Magical Girl Phantom Ascension

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"...I just want my o-ka'a-chan."

The words slip from your mouth before you've entirely realized it, catching your brother off-guard. "What?" He asks, turning back to you.

"I want to talk to ka'a-san," you mumble, and the flurries of chaotic thoughts in your head suddenly fall still. The one thing that you had been avoiding thinking about the most, the woman whose absence hurts like nothing else to the point that you had no choice but to shut her out of your mind completely, is suddenly and inescapably made clear before you. You can picture her so clearly now, as if standing amidst the now-settled snow on a clear night. Her tall and commanding figure that has never shown you anything less than absolute care; long, silver hair draped over her shoulders much like your own; framing warm reddish-pink eyes crinkled at the corners with mirth, twinkling like the stars overhead; and a patient, comfortable smile. Ruruka Yukimura, your mother.

You vaguely remember in elementary school, being picked on by other kids for being a mommy's girl, and yet you did not even realize until looking back later that it was meant to be an insult, instead always taking a certain quiet pride in it. She always gave you the space you needed, but she has also always been there for you in some way - a comforting presence to lean on, a strong and protective personality to hide behind when you were overwhelmed, an enthusiastic (if overly precise) teacher, and just, just… your mom.

Even as you grew up and realized the world was so much bigger than her, never did you entirely lose the sense that she still dwarfed the entire universe, and her role at the observatory was more akin to a queen cataloging her vast starry domain than the mere curious astronomer she would humbly diminish herself as. She was the one who had brought everyone up that mountain in the middle of a clear winter night to watch the Aurora Borealis, she was the one who you had shyly clung to on your first day of school, and she was the one you could always turn to when you needed or even just wanted. If your father was the yardstick against which other adults failed to reach, your mother was so impossibly beyond comparison that it would be unfair to even try.

You miss her. She is just down the hall, and you miss her so much.

Before your brother can even do anything, you find yourself on your feet, striding to the door and unlocking it without a single word. Any justifications or reasoning for or against talking to her are null, irrelevant; swept away and buried by the avalanche of pure feeling driving you forward. You barely register your brother's quiet "Good luck" as you leave, or the clattering sounds of your father's preparations from downstairs.

Past the top of the staircase, past the restroom and the home office, you walk down the short and darkened hall, a path at once so familiar and yet so surreal now, in your magical dress swishing softly against the hardwood floor. Reaching the door to your parents' room, you hesitate only a moment, before gently turning the handle and pushing the door open.


The room is pitch-black, blackout curtains pulled over the windows, and as you close the door again behind you, it takes your eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness.

The first thing to make itself known is the pale green-white gleam of hundreds of glow-in-the-dark plastic stars affixed to the walls and ceiling (in exacting faithfulness to the positions of the real constellations, of course) twinkling at you. Their shine has not faded for the night yet, so you know she must have laid down to sleep just recently, likely while your father talked to Kichirou.

But even in that dim illumination, the pale silver of her hair on the dark pillows is unmistakable - even if it is cut much shorter than last you remember, styled into a bell-shaped bob rather than her original flowing locks like yours. A pang of pain spikes your heart at the reminder of why this must be, but you quickly suppress it to hesitantly step closer, rounding the corner of the futon and kneeling at her side.

You try to speak, but nothing comes out, just quietly gasping into the darkness. You feel at once overwhelmed and numb, too many thoughts and feelings at once at an impasse and straining to be let out, yet all blanketed and muted in a thick layer of grey snow. Yet despite all of that, there is still the undeniable fact of who lays there asleep before you.

Only half-asleep, you realize, as white lashes flutter open; even in the low light, her pink eyes are vivid and clear as they turn to focus on you. You must be nothing more than a silhouette in her vision right now, and yet the recognition is immediate. "Ki… kuko-chan?" She murmurs in disbelief, and an arm reaches out from under the covers to cradle the side of your face. You immediately lean into the contact, holding the back of her hand with your own, tears dripping again at the warmth of her touch.

"I'm here," you finally manage to say. "I'm here, o-ka'a-chan."

She blinks tears from her eyes, but slowly lifts herself into a sitting position, propping up her pillow against the wall to lean back against as she stares with dull, clouded eyes, taking in the sight of you before her yet struggling to comprehend. Extracting her other arm from the blankets, she slowly reaches forward, gently pulling you closer and wrapping you in a tender, crushing hug. "Kikuko-chan…" She whispers. "My dear daughter. What… what are you doing here?"

