her core. Something has to snap soon or she’ll bite off god’s finger when god tears into her throat so they’re both soaked in desire.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” God moves her thumb away but tightens her grip on Mary’s jaws. “I just can’t understand what you’re thinking. And people who I can’t understand — I love them.”
A shudder wrecks Mary’s body. Here she is, splayed out before god, an object of divine fascination. If she lets herself be crafted into a weapon wielded only by god’s hands, is that death or is that salvation? Is her reward an eternal war?
A war that god started and let continued. Mary clears her throat weakly, and god steps back, hand trailing down to cup Mary’s cheek. “I'm flattered by your interest. Indeed there’s no reason for me to refuse. But can I ask a question first?”
Twirling the ends of Mary’s twin-tail, god smiles. “Of course, go ahead.”
“Why did you implement the housepet system?”
"Do you know anything about the gambling policies of medieval Europe?”
“What?”
“Gambling is banned during peace but allowed during unrest. It keeps the peasants in wonderful purgatory: neither revolting nor refusing to plow the fields." God runs a hand through Mary’s hair, then presses a smile to a handful. “It’s incredibly fascinating stuff, so I wanted to try it out myself.”
God’s hand falls with a swish as she turns away. “Contrary to peasants with the power to cause a revolt, housepets here became housepets precisely because they lacked power. So I can’t adopt a similar policy. That’s too boring. Instead, I have my own policy for my housepets.” God tilts her face back enough to show her small smile. “Don’t let them live; kill them.”
And something does snap within Mary. God touched her carelessly, brazenly, and she almost let herself become a vessel for oblivion. Everything here is just entertainment for god. This is Mary's original shame, the root of the decaying ash tree. All she has left is her body. If she offers up that to god, what’s left except the long fall from the heavens to earth? When has she ever fucking killed for someone else?
Mary sits back upright. “I refuse.”
“What,” god turns back fully, “did you just say?”
“I refuse your invitation.”
“Because of the treatment of the housepets? Because you were one yourself recently? Do you truly have such a strong sense of justice?”
Mary stands and smooths out her skirt. “It’s fine if you can’t understand, but neither am I obligated to explain.” As she wrenches the door open, there's still a faint smile on god's face. Like this is exactly what god expected, or Mary’s decision didn't matter at all. Dancing in the palm of god’s hand.
Mary strides away to the furious beat of her heart. Only she can wield herself as her own weapon, a human-shaped tragedy. Nothing as grandiose as salvation — just revenge.
⚁
“Mary-san!”
Mary obstinately continues walking.
“Mary-san Mary-san!”
“What!” She whips around. “Get a hint if I’m not replying!”
“But I wanted to talk to you!” Yumeko pouts.
"Well I don’t.” But Mary doesn’t move away.
“Will you play a gamble with me?”
“Huh? I’m not in the mood for that right now.”
“It’s a short gamble!” Yumeko pumps her fists in the air. “Just a game of rock-scissors-paper. If you win you can go home, but if you lose you’ll have to come with me.”
“Why would I agree to such a stupid gamble?" Mary narrows her eyes. "I gain nothing and lose everything. Besides, what are you going to make me do?”
Yuemko mumbles. “Will you tutor me in ethics? We've got midterms coming up, right? I wouldn’t want to do too badly and have to miss gambling because of remedial classes.”
Derisive laughter spills out of Mary. “So you’re asking me for a favour. Did you forget you’re still a housepet? Is this how you beg for stuff?”
“Oh yes,” Yumeko inhales breathily, “my apologies.” She leans forward with her head lowered, then glances up with large eyes and red cheeks. “Please, Mary-san, will you tutor me in ethics? I’m doomed otherwise.”
Mary swallows the urge to step back. How does Yumeko — with such speed — Mary rakes a hand through her bangs. “Alright fine. I bet you’ll continue annoying me otherwise. Let’s go.”
Yumeko giggles and wraps herself around Mary’s arm, dragging them bodily forward. To Mary’s chagrin, she doesn’t resist much.
They end up tucked away in a cafe's corner booth. Yumeko flips open her ethics textbook full of post-its, and Mary snorts. Then Yumeko looks right at her, pen poised. “In question 3, why can’t Kantianism be used as a justification?”
The full weight of Yumeko’s attention, without frivolity or menace, makes Mary pause. A moment more, then she gives Yumeko a full answer. Yumeko nods and jots down notes. The cafe bustles around them, the background music muffled beneath Yumeko’s voice, low and thoughtful.
When Mary next stretches out, she realises they’ve been here for some time. The booths around them are empty. Yumeko has fallen silent, staring down at her textbook. Her lashes fan out over the top of her cheeks like lycoris flowers, lower lip jutting out in a pout.
Mary can’t hear the background music at all. She’s imagining the lycoris flowers in bloom, spreading open like the jagged teeth of a monster. Then Yumeko glances up and meets Mary’s gaze, and before Mary can snap, Yumeko smiles apologetically. “Sorry for the wait, I understand the concepts better now. I think we're good for the day!"
And Mary finds herself scoffing lightly. “Good to hear this wasn’t a complete waste of my time.”
“Aw don’t say that,” Yumeko takes a sip of her cherry soda, fluttering her lashes. “Is it truly such a torture to spend time with me?”
Mary grits her teeth and looks away resolutely, hearing a light laugh from Yumeko. When she looks back Yumeko is busy blowing bubbles in her drink. This is absolutely ridiculous. Mary draws in a breath. "Did you want to stay as a housepet?”
“Not exactly, I don’t mind it either.”
“Because of the public matches perk?”
