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There is a breeze, toying with a lock of her hair. Angrily, she brushes it out of her face. She can spare no thought for distractions tonight.
Across from her on the empty expanse of the roof stand two women. One of them starts to step nearer to her, but Misao pulls away from her.
“Hyper Misao, please, I know you’re in there,” Rika says, desperate.
Misao feels an arm snake around her. “Hyper Misao is gone,” Sakisama’s voice murmurs from behind. “She’s NEO Biishiki-gun’s Misao, now. My Misao.” A thrill rushes through Misao at Sakisama’s words.
Yes, with Sakisama, Misao has found power. She has found purpose.
The wind picks up, and Misao bares her teeth at Rika, showing her emotion that cannot be concealed beneath a mask, this time. Sakisama steps away, her touch and the warmth of her falling softly from Misao’s skin.
Misao reaches up and adjusts the rose on her chest. It’s a deep, violent red, cut fresh from Sakisama’s garden.
She can almost catch the scent of it before the breeze steals it away, sweet and sophisticated and cloying. It’s what Sakisama’s lips taste like when Misao kisses her in the garden, the two of them sealed away in their own glass world together like a pair of birds in a gilded cage.
Then Sakisama is falling, tipping backwards, her chest lifting to the heavens. A light glows from her, emanating from her heart, and then a hilt of a sword materializes, the pommel bearing the shape of a carved ruby red rose.
Misao reaches out and catches Sakisama with her arm. Her other hand goes to the hilt of the sword at Sakisama’s breast. She draws it gradually, feeling the power of the sword flow from Sakisama into her.
Once upon a time, the sword had been difficult for her to draw. Unwilling, almost. But with each victory she’d shared with Sakisama, it had gotten easier and easier. Sakisama’s heart opening up to her like the petals of a rose.
Across the arena, the woman standing beside Rika starts to tip over. The hilt of a blade protrudes from her chest. Rika catches Miu in one arm and pulls the blade out with her other.
On Rika’s chest, the petals of a bright pink rose flutter gently in the wind. Rika lifts her sword up, holds it with determination. Then she charges forward.
Misao’s sword catches Rika’s in a clash of steel. Misao twists brutally, trying to get past Rika’s defenses, but Rika is too quick on her feet, dodging out of the way.
“You can’t hide your emotions forever,” Rika says, panting.
But I’m not hiding, Misao thinks. Not anymore. The emotions that you’re looking for are gone.
She speaks with her sword instead of her words, striking definitively. But Rika matches her, determination for determination.
“Remember what it felt like? Being the hero?” Rika continues.
It felt like nothing. Like I was nothing.
Misao stabs at Rika, but her sword cuts only through open air.
“You were happy then,” Rika insists. “And you made others happy, too.”
I was a laughingstock! They laughed at me because I couldn’t do anything. They were only happy because they liked watching me fail. But who’s laughing now?
Misao’s sword catches Rika’s again. This time, Misao presses the advantage, and she forces Rika back. Rika stumbles a bit, almost tripping over her own feet. There’s a flash of fear in her eyes.
“Remember Jun Kasai?” Rika says, between breaths.
Misao flinches. It’s only a brief pause, but it’s enough for Rika to regain her footing.
“Before you saw Jun Kasai, all you felt was nothing. A void. But he made you realize that life can be exciting. He gave you a reason to fight.”
The sword in Rika’s hands—Miu’s soul sword—is small and light. Misao has fought against it many times now. It has proven itself to be child’s play compared to the blade that Misao holds. And yet, try as she might, Misao can’t disarm Rika no matter how hard she fights.
Misao’s vision distorts, and she’s surrounded by mini chocolate cream puffs. Once upon a time, they were the only food that she would eat. Now the taste of them turns her stomach. She tries to shake away the vision, but the cream puffs are still there.
She glaces back behind her, at Sakisama, standing at the sidelines. Misao’s grip on the hilt of the sword tightens. She stops looking at the cream puffs.
