morality

Ma'am shock.

“Sorry t’hear that,” Ryuko offered lamely, not knowing what to say in response. She’d always been terrible at comforting people… well, at least she thought she would be. She’d never really been given the occasion to comfort anyone when it came to this sort of thing. Ryuko had no idea what the girl in front of her had been through, anyway, so her shallow consolation probably would have come across as nothing more than a number of platitudes either way.

“…Yeah. I feel you there,” she continued softly, toeing some errant dirt off of her shoe. “Didn’t think I needed ‘em for a while there. But sometimes just bein’ in your head with yourself gets to be way too much to handle.”

Underneath the forcefully added layers of thread that were inside her body, Ragyo had experienced all sorts of hurt. Defilement. There were times when she didn't want anyone around, hell, she's still trying to act normal whenever people gave her friendly elbow jabs. Compared to Ryuko, Ragyo was a complete monster already from the inside out.

Freudian excuses.

"...You're great just the way you are," Ragyo said, smiling as she opened her eyes to speak directly to the girl. "Never think otherwise. You're a thousand times better than me; I can feel it. Always....always stay close to your friends, even when you want to be alone at times. You'll....never know when they might go away."

She bit her lip.

“I dunno. Never thought a’ my name that way,” she said uneasily, her face coloring with emotion in spite of herself in response to the compliment. Though she knew that it flew in the face of everything she’d been fighting for until just recently, Ryuko felt she could trust the stranger before her… Rather, she felt herself placing her trust with her, regardless of what Ryuko herself wanted.

Had was right. The girl was right on the mark. Ragyo looked down at her shoes, wondering whether this would be the path that she would still go through even if her sister was alive today.

"...I had a sister. She....passed away right after she was born. I don't even know who came first, so I don't know who's older or who's younger. We're....twins, you see."

The memory of her sister was like a cross for her to bear; a cross that she willingly brought upon herself. If Ragyo had died instead of her sister, wouldn't her parents be even happier? Wouldn't they be proud of her instead of exercising extreme parental neglect and the occasional abuse?

But in other ways, it was terribly sad. Something about this Ragyo was … different. Untainted. Ryuko wished that this was the Ragyo she had known from the beginning, though she knew nearly nothing about her. Her words worked against her jaw, a fist clenched as her eyebrows knit together in response to what the girl before her said, a wave of sentiment breaking over her.

This wasn’t her mother, no matter how badly she wanted her to be.

“…I don’t think y’will,” Ryuko replied, her own voice cracking in much the same way as Ragyo’s. “So… so I won’t.”

That was the first name that she had keyed in for voice recognition at the Tailoring Club. That silly question Oogure had placed to make fun of the members, that silly mandatory question that everyone had to answer. 'What would you name your future child?'

It did sound familiar.

"....It's a beautiful name," Ragyo eventually said, smiling warmly at Ryuko. "I wish that I had your name, really. Mother did name my sister a nicer name, and she gave me this....weird one. I mean, come on, who would name their kid Ragyo?"

Yes, Ryuko knew she wasn’t wrong. So why did it seem like this Ragyo wasn’t a threat? “I don’t… think y’do,” Ryuko began slowly, chewing her lip and trying to organize her thoughts. “But. I think I know who you are. I dunno how or why, an’ for some reason I don’t think you’re the, uh, you that I knew.”

Was it because the girl looked a bit like her? Did she remind her of someone? There were many possibilities that she could be some sort of relative, appearance wise, but Ragyo was pretty sure that she was never introduced to an extended family throughout her life.

The girl had the same will that she had; that same iron will that always supported her and never failed her even in the most trying of times. The infamous Kiryuin stubbornness, it seemed. Even if the girl didn't exhibit it, Ragyo could tell by the look in the girl's eyes.

She was scared.

Ragyo was scared.

"....I won't hurt you," was her first sentence. It was a default sentence that she would always say to others, right before she had formed the Tailoring Club that consisted of all her friends. "So please....

As their eyes met, Ryuko felt a chill run up her spine as the stranger repeated herself. There was something in the look that this Ragyo was giving her—perhaps it was in the way the corners of her eyes had narrowed, or maybe it was in the set of her jaw—that made the validity in her claim all the more inarguable. Ragyo’s conviction, strong as Ryuko’s own, pushed against her denial, steel against fire.