Yumeko smiles but says nothing. Only now does Mary recall that during Ragnarok, Jormungand and Thor will fight to the death. Thor, son of god. It’s as close as anything. “Are you targeting the student council president?”
And Yumeko blushes outright, squirming in her seat. “Please don’t tease me, Mary-san. It’s tempting enough just imagining it.”
Mary thuds back against her chair. Down this path with Yumeko only the apocalypse awaits, and Mary is neither monster nor god enough to survive it. But here destruction is sitting so prettily in a cafe, hands cupped around a cold drink damp with condensation.
“Why,” Mary exhales, “didn’t you ask Suzui-san for help today?”
Yumeko smiles softly. “Because I wanted to spend time only with you, Mary-san.”
Mary exhales till there’s no air left. A child soldier doesn’t run from even the apocalypse. But neither does a child soldier wonder how it’ll feel if she reach across the table and touch Yumeko’s hands — will she feel the wet chill of water droplets, or just the solid existence of Yumeko’s hands? What does a child soldier do with her hands when not wrapped around a musket, or someone else’s throat?
⚁
Yumeko joins a stupid idol contest gamble. Mary somehow gets roped into being in the audience, and she actually stays for the whole thing. Up here, it’s easy to watch Yumeko centre stage.
When Yumeko invites the culprit to a gamble, Mary sits up a little straighter. Yumeko has already slashed such a bloody path through god’s inner sanctum. Will nothing be left?
“What are you even staking? A gamble requires even bets from both sides. Know your place, housepet.”
Mary draws in her legs to leave. Then over the clamouring of enraged fans, she hears chains rattling. Yumeko pulls out her housepet tag, the metal engraving of the school crest glinting sharp enough to cut. “Let’s make it a public match then, Manyuda-san!”
Mary flinches. A public match now? What about god? She leans forward for a better look at Yumeko’s face, then her fingers go slack on the armrests. There’s that wide-eyed, red cheeks, parted lips look of lust. Another gamble in sight.
This is addiction, Mary realises. There’s nothing to rationalise about Yumeko’s actions. Yumeko can’t wait till Ragnarok. There’s only the prey right before her eyes. And Mary feels the distance of every row of seats separating her and Yumeko.
She’s not the sole recipient of Yumeko’s attention or madness. Jormungand wraps around Manyuda’s throat as Yumeko, eyes blood red, talks Sumeragi into walking off the precipice together. Devastation looks so lovely hanging off the jut of Yumeko’s hips.
Only Yumeko is left standing in blood up to her ankles. Mary follows Suzui up on stage, hanging back while he goes to congratulate Yumeko. Then Yumeko stops smiling and turns behind — god is sitting by the gambling table, looking right at Yumeko. Yumeko wordlesly heads over to sit back down. They start talking.
Mary tries for a breath and can’t even hear herself choking up. Her ears are ringing loud enough to make her knees shake. God and Jormungand, seated around the same table at last. The same ramrod-straight backs and hands folded in laps. Two primordial existences giggling over a shared joke.
Mary is instantly certain that even if she were standing before Yumeko, she wouldn’t see her reflection in Yumeko’s eyes. Brown or red, there’s only one thing in those eyes: Momobami Kirari, student council president, god.
Thor kills Jormungand and is killed by Jormungand’s poison. No humans are mentioned, much less someone called Saotome Mary. She’s neither special nor divine. She’s standing less than five feet away but it feels like a chasm. Uncrossable, and Yumeko unreachable.
Mary lowers her eyes from divinity.
⚁
In the aftermath, god heralds in a war for a new god. Yumeko is all smiles, caressing her election chip as she asks Mary her plans.
This blatant disrespect — to approach her while never truly considering her — Mary closes her eyes, shoulders tight. “Who knows? It’s none of your business."
She thinks Yumeko calls out her name as she leaves. It doesn’t matter. This is a time of chaos and upheaval – she must carve out her own path even as only a human. She’s spent too long spectating divinity, removed from the actual business of waging war.
That won’t do. A pair of clean hands is no hands at all. Running a thumb over her own election chip, Mary thinks of carnage.
⚁
Carnage finds Mary as a masked figure with long white hair. “Let’s gamble,” the mask tosses a chip and grabs it with two fists. “I have a hundred votes. Guess correctly which hand the chip is in and the votes are yours. Guess wrongly and I’ll take one of yours.”
At Mary’s silence the mask continues. “I heard you turned down Kirari’s request. Was it from a sense of justice? Cowardice? No I don’t think so, looking at you now. Then perhaps – you don’t want to obey anyone? If so, you must be thinking you’re the only one fit for the presidency. Then surely the hundred votes will help you.”
“Hang on.” Mary folds her arms. “Aren’t the stakes too imbalanced? There must be a catch. What are you not telling me?”
“I get something if you win too: you must join me and fight through the election together.”
“Huh?”
“Of course I can’t force you, but I’ll fulfill my end of the deal. Either way, you’ll get one hundred votes to boost your campaign.”
“Who are you to decide this?” Mary rises from her seat, slamming both hands onto the table. “What do you want from me?”
“That hardly matters. What does is that if you join hands with me, you’ll be within arm’s reach of the president’s chair. Now,” the mask raises her hands, desolate gaze boring into Mary. “Make your choice.”
Mary's arm shoots out to grip the mask. “So you’re asking me for a favour.” For an instant Mary thinks of long black hair instead, and her grip tightens. “Then take it off. Take off your mask!”
It comes off without resistance. God looks up at Mary with frightened eyes, mouth moving to broken speech. No, not god. Twirling the mask in a hand, Mary cocks her head. “So you two are twins. Huh. You really could do with a bit more of the president’s confidence.”
“E-enough of this.” The vice-president makes an effort to compose herself. “You have to choose. Right or left?"