"I came back to see you again. I missed you so much." You let yourself fall limp, curling up against her side as you sink into the embrace, hearing the beating of her heart and feeling wet tears in your hair. Her arms are around you, her face is pressed into the top of your head, and you feel finally, completely safe. Nothing the past few days have thrown your way can hurt you now, because your mom is here. "I love you, o-ka'a-chan."

"I love you, Kikuko-chan," she responds. "I miss you everyday." A convulsing sob tears itself from you, but she is there, softly shhhing and rubbing your back, petting your hair, brushing the pain away. The hollowness from before that talking to your brother filled a part of, now feels nearly whole. You want this moment to last forever.

"...I know this is just a dream," she finally admits, "I know that this isn't real. This can't be real. You… I lost you already. But even if it is just a dream, then… maybe I don't want to wake up."

A stab of cold pierces your heart, eyes snapping back open. "No," you whimper. "I'm here. I'm really here, I promise."

Mom just shakes her head sadly. "I wish you could be. But please, don't say anything, let me pretend a little longer."

"You don't have to pretend," you insist, dragging yourself back upright to meet her gaze. "I'm really here. I'm really here! Please!" More tears fill your vision, but they burn ice cold this time. Mom's breath becomes mist, yet you barely even notice, trying to stare deep into her eyes even as she turns her head to look away in sudden discomfort.

"It's impossible," she whispers, voice heavy with grief, "You're gone, my Kikuko-chan is gone, and once I wake up I'll need to live with that. Why can't you let me forget even here?" She's barely even talking to you now, continuing to avert her gaze, and looking smaller than you ever thought possible. "Why can't I let myself…?"

A renewed sob breaks loose from you, as you pull yourself free from her arms, drawing her eyes back to you. Falling over her, crying uncontrollably now, you grab her shoulders and grip as tightly as you can, desperate to make her feel how real you are. "You don't have to pretend, you don't need to live with that! I'm right here! I was gone, but I'm back now, please believe me! Please stop being so rational, and just trust what's here! Because I'm here!" You are begging and sobbing, all the comfort of before turning into pain. You're begging and you feel so, so cold; and for the first time it bites deep into you, frigid and cruel instead of familiar and comforting. "I'm right here, and I'm real! You're awake already, please believe me!"

"Stop," she gasps, suddenly afraid. "You're hurting me! You're not- Who are you? Stop it, let me go!"

She struggles to push you away, grabbing your wrists to try to pull you off, but your grip is too tight. The cold spreads out of your hands, wreathing her shoulders in frost. Even wracked with sobs, you can't let yourself let go, not now. "I'm right here! I'M RIGHT HERE, I'M STILL HERE!" You can't see through your tears anymore. You can't see and you're screaming now, voice broken and shrill, uncaring if you're heard; desperate to be. "KA'A-SAN, PLEAAASE!!!"

And everything feels so cold.

You feel an abrupt impact in your chest, and blink away sudden stars to find yourself lying prone on the opposite end of the room. Mom has her leg still raised after freeing it from her blankets, the two of you staring at one another in shock. Distantly, you note that her torso and upper arms are covered in white frost, some even reaching up her neck. "Who… are…" Her leg drops back down, and she shivers violently for a few moments before falling limp, eyes drifting shut again.

Somehow, you don't know how, you muster up just enough focus to detransform, before rushing back over to her. "No, no, nononononono…" you whimper, frantically brushing at her sleepwear, uselessly trying to whisk the frozen moisture away as if that will fix any of this. "Please wake up, I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt you, I'm sorry, please just, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry just please be okay-"

The door slams open, making you jump; Naruhito stands imposingly in the doorway, light from the hall spilling in and casting his shadow over you and your mother. "I heard screaming, what's wrong?" He demands, breath hitching as he takes in the sheets kicked away and her crumpled, half-frozen figure. Kichirou peeks out from behind him, still absentmindedly holding onto a rolled-up shirt he must have been packing, but becoming wide-eyed at the sight before him.

You know they can't see you, but hunched over your mother like this, you feel incriminated, like some feral monster caught in the act of slaughtering livestock.

