* note: some (not heavy) graphic violence from this chapter onwards *

Chapter Thirty-Four: Unravel

The control was returning to her body—not quite, though; this dominance had been rationed out in a different way.

Dull thumps sounded against the container of her head, a hazy fog filling in the empty void—where no thoughts dared to pass.

She had free control over her body now, at the very least. The tinted filter that had been draped over her eyes had been removed, and no unwanted, unpleasing words flew out of her throat like cutting knives. The lightheaded feeling was gone—she could move as she pleased, and that in itself would have been enough to make herself content.

Still, although her vision had cleared, it wasn't as if there was anything nice to even view. Murky shadows lined the path in front of her, as if marking out a clear-cut corridor—and bulky items that she couldn't yet make out formed barriers on either side.

Her gaze flickered around in a frantic manner, trying to search for some other way—but she soon realised that she had no choice but to follow the path before her. She almost preferred the maze over this—at least then she had the capacity to make a decision.

This was not a good decision. Even someone like her could understand that much—it would be hard not to notice the stifling prescence in the air.

It's horrible, she then admitted to herself. I want to go back. This is like the void, but worse—even the Meowstic wouldn't be bad company right now. I can't find my Pokeballs, so that wouldn't be any use. None of my friends would be here.

A voice startled her—but not in a bad way; she was thankful for the distraction from the overwhelming darkness. She recognised it as the Meowstic's—deep and rimmed with a trove of ulterior motives, coy and holding such mystery that her true motives had never been made clear.

Now, the Pokemon stood before her, no longer using the disguise—had it been a disguise?—of a replica and eying her with those golden eyes that she had always feared. She had never despised them—she had been too young to understand hate at that time. No, the emotion she had felt was terror—an emotion that any human could experience at any time.

"I'm not going to stay here forever," the feline sighed, trying to inject an air of mocking laziness into her voice, but that in itself came across as something even more artificial than usual. "I'll be leaving you soon, don't worry. I just came to inform you of some things."

"Your friends certainly are resilient." A small smile formed on her face. "Their emotional strength is part of who defines them, I guess—however, with this new world that Master wants to bring, it will be but a hindrance. We will have to take that away from them."

The coordinator blinked, confused with the creature's cryptic words—yet, she was rattled by her speech. She just knew that there was something deeper embedded in each of the Psychic-type's lyrical phrases—yet, they were so well hidden that they just graced her voice with an unreadable trace.

"I'm just here to let you know that," she muttered. "Master must be expecting me now—I truly am sorry for this. I do not enjoy flaunting strength to others."

With that, the last few strings of her sentence faded off into the waiting darkness, and Celeana was alone once more—even who she had thought of as her worst enemy—yet, an ally?—had left her in this damned void.

Shivering, she reached out, trying to lunge forward and grab on to whatever remained of the Meowstic—but she must have been delusional, because her hands met with air; her ears met with silence, and all she had done was trip over her own feet and land on the ground—it didn't even seem to be touchable. She could feel no pain.

Picking herself up, she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle in front of her. She was now barely inches away from the corridor, and that enabled her to view the strange objects from a much closer range. The TVs blinked on and off, as if their switches were being controlled by an unseen puppet, and their glitchy screens continued to flicker.

"What the..." She ran a finger over one of the devices' dusty surfaces, pulling away as her skin blackened and became smeared with grime in an instant. "What is this?"

She didn't get an answer—then again, she couldn't have expected one. The Meowstic had already made it pretty clear that no one was here—and the one that had been with her had left her. She was the only sentient life form in this strange realm.

A voice broke her out of her trance—one that was familiar and could have in no way existed in here because the speaker wasn't here. "I entrusted it to you because I thought I could depend on you for this for such an important matter..."

That's Ryou's voice. A glimmer of pointless hope illuminated her desperate mind, but as she turned around, she was met with the same blackness she'd first seen. She then realised that the sound contained a distorted echo to it, the consonants coming out painfully sharp and holding a robotic tinge.