Like a child throwing a tantrum. Hiding behind an impassive facade and carelessly wagering god's throne — with a complete stranger — Mary lets the mask fall with a clatter. “I refuse to play your gamble, of course.”
“Why?” The vice-president whispers.
“Nothing about this makes sense if you’re truly the one proposing this partnership. We’ve never met. You don’t know anything about me. So that means you’re merely acting on someone else’s orders.” Mary's lips peel back. “Let me ask you again: what do you want from me?”
The vice-president makes a choked sound in the back of her throat. “What do I want? I don’t want anything.”
A husk of god, a shadow of grandeur. Mary watches her a moment more, then turns away. “Alright, this is over.” Her phone starts buzzing, Suzui’s name on display.
“No.”
And Mary is back in god’s sanctum with a bayonet to her throat. She looks back. The vice president’s eyes are burning blue, her voice a heavy door grinding closed. “Then I will have to force you.”
Suzui’s frantic voice crackles through. “Saotome-san! Are you still in school?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You’ve got to help us! Please get over here or Yumeko is going to die!”
“What? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but the Momobami family said to get someone with a lot of votes over, and that this is what the vice-president wants out of this!”
Think, Mary's body keeps her standing. Don’t imagine Yumeko as a coffin lowered into the dirt. Think. She's ensnared by strings leading back to a white-haired girl.
But how does she not imagine Yumeko as the hostage to ensure her compliance, all because she got too complacent? Why would she be targeted with two divine existences around — but why wouldn’t she? An achilles’ heel, except who’s whose?
Mary turns back, reaching the vice-president in two strides to snatch her left wrist hard enough to break. She wants it to break. The vice-president whimpers but Mary only grips it harder, till it opens to a single chip.
⚁
Mary bursts into the gambling room to find Yumeko lying down on a couch, unresponsive. Yumeko’s face is fever-red, exposed skin glistening with sweat.
And Mary is back to a child first exposed to war, witnessing her first death. Her hand twitches from a sudden want to stretch out and feel the heat of Yumeko’s flush, the sticky dampness of her sweat, the pain seething beneath skin. If Yumeko can be hurt by mere humans —
Mary spits. “What happened here?”
Yomozuki explains it’s likely poison. The taller outsider dangles an antidote in Mary’s face and says it’s hers if she wins the gamble in Yumeko’s place. The shorter outsider just stares. The door opens to the vice-president, mask affixed and holding a box of a hundred votes.
A final string loops around Mary’s neck neatly. From the moment she met the vice-president, everything has been hurtling towards the outcome where Yumeko lies dying. And Mary realises, with a certainty that feels like a knife from the back, that if it was anyone else she wouldn’t have played the vice-president’s gamble. She'd have let anyone die for her than Yumeko. And isn’t that death in itself? Yumeko her hairpin trigger, personal calamity.
Mary thinks of the first time she held a musket. Her first battlefield; first kill. Still this next action would be a first for her.
With a mouth full of shrapnel, Saotome Mary declares her intention to kill for someone else. “Get your fucking asses in your seats. I’m taking you on.”
⚁
They give Yumeko the antidote and wait outside the infirmary for thirty minutes, Suzui pacing a hole into the floor while Mary tries not to yell at him. When they’re finally allowed in, Yumeko is sleeping peacefully in a bed. Suzui heaves a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness, looks like the antidote worked. Thank you so much Mary-san."
Watching sweat trickle down the slight indent along Yumeko’s neck, Mary nods distractedly.
Suzui continues. “I didn’t even know what to do when she first fell ill. But Yumeko, she just said ‘get Mary-san over here, it’ll be a lot more fun that way’. So I did.”
Mary goes still. Yumeko thought of her in her dying moments? No, nothing like that. Yumeko saw the chance to play a gamble within a gamble, betting her very life on Mary’s skills. Mary’s ribcage constricts around her lungs and heart. There was no hostage or achilles’ heel. There’s only the unfettered madness that is Yumeko. Mary killed for nothing but a handful of smiles and an echo of a laugh, for a girl who spends her own life as currency.
Mary drops her head. “Suzui-san, can you give us some time alone?”
In the silence, only her punctured organs are left within her chest, blood surging up her throat. She lets out on a gurgling gasp and rams the heels of her palms into her eyes.
With Yumeko there’s always anger, but this time it’s so much worse. How dare Yumeko die with others watching. Even if Yumeko is not infallible, Mary wants to be the sole witness of Yumeko’s heinous humanity. It’s enough that Yumeko didn’t consider her — but now she did, though only as a means — still with her poisoned body she thought of Mary —
Consider this: Yumeko let herself be poisoned. Yumeko wanted the second gamble. To Yumeko, there’s only the thrill of chasing the next high.
Consider this: Yumeko dies. Mary gets the antidote to her too late and she dies. Mary gets the antidote to her in time and she dies anyway. Yumeko dies during the gamble. Yumeko dies before Mary gets there. Mary opens the door to a cold body on the floor. Yumeko dies before Mary can kill her personally.
What if Yumeko dies before Mary can kill her personally?
Mary lowers her hands. Yumeko's sleeping face is peaceful, almost innocent. And Mary's ruptured heart slides down her chest wetly. When can she breathe easily again? When can Yumeko break beneath her own hands —
Mary rests her hands on Yumeko’s throat. Yumeko’s skin is both warm from exhaustion and chilled from sweat. Running a finger over the ridge of Yumeko’s hyoid bone, Mary thinks she could wrap her hands around Yumeko’s neck with length to spare.