You back away on all fours, scuttling into a far corner as your father half-marches over, half-sinks to his knees in the same spot you had just vacated, pressing a hand against her forehead. "Get some blankets from the downstairs closet, right now," he orders, "We need to warm her up immediately."

Your brother's still stuck in place, staring in horror, but jolts back to awareness after a sharp "NOW!" Scanning the room before he leaves, even as his gaze sweeps unseeing right past you, you are unable to miss the fear and betrayal in his eyes.

Stilling his trembling hand, your father puts two fingers to Mo- to Ruruka's neck, going still for several breathless moments. Then he slumps in relief, and unseen, you do the same.

The moment Kichirou returns with a stack of blankets, the two of them set to work wrapping her up snugly, before your father scoops her up into a bridal carry and stands. "The thermostat must have had a glitch," he reasons out briskly, "It felt cold in your room earlier, too. Let's take her downstairs where it's warmer, can you make some hot tea? Or no, maybe hot chocolate. If she doesn't wake up soon, we may have to call the hospital."

Kichirou just nods mutely, stepping aside to let them pass, and casting another suspicious glance back at the futon, though you notice him still trembling as well. "...What happened? Why would you… Why did you do that?" He asks the empty room, but you can't bring yourself to reappear. Not now. And so he leaves.

You sit there, still as a statue, light still spilling in from the hall to starkly illuminate the rumpled blankets like a spotlight on a crime scene. Your head is blank. Your heart is empty. All the whirling, overwhelming thoughts and feelings of before are completely gone now, everything erased by sheer disbelief, or perhaps lack of comprehension, of just what happened.

Finally, numbly, you find your feet, barely registering your actions as you stumble your way out into the hall and down the stairs. It is indeed warmer down here, Ruruka huddled in her wrap of blankets at the dining table, Naruhito gently rubbing her back, in a horrible echo of when you saw them the first night after the funeral. But this time, they're facing you; you can see the worry in your father's eyes, barely-concealed by a mask of stoicism, while Mo- while his wife leans back against him, head lolling in unconsciousness. A glance around the corner into the kitchen reveals Kichirou dutifully pulling down a box of instant hot chocolate, expression unreadable.

You stand alone in the living room again, feeling like an intruder.

Finally, she blinks awake again, looking around the dining room in vacant confusion, before glancing up at her husband. "What… why are we down here?" She asks. "Why is it so chilly?"

"Your room was freezing; I think something went wrong with the heating systems," he answers. Kichirou growls under his breath, unnoticed by either of them. "Though I thought I also heard yelling, did something happen?"

Ruruka frowns, clutching her arms closer to her chest, and wincing in pain when a heavy fold of her blanket wrapping lands on her shoulder. "I think… I had a nightmare. It was about…" She sighs heavily, voice going quiet. "It was about Kikuko-chan."

BANG

Kichirou has a tight grip on the mug he'd just slammed down onto the counter, knuckles going white from the force of his grip, but he simply waves off their concerned gazes. "I'm fine, it's not broken," he grumbles. "Just heavier than I expected." Neither looks convinced by the obvious lie, given the mug he chose is in fact quite small, but they don't press him on it.

Ruruka takes a moment to recollect herself before finishing. "She came to me at first, and for a moment it was like I had my daughter back. But then…" She chokes back a sob. "But then she turned into something else, some kind of phantasm, a-and screamed garbled nonsense at me as I became frozen. It was… terrifying."

Rubbing away tears, she leans against Naruhito again. "But it was just a nightmare, and I'm… okay enough now. It must have been from the room turning so cold, that's all. I'll be fine. Though we will really have to get someone in to look at the heater; do you still have that list of…"

She's okay. Her rambling continues in the background, but you pay it no more attention, relief flooding through you and turning your knees weak, wavering in place. She's really okay, and thinks it was just a nightmare, and you didn't…

You could have killed her.

Your relief drains away as quickly as it arrived, and now you really do fall to the floor, legs splayed out on either side as the weight of guilt finally comes crashing down on you in full. She's fine, but she might not have been, if she hadn't kicked you away in time. What were you doing? Why couldn't you just let her think it was a dream? Echoes of your earlier desperation linger in the corners of your mind, but now they feel alien, incomprehensible, disgustingly selfish even. You didn't kill her, but you could have, all because you lost control of your powers and lost control of yourself trying so hard to get her to just listen. The more you think about it, the more you find yourself agreeing with the betrayal in your brother's eyes.