I traded one nothing for another nothing. And now that I finally have something, I can’t go back to before.
This is all that she is now. Just Misao, bearer of Sakisama’s soul sword. She threw away everything to get where she is now. Let go of everything so that she could start anew.
A pair of scissors to a black fabric mask, snipping the past in twain.
When that mask fell away, this is the self that had emerged. This is the Misao that Sakisama had accepted and then embraced. The Misao that, in joining Sakisama, had finally found something in the world to love.
With renewed determination, Misao advances. She forces Rika back into the center of the arena. She can sense that Rika is wearing down, that her strikes are growing weaker. It’s only a matter of time before she gives up, and then the sword in Misao’s hands will cut the rose from Rika’s chest, and this will all be over.
But Rika still doesn’t give up. Even when she can barely knock the blows away, she still fights.
“I know you’re still in there somewhere, Hyper Misao,” Rika says, desperate. “And I want you to know that no matter what happens, no matter what you do, I still love you.”
Hyper Misao is dead, Misao thinks. I killed her for you. Because you didn’t love her while you had her. You only love people that you can’t have.
She strikes at Rika again, and her blade almost touches the petals at Rika’s heart. But Misao can’t do it. She hesitates just long enough that victory slips away from her.
“I knew it!” Rika breathes. “You still love me, don’t you? You say you only care about victory now, but I saw that look in your eyes. Be honest with yourself. If your feelings were truly dead, you’d have beaten me by now.”
It’s easier, caring only about victory, Misao thinks. It’s easier, loving Sakisama, because she only loves beauty and power, and I know how to embody that. Easier than loving you.
Loving Rika was like trying to swallow a rose thorns-first. At least with Sakisama, Misao only chokes on mouthfuls of petals. Soft and velvet-beautiful, stifling.
But when she sees that I’m not as powerful as she wants me to be, she’ll stop loving me, too.
Misao’s sword and Rika’s sword meet with a clang of metal. Misao watches triumphantly as Rika’s sword slips from her fingers and tumbles through the air. But Misao loses hold of her sword at the same time, and it clatters to the ground a couple meters away.
She stares at it. Suddenly, she can no longer summon the energy to move.
Whoever I am, it’s not going to be enough. It will never be enough.
There is a soft, decisive sound, then a breeze flutters past Misao’s face. She watches as a handful of blood red petals scatter into the air.
Her legs buckle beneath her, and she crumples onto her knees. Her hand goes to her chest, and her fingers find the severed stem of a rose.
Rika stands above her, holding Miu’s soul sword aloft in one hand, the pommel of Sakisama’s soul sword clutched in her other. She tosses Sakisama’s sword aside, and it falls ungracefully to the ground.
Misao stares at the sword. She can’t move.
It feels like a dream. Or rather, like waking up from one.
“I knew you still loved me,” Rika says, her voice breaking. She crouches down beside Misao, reaching toward her. “Hyper Misao—”
Misao finds some last reserve of strength inside of her and shoves Rika away.
She struggles to her feet. But her body is too weak, and her legs can’t hold up her own weight. Just as she starts to fall, a hand catches her.
Sakisama’s grip is tight. Almost tight enough to hurt. She hauls Misao to her feet. Wraps an arm around her, holding her steady.
“We’re not done yet, Misao,” Sakisama says. “You need to keep showing me your determination. That’s all we’ve got.”
Misao doesn’t respond. Everything feels so far away from her. She lets Sakisama lead her away, leading her back to their shared estate, back to the rose garden.
She waits to feel like she has a reason again.
Two shadows on the wall.
“I’m building a new world!” says the shadow wearing a feathered hat.
“You’ve been building it all year. Where is it?”
The shadow swaps her hat for a cape. “We’re still building it! ” she says. A world filled with nothing but light! Don’t try and stop us!”
The other shadow scratches her head, then says, skeptically, “But a world filled with nothing but light is still an empty world.”