Then she places her thumbs over the sides of Yumeko’s esophagus, the fleshy part where her chin meets her neck, and presses in. She holds it as Yumeko’s breathing turns shallow, as Yumeko’s body starts jerking, as her own thumbs feel numb — until Yumeko’s eyes burst open and meet hers.
Something heavy coils within Mary’s guts. Eyes wide and mouth opened for an airless scream, hands grabbing weakly at Mary — Yumeko wears fear so temptingly. Before Mary can jam her thumbs deeper and make Yumeko cry, make her vile, make her a spectacle, Yumeko’s body relaxes entirely. Her gaze is calm with recognition.
"Mary-san," Yumeko whispers thinly. "Do you want to bet on something?"
“No! What’s your fucking problem? How do you turn everything into a fucking gamble?”
Yumeko’s eyes crinkle. “I’ll bet that you’re able to choke me to death. Do you want to bet against that?”
Again wagering her life. Mary digs in till Yumeko gags. “I won’t. You can win this. I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll fucking show you.”
Yumeko’s shoulders start shaking so wildly that Mary’s grip loosens from shock. But Yumeko only takes a fresh breath, then continues giggling hoarsely. “Oh Mary-san, I don’t doubt your determination. That’s why I like you so much. In fact,” she pulls Mary’s thumbs back and repositions them securely, then closes her eyes with a small sigh. “Of everyone in this academy, I wouldn’t mind dying only to you.”
Yumeko is the dark figure in Mary’s dreams. Mary is the dark figure in her dreams. Her hands are Yumeko’s hands, and they are choking herself to death. A shared act of self-destruction. Does she want to kill Yumeko, or does she want to watch her bleed? Peeling off skin to understand the redness of flesh.
Now there’s none of that. There’s only Yumeko surrendering herself to appease an enraged girl. Mary’s eyes feel hot. The two of them are linked by the worst of humanity: cold-eyed greed, teethful pride, heartless anger. There’ll never be anything easy or normal between them, but they’re still devastatingly human. For destruction, or for atonement.
Mary’s hands fall from Yumeko’s throat to grip the bed frame. She bows her head, a sob ripping free. “I was so angry. I was so scared I could barely contain myself —“
Yumeko cups Mary’s face with tender hands and an unfamiliar expression, then pulls Mary down. A moment later Mary goes slack, dropping her head onto Yumeko’s shoulder. She's shivering even before Yumeko whispers next to her ear. “I know, Mary-san. I’m sorry for worrying you. Thank you for saving me.”
And Mary’s damp lashes flutter closed against Yumeko’s skin. Human enough, the two of them. Human enough.
⚁
In a rare afternoon of respite, Mary manages to get some studying done in school. The afternoon sun, this close to summer, runs a sweltering course through the sky.
The sparse clouds are aflamed when Mary is done. Outside, two white flashes pass by the schoolgrounds. Mary watches them as she packs up, wondering how god feels about her twin sister backing someone else.
Her footsteps echo down the largely empty hallways. Somewhere in the distance, the baseball team celebrates a home run. A door opens, outsiders flooding out with Sumeragi and Manyuda.
Mary stops. A high-stakes gamble took place here, the cloying scent of Yumeko’s bloodlust still heavy in the air. She follows the scent left to see Yumeko, who spots her as fast and immediately skips over with arms outstretched, short skirt fluttering. And Mary imagaines their pressed-close skins burning like a summer bonfire.
“Mary-san! I didn’t know you were still in school.”
“I was studying. You better have been too, seeing how we have an ethics test soon.” At Yumeko’s pout Mary relents, allowing Yumeko to link their arms together. “Was the gamble fun?”
Yumeko presses closer to Mary’s side with a nod, her laughter brushing against Mary’s neck. They leave school together, Mary turning away first, consciously placing a foot before the other at even intervals. All the while she’s certain, like how she’s certain this is the road back home, that Yumeko is still looking at her.
At night, Mary dreams of waging a war on a single person. Her body is her armies, marching on the rolling plains of another body. She sinks her bayonet fingers into skin to draw a dripping path for herself. She presses her musket mouth to a mouth and fires, sloppy red spilling over them both. She whispers in cannonballs, breaking bones into small pieces that she can pick up with her hands, and hold. The perfect conqueror, even as her own body starts melting from the combined heat. Melting into the other body till she can’t tell where she ends and the other body begins, just heat surging up into a infinite explosion.
Mary wakes tangled in bedsheets, mouth burnt dry. She gets up for a drink, inner thighs rubbing together stickily.
⚁
The Grand Meeting is in a building like a chapel. The pews are empty when Mary enters with Yumeko, only four large video cameras as an audience. They join the other eight contestants before the pulpit, the vaulted ceiling looming overhead like angels. The numbers aren’t right but the setting is: here’s Mary’s god-woven battlefield against Yumeko. Here someone will be crucified, a martyr of suffering.
They start on opposite ends of the battlefield, Mary tearing a bloody path through bodies till she wipes the grime off her cheeks and looks up and there, shimmering against the horizon line, is Yumeko’s silhouette. Mary starts walking, the ground vanishing into white-tiled floor, the sun twinkling into spotlights.
In the vestry of a chapel, Yumeko stands wreathed in divinity. Mary knows this. She knows Yumeko, dear as a terrible fate. Even now she can’t imagine defeating Yumeko.
But she must. Divinity exists only because of worshippers and believers, and Mary is neither. She believes only in dragging divinity down from the heavens and ripping it apart with teeth, then nailing its carcass to the walls of this holy place.
Still, examining her first hand of cards, an old fear resurfaces. As Yumeko opts to keep all her cards, going on the attack, it's easy for Mary to imagine all the ways she can get out-played.