Finding your feet again, you take one last glance at the tableau before you; Mom at the table, your father at her back as always, your brother delivering a freshly-brewed hot chocolate to warm her back up. And then with a few stumbling steps backward, you turn away, phasing through the front door without even registering it, and run out into the road. With feet pounding on pavement and a fresh wave of freezing tears streaming from the corners of your eyes, you flee as far as you can.


You don't so much come to a halt as fall into it, tripping on something in the nighttime darkness and skidding across the ground. You don't bother to get back up, or even lift your head to see where you are. It doesn't matter.

You don't even have it in you to chuckle at the paradox of wanting to die when you already have.

You don't know how far you are, how much time has passed since you started running, nor since you stopped. Time blurs into meaninglessness, and it could be anywhere between a half-hour or an eternity. All that registers is the cascade of self-loathing and guilt and longing and shame and emptiness and pain and cold. It's probably good that you're not transformed anymore, because otherwise wherever you are would surely be engulfed in another circle of ice and snow and cold and cold and cold.


What you do know, without even having to open your eyes, is the moment Death arrives. The low, eternal bell tolling of her realm is hard to miss, even before you see the blood-red skies above.

She's sitting on an electrical box nearby, staring down at you with a morose expression, somewhat undercut by the way she appears sideways from your perspective on the ground. You don't dignify her presence with a greeting, let alone the effort of lifting your head. "Is… is this a bad time?" She finally asks.

"I hate you."

"I…"

"I hate you." You still don't move, but you inject as much venom and pent-up rage into your voice as you can muster. (It's not much, but it is better than nothing at all.) "I hate you so much."

"...I'm sorry."

"If you would've just taken me when you were supposed to, none of this would have happened." Even your anger runs out too soon, leaving your tone unfittingly conversational as you muster up whatever energy you have left to tear into her, tell her everything on your mind you've been suppressing ever since you first met her. "I could have just disappeared without all of this nonsense."

"I'm sorry."

"Nel-san could have picked their first choice, whoever it is that actually deserves this stupid magic ring. My family could have moved on in peace, without me stumbling back in and messing it all up for them. I don't want to have died, sure, but at least we could have committed to it properly, not this half-and-half… whatever the hell this is."

"I'm sorry."

"And…"

You know it's unfair. You know this isn't how things work, that she has no control over it, but the thought has been waiting in the back of your mind since your first meeting, and finally you're able to spit it out.

"And I hate you because I died in the first place!"

She opens her mouth to rebut, shifting on her high-voltage seat of choice, but finally she just nods. "I… am truly sorry."

You close your eyes again to shut out her pity. "I know you are. Why did you have to be so damn nice?"

She doesn't respond to that, and you don't particularly care why right now. The silence is strangely comfortable. More words would just break everything again, after all.

"...Can you at least take me now?"

"...Do you really want me to?" You hear a metallic swish, followed by the ticking of gears. Opening your eyes again, you see the shadow of her scythe on the ground before you, just past your outstretched hand. You could reach out and touch it so easily…

Instead, you close your eyes again. "...No. I need to find some way to fix this first."

"Understood." She sounds more relieved than she should, as another swish brings relative silence once more.

It's that admission; that realization, really, that finally gets you to clamber to your feet, despite the leaden feeling threatening to drag you back to the pavement. Still you refuse to meet her gaze, instead taking in your surroundings. Not too far from school, yet again; you must have followed the route by instinct. You're starting to get sick of it.

"So… how will you do that?" She asks.

"I don't know," you say. You really don't. But you need to do something if you're going to stick around, and the question at least gets you thinking.

What To Do?
> Go Back Home (NO! Not yet. Not tonight.) (Maybe not ever.)
> Go To The River (You need to understand how all of this happened. Maybe if you return to where this started last night, you can find some sort of enlightenment again. If not, at least it is a prettier spot to feel awful at.) (How was it only last night?)
> Go To The Town (You are sure Death was going to nag you about it before she saw you being pathetic. Even if she is not pushing you on it now, you may as well take out all your feelings on that stupid spirit. You are not a violent person, but you feel the need to hurt something right now.) (…Something that isn't your family, anyway.)