Her eyes met with the scintillating glass of the TV's surface, and a blurred clip of her pale-haired friend played on the screen, amethyst eyes wide in shock as he spoke.

And, deep inside, a nagging feeling ate at her; words—her words—forming biting sentences at the back of her mind. Words that she'd aimed at the already broken boy with an intention to hurt—not by her own will, of course, but she'd been the one who had said them.

"Maybe you shouldn't have cared. After all, no one asked you to give a shit about me." The video was still playing, and she startled, inching away from the gadget as if it was poisonous. The colour in Ryou's eyes had faded to a sea of blankness.

"It wasn't anything you needed to get involved with in the first place." A laugh, stretched thin over the chunky appliance's old speakers, rang out into the silence. "Maybe all this wouldn't have happened if we hadn't met."

No, she wanted to scream, don't do this to me. I didn't want to do it. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—

Something compelled her to keep watching. She wanted nothing more than to tear her gaze off the wretched clip—she just wanted to walk away and escape this suffocating prison of panic and guilt—but she couldn't. Because of that very remorse, she'd been pinned down and forced to stare at the TV.

She could hear her breaths sounding as the TV went out with a static crackle of electricity, the gasps for air too fast as she tried to shake off that horrible drowning feeling. Breaths weren't supposed to be loud, but they filled her ears and consumed the void, turning the silence into a grating, defeaning screech that her own ears had distorted.

Closing her eyes—propelled by an urge to erase that scene from her mind, though it seemed impossible—she stumbled on, afraid to glance at the next screen—but the cacophony of unruly noises generated by the devices around her formed a magnetic, irresistible force that dragged her gaze upon the hardware.

Quinn was on the one to her left, hazel eyes wide and unseeing as she stood in a chaotic land of utter destruction—one that she couldn't recognise—as she leant against a dead tree, her life being marked by the slight rise and fall of her chest. Crimson liquid dampened the skin beneath her scalp—even her eyes looked as if they were crying blood, red filling the crack in the scar-like pattern etched in her skin.

A Pokeball lay in her hand, crushed beyond recognition and dull—it was empty. It didn't contain any Pokemon—and then, she saw it: Celebi, lying in a puddle of her own blood, the small corpse lifeless and battered—she was beyond repair.

She switched her head away, refusing to stare at the clip any further—but the damage had already been done, the images leaving a burning a fresh mark into a chamber of her brain.

The screen to the right wasn't any better. Ryou's eyes were closed, but he was alive—yet, her heart lurched at the red fluid snaking around his limbs, even more of the blood spilling from his lips and eyes.

His eyes opened, as if looking straight towards her—and the smile that graced his face was truly terrifying. The trainer's lips curled in an act of silent despise, and his irises were shrunken to a point where unnatural couldn't describe it—but the grin was wider than ever, forced and curved as if he'd stuck a knife in his mouth.

And then it hit her. He'd lost it. He'd lost every bit of sanity he'd worked so hard to hold on to, just when he was working on healing. There wasn't any bit of warmth in those eyes—they were hard and cold; yet, tears brimmed at their edges.

"Stop," she mumbled, unsure of who she was talking to—there was no one there. "Stop doing this."

She was running now; running from the TVs and from all those grotesque episodes, running as if it would solve everything and she would forget about everything that happened. Was she trying to prove something?—she honestly didn't know anymore.

One thing that remained constant was her stamina—out of breath, she crumpled to her knees, bending over and gulping in a huge lungful of oxygen. As much as she hated it, she leant against one of the dreaded devices—and she could her feel her mind racing as her bank burnt from simply resting against the cursed metal.

Then, she noticed the dull sheen to the gadget's screen. It was off. No video awaited her; there was nothing to taunt her. And that was the most unsettling thing of all.

They were gone. This was the end—her friends had left her. They were gone, and she was alone—and this time, it was permanent.

I've never been a strong person, she reflected. I'm clumsy, and I'm not the most logical or street-smart person—I've always needed to depend on someone—to be with someone. That's why I made friends. I couldn't be alone.