Her body raises her hackles: get a fucking grip. She knows war. She is war, with her skin trimmed into feather-tips, bones chiseled into arrowheads, ready for flight. Falter here and it’ll be her ultimate shame, a child soldier afraid of war.
Mary slams down her chosen card.“I bet ten votes.”
“I call.”
“WE HAVE OUR BETS. ON TO THE SHOWDOWN!”
They both hold up their cards: Mary’s rock to Yumeko’s scissors. Mary lets her card fall. She won. Yumeko isn’t invincible but this is the first time Mary is the perpetrator. At Yumeko’s unchanging smile, Mary's lips curl.
In the next round Mary wins again. She snaps her hand into a fist, grinning sharply.
“I see. It’s my loss for getting scared.” Yumeko’s eyes are downcast, a hand laid on her chest. “You put such a strong will behind each move, Mary-san. I need to live up to that.” That hand extends out as she looks up into Mary’s eyes. “I’m so glad I’m facing you in the finals.” Cheeks a bashful red, Yumeko clasps her hands together like a prayer, and smiles into them like a worshipper. “I’m just having so much fun right now!”
Mary’s eyes go wide. She thought she knew Yumeko but she wasn’t even close. This is Yumeko’s heinous humanity. To Yumeko, gambling is the inherent feeling of fear, co-existing with death. There’s not a more vulnerable state to be in.
And now they’re showing it to each other. Two ships rampaging through the night, hoping for a collision course. See me, please. See who I am, fears and all.
But Mary wasn’t supposed to see Yumeko in joy because of herself. Now with a starving heart, she’s thinking of murder on camera, pixelated sacrilege. If Yumeko wants fear she’ll give it to her. So keep smiling at her. Keep looking only at her. “I bet eighty votes!”
“Alright then,” Yumeko pushes forward piles of chips. “I’ll raise to a total of 108 votes!”
What a fucking weird number. No, wait. If Yumeko wins with that, they’ll enter the final round perfectly tied. Then what if they tie again?
Mary blinks. Why wouldn’t Yumeko want to win? Is Mary so insignificant, so unsightly — she just has to win. She must win now before Yumeko’s gaze —
Five papers. Yumeko has five papers at this point in the gamble. Mary’s shoulders stiffen. Yumeko planned for this all along. Yumeko’s eyes are curved in pleasure, pupils dilated big and red, staring at something beyond the horizon.
Exactly who the fuck did Mary lose Yumeko to, if not god? Who else stands to win if this Grand Meeting has a clear victor?
"IT'S THE FINAL ROUND AT LAST ! FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS, EVERYONE WATCHING —“
And Mary understands at last. With an irate sigh she picks up her last hand of cards. Even now she’s still one step behind Yumeko. Yumeko, who already sniffed out a parasite before the start. Yumeko, now baring her fangs to keep it away, while curling her body tight around the two of them. Just the two of them.
Mary resists the urge to cover her flushed cheeks. Even if the whole student body — even if god is watching, Yumeko can see this part of her. Whatever Yumeko chooses to do with it is entirely up to luck. Why can’t Mary have a gamble within a gamble too?
Yumeko’s cards are all visibly marked, an extended hand. If Mary wants a solo victory she should play rock. But on a red-tinted afternoon months ago, she played paper and witnessed the apocalypse. Is she any different since? What will she play now?
With guttural laugh, Mary tilts her face to the light. It’s not quite revenge or atonement. Every death along the way has led her to this point. At the end of the long confusing story about anger, she's still the same sixteen-year-old who’d rather die than live with shame.
Her lips peel back to her gums. She wants Yumeko and she wants Yumeko to want her and she wants Yumeko dead. It’s all the same. Mary’s whole body is tingling, as though brimming with golden light. Like sun rays, like dawn, like rebirth revival resurrection — the awakening of a god; the eyes of a wolf. If Mary were a believer she’d believe in her own godhood, where she’s Fenrir, the Marsh Wolf that kills the god-father Odin.
But Mary isn’t. This isn’t a story about godhood. This is about singular, unchanging, human longing. Mary flings down her chosen card with a roar, and Yumeko gasps her name like a lover. “Oh Mary-san, gambling with you is just so much fun!”
At once they flip over their cards: two papers. Mary throws her remaining cards into the air, Yumeko following suit. Their cards flutter down like ashes of an age.
“BOTH PLAYERS ONLY HAVE A SINGLE PAPER! THE FINAL ROUND ENDS IN A TIE, SO THE GRAND MEETING WILL HAVE TWO CHAMPIONS!”
Mary folds her arms with only a slight tremor, meeting Yumeko’s gaze. The camera watches impatiently in the ensuing silence.
“I know you could read my cards," Yumeko begins in a conversational tone. "I could read yours too. Playing scissors had overwhelmingly higher odds for you.” Yumeko tilts her head, eyes sparkling with mischief. “So why did you play paper?”
And Mary’s irregular heartbeat finds tempo again. As ashes blanket the sky and the great war comes to an end, Yumeko does find her way back to Mary after all. Standing on piles of cold bodies, Yumeko reaches for Mary’s goreish hands and asks whose blood is that.
But whose blood can it ever be? Why did Mary play the same paper as her past-self?
Mary looks at Yumeko across the table, at Yumeko set against the gray sky of war, and huffs lightly. “Don’t make me say it.”
Then Mary’s lips twitch upwards, her mouth opens, and with a face full of light she confesses anyway. “Because I didn’t want to lose to you.” Because of course it’s Yumeko’s blood. Of course everything winds back to Yumeko. The snake devouring its own tail, Yumeko as infinite and unending — Yumeko as Mary’s beginning and end.