Blood pounding in her ears, Ryuko took a step back, breaking her gaze from the strangers. “You… can’t be. There’s no fuckin’ way,” she breathed. She was more than aware that without Senketsu or her rending scissor, she was as good as dead. Still, she turned her eyes back up to Ragyo’s, the anger in her expression evaporating in order to be replaced by something akin to confusion.

Ragyo had never met this girl in her life.

She could hear her folded Kamui trying to calm her down from her schoolbag--clearly, it was much too late. She was trying her best to keep calm, but what the girl said took her aback.

“You’re fuckin’ with me,” she managed to choke, her face transforming into a visage of anger as quickly as her shock had settled in. “If this is a joke, it’s the shittiest one I’ve ever heard.” Curling her fingers into a fist, Ryuko grit her teeth, advancing towards the girl who called herself Ragyo. She hadn’t heard anything else that the stranger had said, let alone registered her friendly, markedly non-aggressive tone.

Shock.

As far as she remembered, that indeed was her name. She didn't go by any other name, and she was starting to revel in the fact that she was someone who was important in a measly high school. It was better than nothing, anyways, but to hear this girl say her name as if it was a curse....

....it did make her angry.

Ragyo looked at the girl straight in the eyes; the girl did have such peculiar, beautiful eyes, and she wondered for half a second whether her poor, deceased sister might have had her eyes.

          Such the coy flicker of the hand, she brushed the torn attire away, the visage of pity growing only stronger and stronger as the moment passed. Perhaps this ‘pity’ was true, or perhaps it was all a fraud; a regularity. 

            ❝Oh geez, geez, truly what an unfortunate soul you are, all alone! This dress here, nada, nada, it won’t do at all! This flimsy fabric, disgusting.❞

            But oh yes, she truly had some degree in faith in this girl; she could spot out such a budding hope as swiftly as she could spot the scratch upon fabric, indeed! Hands held out in front of that girl, threads taken into her fingers once more. Then, it was almost a supernatural phenomenon, but the ends steady met, slowly, ever so slowly but surely, forming the end of a sleeve.

If anything else, these threads were magical. They were the embodiment of everything perfect. Why hadn't she seen it before, the things that these threads could do? Why hadn't she appreciated them back when she was a fool?

It was fortunate that she didn't have the memories of a fool.

She could make a dress of her own; she could. No, she can. Ragyo has always had a passion for sewing up loose ends, transforming cloth into the most beautiful of clothes. If these threads gave her the opportunity to showcase her talents...

Ragyo didn't show any ill-will whatsoever; she merely smiled as if she was humoring a small child. At this rate, the pink-haired wonder before her was indeed small, so it actually increased Ragyo's...superiority. How old was this girl anyways? 

                                      Kiryuuin?

Her expression was momentarily perturbed, the smile seemed to evaporate, in its place held a peculiar sense of shock. It was regained, as an obvious fact, but that very change flipped a switch to suspicion. 

         ❝Waaaaah, what a wonderful name that is~❞ Her fingers continued to fumble along with the threads, before eventually tangling them into the arbitrary mass they had emerged as. ❝The same name that my maman was called~ How uncanny, huh? Le monde est petit, no?❞

         Her fingers eventually ceased their experted weave, a right hand gently tossing the ball to the relatively silent girl below. Wasn’t she like such an adorable messiah in pink?

        ❝Such great potential I see in you too, you know~! You seem to have watched those little threads for so long now; you’ve got to be able to do a little something with them, I know it! 

"Rather, people disappoint me. You needn't worry about my potential."

The girl was sharp in speech, however, she took no offense to it. It was inevitable, of course, the human nature. Bad breeding, the humans on this Earth. However, the girl before her was far from human; if anything, she was entirely familiar in unusual ways.

Sick. She was sick of her dress. She had been wearing it for days, days. She needed a change. Her dislike of old trends slowly ate away at her state of mind; clothes were important, and appearances must be kept up. She knew that she was beautiful already; she needed to be stunning.

"...Non, non," Ragyo shook her head, clutching at her immaculately white dress. "This will not do at all. The dress, it's not to my...."