But these friends were gone now. She was alone. She didn't have anyone to depend on anymore—and without them, she was nothing. Her mind couldn't be laid at rest—it chattered at her, having started to corrode. She was losing herself to the panic—and the more she tried to calm herself down, the more fog filled and muddled up her brain.

Maybe that's why I'm protective, she thought to herself. But this was my fault. If I hadn't gotten tricked by the Meowstic—she had figured out that much by now—none of this would have happened. And now, all this is happening.

She was lonely. Her friends had been the ones to leave her all alone. She didn't want to be all alone—why did they choose to leave her?

I'm not protective. I don't want others to leave me because I'm selfish. I want to control everything—I want to maintain the peace in my life. I need to have them. I'm not a friend—I'm just someone who tries to be nice so that I won't end up alone.

And look where that got you, a voice whispered in her ear. It was something unfamiliar; something foreign, but it held the same mocking tone that the Meowstic had used. Because you tried too hard, you ended up losing everything.

Yes. Whoever that had spoken was right. If she had been stronger—if she had been stronger-willed, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe her friends would still be with her. But it was because of that weakness that she failed when it had mattered most—something she had always succeeded at doing—and that was why she was always going to end up alone.

She stared ahead, past the end of the corridor and towards someone familiar—it was Meowstic, having disguised herself as her clone once again, holding an outstretched arm towards her as she spoke in a slow voice.

"Last mission," she muttered to herself, "This is her—'my'—last mission." Then, her voice grew in pitch as she directed her speech at Celeana—"Why don't you stop? Look at what happened. You tried so hard to be such a good friend, but no one reciprocated."

With that, she started to take swaying steps towards her, violet eyes half-open as a welcoming smile bloomed on her face.

"They'll leave you behind and vanish," she sighed. "All because of your differences. These differences are what make humans so cruel, don't you think? It's OK—I found a solution. A way to ensure that you'll never be alone again."

The coordinator took a deep breath, her mind whispering to her in short giggling bursts—it hurt. It hurt and she never wanted to drown in these uncontrollable ways ever again. Her head slowly raised against her will. "Never alone?"

How funny—she's just like how she was five years ago when I let her go. Suppressing a chuckle, the Meowstic spoke once again.

"Create a world that's ideal to you," she smiled. "It's that simple. They won't leave you like what Quinn did. They'll never tell you that you're not your friend like what Ryou did."

The girl's breathing increased. "That's...right," she conceded, her amber eyes slowly dulling and fogging over. "A world where I can control even my friends...I'll lose track of all time. It would be...good. If I came with you...all of them will be with me forever."

"That's right," the feline nodded. "Come with me, and I'll give me plenty of friends that'll stay with you forever. Doesn't that sound wonderful?"

She took a step out of the corridor, glancing at the firm look in her replica's eyes before taking her outstretched hand—it was warm. She was safe here.

"I was stupid," Celeana muttered. "So stupid."

And I will always be stupid, her mind mumbled. But this world doesn't care. This world they're talking about will accept that fact.

Her world darkened—and her mind started to shut down, and she didn't know when she would wake. But that didn't matter to her now—she wasn't afraid of what was to come. A final sentence pierced the fine line between consciousness and sweet, sweet sleep.

"It looks like you failed this test."

• • •

「The song in the media is Magia, the ending song to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. This English version is sung by Lizz, a YouTube singer.」

aGh I just wrote for 3 straight hours someone save me because my brain has been turned to absolute mUsh I cri

Did I--I just smashed Madoka Magica, Tokyo Ghoul and Noragami into one book didn't I

Well, I know you wanted some Celeana angst! :D I think this is the happiest chapter so far~ (^・ω・^ )

Besides that, thank you SO MUCH for 9K reads and 1134 votes! That's about a 400+ increase in reads :o My next goal is 1149!

Critiques are most certainly welcome, and don't forget to read, vote and give your thoughts in the comments! Please be 100% honest!

~ nyxia ☆