In a chapel, Mary’s confession is rewarded with salvation. She gets to see Yumeko’s eyes curve in pleasure, pupils dilated big and red, staring solely at her. And isn’t that just eternal damnation in itself?
⚁
When they return to the nave, Mary hands Ririka her spoils of victory. “Alright, I got us the votes. You better use them well.”
Almost instantly Yumeko bounds over. "Mary-san! Would you be up for one more gamble?”
“Huh? Aren’t you tired? Or do you not require much effort to go against me?”
“Oh please, it’s precisely because it’s so challenging that I’m asking you for one more!” Yumeko’s fingers stretch out in the curl of a vortex. “So what do you say?”
Mary shoots Ririka a glance, who’s still holding the briefcase in a rigid, surprised manner. “Well I don’t mind, but I won’t bet my votes.”
Yumeko looks, very briefly, like a pendulum swinging to a stop, all momentum gone. Then her smile quickly swings back. “Sure! Instead,” she tosses a coin and catches it in both hands. “Heads and you come back to my house with me. Tails and you can go home.”
“Why would I agree to such a stupid gamble?” Mary narrows her eyes. “I gain everything and lose nothing.”
“What — “
“Heads.” Mary cackles at Yumeko’s expression, pulling apart Yumeko’s hands to reveal heads. She slings her bag over a shoulder, steps forward, then turns back dramatically with a shit-eating grin. “Are you going to lead the way or what? I don’t know where you stay.”
⚁
Yumeko lives in a traditional mansion, her family name plaque adorning the old front door. A large ginkgo tree sits in the courtyard, still green at this time of the year, draping messy shadows over the ground. Yumeko leads a twisting way into the heart of the mansion, through opened door after opened door, until they reach the living room.
Mary sits cross-legged by the low-rise table, while Yumeko folds her legs beneath her gracefully. There’s a moment where they’re just looking at each other, Mary craning her neck to feel more of the wind, then Yumeko hops to her feet. “I’m sorry, where are my manners! I’ll go make some chilled tea, please wait for a bit.”
As Yumeko steps out through the opened door, Mary leans back on her arms. The same intricate carving of an ouroboros surrounded by blooming flowers is etched into the wall panels. The wind makes her nape prickle faintly.
Returning through the opened door, Yumeko sets the tray down carefully. “I hope this is cold enough to cool us down. Doesn’t summer feel like it’s coming earlier this year?”
“Yeah, but worry about yourself first.” Mary grins as she accepts her cup. “I’m almost all cooled down from the breeze.” Then she freezes.
This deep in the mansion, how’s the breeze reaching her? Because all the doors are opened. Because Yumeko doesn’t shut any of them, despite her traditional upbringing. Why?
Mary lowers her cup. “Why did you bring me here? Need help with ethics again?”
“Oh no, no, thankfully.” Yumeko shakes her head wryly. “I just wanted to hang out with you after that final match. You were captivating, you know? It’s always such a rush to gamble with you.”
“Compliments won’t make me forget how stressed you made me. You have extremely bad taste.”
“But still you went along with me! I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” Yumeko’s eyes twinkle.
Mary’s scoff carries no menace. She’s already taking tea in Yumeko’s house — doesn’t her mom yell at her to close the doors — “Are your parents at work?”
“No, they passed away when I was a child.”
Mary starts. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, I was very young. In any case, it’s just me and my older sister now.”
Mary didn’t spot extra shoes by the entrance. She’d never have thought — but what does she know of Yumeko’s human side, really? The side where she’s just another seventeen-year-old girl. Where she goes home everyday to a silent house with doors perpetually opened, like gaping wounds. You close a door to keep something inside safe; to come back to it again. You close a door so someone else isn’t troubled.
Sole heiress of the Jabami family, Yumeko sits in the heart of her house with picture-perfect poise. And Mary is suddenly certain Yumeko lives here alone. Solitude is but an ornament Yumeko wears weightlessly as a martyr. This house feels like an intermission, a lull in time — the act of waiting.
“Yumeko,” Mary begins quietly. “Why are all your doors opened?”
Yumeko shrugs. “For convenience. Why close them? No one else is going to walk through them.”
And Mary exhales, and thinks: but I am right here. All the doors are opened but the grief is still in this house. The grief is Yumeko, born of an intimate understanding of silence. This house is too big for one; it’s easy to imagine Yumeko in solitude.
But Mary is no saviour. This house is big enough for them both to bleed dry. “What do you want from me? Company?”
“Of course! We’re friends, right? I do like you very much, as I said to you in the infirmary.”
“Isn’t that just because I’m a good gambler? Isn’t your final target the student council president? Maybe you’re wasting your time on me.”
Yumeko’s smile turns infuriatingly knowing. “But I’ve never invited the president back to my house, much less made tea for her.”
Mary’s rib bones rattles loosely like a thrown die. Yumeko will always have the upper hand if they continue skirting around the topic. This is a gamble where she’s betting nothing less than her very self, so it’s all in.
“I don’t like you in the way you think I do. I can’t stand your guts. You drive me nuts with your nonsense. I’ve never known a moment of peace with you around.” Mary takes in a breath. “And yet, with you I don’t know what to do with my hands. Alone, I think of you. Sometimes I think you ruined me, and other times I think I lived only to meet you. I don’t know if this is about like or love or anything at all. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You’re flirtatious with everyone. What are you thinking, Yumeko? What do you really want from me?”
Yumeko has gone very still, eyes wide and unblinking. Her chest rises and falls in an irregular rhythm. Then she squeezes her eyes shut. “You flatter, no I’m honoured, but do you really believe,” she stops. “I’m sorry, this is a surprise Mary-san. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“No? You don’t think you’re an awful tease? You don’t know what you’ve been doing to me?”
Yumeko’s eyes fly open, her cheeks a blazing red. “How should I? I haven’t done anything anyone else hasn’t done. You say I flirt with everyone but you have the attention of just as many people. You left the president’s office with such a flushed face and messy hair. What did she do to you? How did you become partners with Ririka-san? I look away for a second and you’ve acquired someone else. I’ve tried so hard to keep your attention on me.”
The die stops. Mary’s rib bones have all fallen down, like a lycoris flower in bloom, unfurling to reveal her quivering heart. “How am I supposed to believe you? You know how you’re like. Look at all the people on their knees in your wake.”
“Yet none of them are you. None of them are you, Mary-san.” Yumeko’s voice is a wind through an empty house. “I’d use them all for a entertaining gamble. But you,” Yumeko hesitates. “With you, it’s not only about gambling. You were magnificent in your despair, then breathtaking in your resilience. You’re not,” Yumeko sets her jaws. “You’re not entertainment. This isn’t a fleeting interest. You wouldn’t even look at me for the longest time, then you did, and it still wasn’t enough. I was ready to die for a moment with you and,” Yumeko breaks off entirely. She swallows several times until, staring down at the table, she finally whispers. “And when I saw your tears, I thought I’d die a hundred times more if you’ll come to me at my end, and hold me. I don’t know how to want things if they aren’t a gamble. I don’t know how to say you aren’t a prize but I’d like to have you — I only have myself to bet with so here I am. This is my full hand.”
Mary’s heart is an epicenter, herself an earthquake barely held together by skin. Fault lines are running through her flesh. Yumeko has never sounded so hesitant before, unable to even meet Mary’s eyes. This isn’t a gamble — this is just an acknowledgement of desire. “You absolute idiot. Aren’t you basically saying it already?”
A small, horrified noise escapes Yumeko. She digs her chin into her chest and refuses to look up. Mary sighs loudly through her teeth, ignoring her own blush. “What are you all embarrassed about? Wasn’t I the first to confess? You’re being very unfair right now.”
Slowly, precariously, Yumeko raises her head. “So, are you saying — are you in agreement?”
Saying ‘yes’ to Yumeko always feels like surrender; Mary pulls a face. “Yes. Yes, because for the longest time I’ve wanted to show you a tragedy called myself.”
The room curves sharply around Yumeko’s shoulders as she sits up straight. The wind has stopped. “If you’re a tragedy then I’m a catastrophe. You’ve seen the most of me I’ve ever shown anyone, yet you’re still here. Let me be your tragedy’s Exodos, your final act. I don’t want anyone else but you. ”
Faraway, the bungle starts singing a quiet, unfamiliar tune. Mary’s feather-tipped skin twitches. Here at the end of the path with Yumeko, there’s no starless sky or giant serpent. There’re only the two of them existing within Yumeko’s grief. Whatever happens next isn’t on any divine records. It’s entirely in the realm of humans.
At the age of seventeen, Mary emerges from the long night into a dawn where Yumeko is looking at her with the same desperate hope. When she closes and reopens her eyes again, Yumeko is still right here. Reachable, touchable. And Mary finally understands: this is her complete, utter triumph.
Mary gets up and slides the door closed with a grating creak. When she turns back, Yumeko’s expression makes her falter. The closest Mary has seen Yumeko like this was in the infirmary when Mary was crying. But this is less brittle, more whole. Like wonder, Mary thinks as she bends down beside Yumeko.
Then Yumeko already has a hand on Mary's cheek, pulling her close to crash their lips together. It’s all teeth and bright pain, like two bayonets scrapping with a spark of flame. With a murmured apology against her lips, Yumeko kisses her again, gentler, and now it’s all heat. Mary’s knees go humiliatingly weak, enough for Yumeko to push her back onto the floor.
Air knocked out of her, Mary doesn’t resist as Yumeko leans in for another kiss, then drags her teeth down against Mary’s throat. Hissing, Mary rips open her blazer and fumbles at her shirt’s buttons until Yumeko’s steady fingers cover her own. With meticulous attention, Yumeko dismantles the cross and undoes the buttons one by one, then Mary’s fever-hot skin is exposed to air.
For a long moment Yumeko just stares at her, the light filtered out by her long hair. There’s just the swarming hunger in Yumeko’s dark eyes. Another wave of heat crashes through Mary, and she tries sitting up to discard her clothes. Immediately Yumeko holds her down by the waist, but makes her arch her back to help unclasp her bra. The snarl dies in Mary’s throat when Yumeko digs her nails into her back and drags them all the way around to her bare chest.
Then Yumeko’s mouth is wet and eager on her nipple, a warm hand sliding down her stomach to unzip her skirt and tug it down. Yumeko’s fingers reach into Mary’s panties and, for the first time, hesitates. The fissures within Mary crack further, molten lava splashing beneath. She jerks Yumeko’s head up, parts her legs to thrust up firmly into Yumeko’s hand, and glares down at Yumeko.
Yumeko blinks, mouth falling open, then she surges up to kiss Mary as she slides a finger into Mary. Then another soon, and Mary grinds her teeth together, allowing only her harsh breathing to escape. Yumeko clicks her tongue, her other hand darting down to rub Mary’s clit rapidly, and finally Mary whimpers into Yumeko’s mouth. Mary can feel the pleased curve of Yumeko’s smile and she knows she should be indignant, but Yumeko has found her hypocentre and she’s determined to cause a disaster.
Eyes shut tight, Mary tries to curl into herself, but Yumeko pins her down in place with her body, murmuring into her ear. “Please look at me, Mary-san.”
Fuck you, Mary thinks. Molten lava has spilled out of her fissures and dissolved her into a trembling mess. Still she wrenches an eye open, then clenches tight around Yumeko’s fingers. Yumeko’s eyes are a muted red. No mania, just quiet focus. And Mary’s mind goes hazy. Yumeko’s all-encompassing presence, her relentless fingers — Mary cracks down to her core — this is devastation at Yumeko’s hands, an earthquake brought forth in her name, ah — damn but doesn’t this feel divine —
Mary comes with a violent shudder, head buried in Yumeko’s shoulder. Yumeko works her through it, slowing her pace until Mary’s body unclenches. Splayed out on the floor, Mary feels Yumeko sitting back up, and sees Yumeko’s slow smile. She wriggles her legs until Yumeko rolls off with a wider smile. Dragging a hand through her messy hair, Mary levels her gaze at Yumeko. “Alright, your turn now.”
“You still have the energy?”
Mary hauls Yumeko close by her chin, hooking a finger into her collar. “Don’t get so full of yourself, you fucking tease.”
Yumeko’s laughter pools into Mary’s fissures, as she pulls off Yumeko’s blazer and tears her shirt open down to her bra. She shoves Yumeko down, getting on her knees to straddle Yumeko firmly. In Mary’s shadow, Yumeko stretches out languidly, pushing her breasts up against her sweat-damp shirt, black bra visible. Mary stares too hard and Yumeko’s eyes crinkle, and she grabs Yumeko’s breasts almost angrily.
Her hands can barely hold one each. She keeps kneading, flicking a thumb over Yumeko’s nipples until they’re stiff against her bra. When Yumeko starts squirming and pulling at her shirt, Mary slaps her hands away with relish. “What do you want, Yumeko? I’m listening.”
Yumeko sucks in a throaty gasp. “Please Mary-san — it’s so hot and tight I’m going to explode.”
Grinning viciously, Mary strips Yumeko down to her waist and leans in to bite hard on a nipple. “Very good,” she mumbles around the mouthful, feeling Yumeko twitch.
From there Mary leaves a marked trail down the swell of Yumeko’s breast, over the soft folds of Yumeko’s stomach, stopping only to take off Yumeko’s skirt. When she settles between Yumeko’s black-tights legs, Yumeko spreads them at once. Mary drags a nail from Yumeko’s inner knee to the dip of her pelvic bone, then the other knee, scratching against yielding mesh.
When she finally peels off Yumeko’s tights, Yumeko’s panties are so drenched they’re weighing down. But she starts kissing around Yumeko’s inner thigh, teeth snapping close against Yumeko’s tensed muscles, until Yumeko whines hoarsely and folds her legs to push Mary’s head inwards.
Mary’s laughter is muffled, and Yumeko twitches again. “What, you can dish it but can’t take it?”
“I have —” Yumeko pants, “never — for so long —“
At last Mary relents, pulling off Yumeko’s panties with sticky resistance. The smell is like bloodlust, she thinks as she noses apart Yumeko’s folds, but more intoxicating. She starts licking Yumeko’s clit, swirling it with her tongue, rolling it between her teeth. She gets two fingers in easily and finds a steady rhythm. Yumeko’s hips buck frantically, her moans rippling down Mary’s spine like a living thing.
Then Mary feels Yumeko’s hand grasping her head, and she thinks Yumeko will hold her in place, push her deeper. But Yumeko’s hand traces a shaky path down to Mary’s face and rests there, fingers curled against her cheek, as though seeking reassurance. Stupid fool — Mary speeds up, leaning into Yumeko’s hand.
“Mary-san — I’m,” Yumeko’s voice is cracked raw, “I’m so glad it’s you —” Her body tightens up, legs locked and quivering. “It’s you here.”
I’m here, Mary bites down and crooks her fingers and thrusts, and Yumeko cries out shatteringly. Mary can barely push against Yumeko’s pulsating insides but she keeps going, until Yumeko goes limp and her legs flop down, and Mary’s chin is wet with spit and come. She kisses her way back up, softer this time, then Yumeko loops an arm around her neck and pulls her up to lie side-by-side.
Wiping a thumb over Mary’s chin, Yumeko darts close and licks it clean. Mary feels the ticklish brush of Yumeko’s lashes, the gritty lightness of her tongue. When Yumeko pulls back her eyes are the only steady part of her. And in those unwavering eyes, Mary sees her own reflection.
Mary breathes in, grabs Yumeko’s hand and shoves it between her own legs. As Yumeko’s eyes go wide, Mary leans in with teeth. “And I’m still here. Up for one more?”
Jabami Yumeko, driven to ruin by a blonde-haired girl.
⚁
Between the second and third round, Mary starts replaying her memories of Yumeko from front to back and back to front, zooming in on Yumeko’s thumb ring — the same ring chafing against her nipple — and edits it into a supercut of Yumeko’s wristbones. By the third round she’s kissing Yumeko’s name into the scythe of Yumeko’s shoulder-blades, sealing it with a bruise. Beneath her Yumeko is slick wet, the sounds loud enough to fill the house. Fill the house. Are they filling the house? Yumeko lowers herself onto Mary, skin melting against skin, sinking in, fingers tireless. Mary gasps, and breathes infinity.
⚁
Mary starts awake. The room is dark and warm. She’s aching all over and her right arm is numb. When she tries moving it, a weight shifts in the darkness. She looks down and just about makes out the slope of Yumeko’s nose, face pressed into Mary’s shoulder.
Mary stares until her mind fills in the other details, then tidies up Yumeko’s bangs with her left hand, settling back down. The only sounds she can hear are their slow breaths, gently flowing into one. She closes her eyes, at peace.