“Dyaus, let us wait here for Youko to return,” Ganapati said, holding her back.
“But...”
Meanwhile, Youko was headed deeper and deeper into the maze, following the voice. It grew steadily stronger, and even more anguished.
“Help... It hurts... Please! Help me, Sensei!”
Who was ‘Sensei’? Didn’t matter. Whoever it was, Youko wanted to save this Girl.
Youko paddled through the branches on her phyllopod feet. Her talents really shone here. It was as if she’d developed these feet for this moment in particular.
She found a hollow inside the labyrinth. Two Girls were facing off inside it. One, like Youko, wore a segmented exoskeleton. It was like a cone lying on its side, with a head on the thicker end, with four eyes on the tips of the stalks growing from the head, and two sharp pincers that ruthlessly tormented her opponent. Her opponent was by far the most grotesque-looking Girl Youko had seen thus far. Like someone had tried to make a fish out of slug parts and failed, it didn’t have an exoskeleton, just a slimy exterior. Between two dark, lightless eyes was a long nose-like organ. Countless bits of flesh stretched out of the feeble-looking body like abortive fins. The creepiest thing of all was her mouth. The mouth had no jaw. Just a hole, like the inside of her body was spilling out of her. Around the hole were countless rows of teeth.
“Help...” The words were spilling from this sinister creature’s soul.
Youko moved before realizing it. She set her feet on the branches, and pushed off, propelling herself forward. She rocketed towards the bully Girl like a pachinko ball, attacking with her mandibles.
“Who the hell are you!?” the pincer Girl yelled, thrown by Youko’s surprise entrance. She lost one eye before she could even bring her pincers into play. “Argh! You want some? You won’t like me now that I’m angry! I’ll...”
Without letting her opponent finish her boast, Youko attacked again. She closed her oversized mandibles and tried to slice off her opponent’s head. The now three-eyed Girl hastily leveraged her pincers, keeping the mandibles open. But Youko was stronger and was slowly forcing them closed.
“Give! I surrender! You win, just let me live!”
Youko didn’t bat an eye, and just applied more pressure. A crack appeared in the pincers’ exoskeleton, and they began to crumple. The pincer Girl knew her life was in danger and began frantically scrambling her legs, trying to back away. Her efforts were in vain. The spikes on Youko’s mandibles would not let her run.
“No! Please... I don’t want to die...!”
Slowly but surely Youko’s mandibles broke the Girl’s pincers. The pincers were filled with tasty-looking red flesh. Her mandibles didn’t stop there. They fastened around the head and began tearing into that. This Girl had once commanded a broad view of the world with her four eyes, but now she had only one eyeball left. Bodily fluids and nerves seeped out of the eye stalks. It was a tragic sight, but Youko was hell bent on making her even more tragic. Pressure from her mandible’s spikes cracked her opponent’s exoskeleton easily. Pressure was applied in inverse proportion to the surface area affected. By focusing her strength on the pointed spikes, the pressure increased exponentially. Chalk one up to physics. It was scientifically inevitable that the contents of this head would come spilling out.
Her mandibles pulped the central nervous system, severing the head from the rest of the body. With no command tower the best body around was useless. The legs were still moving, but this was no longer the orderly movement of a moment before; they were moving at random, with no cohesion. In time these convulsions would die down, but it was best to eat while the body was still fresh. As her opponent wavered between life and death, Youko dug in, forcing her towards death’s embrace.
“Eeek... Don’t eat me...”
A terrified squeal. From the bullied Girl.
“I won’t!” Youko said, munching away.
“Really?”
“I promise! Oh, where are my manners? Why don’t you eat some, too? We can talk over the meal!”
“OK. I’ll trust you for now.”
She was definitely still wary.
Youko paid this no attention and kept talking to her in a friendly voice. Like she was approaching a frightened puppy, peeling away a layer at a time.
“What’s your name? I’m Youko.”
“Vayu.”
A single word, but that word seemed to close the distance between them.
Vayu cautiously moved closer to Youko and put her mouth on the freshly killed Girl. Vayu had a unique method of consumption. With no jaw, she was forced to wrap her mouth around the Girl’s corpse. She then scratched away at the surface with her rows of teeth, drinking the blood that spilled like a parasite.
For a while, neither spoke. Vayu must have been starving and was very focused on her meal. Youko waited for her to finish.
When her appetite was satiated, Vayu spoke. “Why did you save me?”
“Hmm, I’m not really sure.”
Youko dodged the question, but deep down, she knew exactly why. The way Vayu spoke, her personality, the air of sadness that spoke of the rejection she’d endured. She was Youko’s type. Youko was attracted to Vayu like a magnetic force.
“Hmm. Well, I’m grateful. Thank you.”
Vayu moved her fleshy strings, trying to leave. At this rate they’d be forced to part. If she did nothing now, Youko would regret it the rest of her life. This conviction prompted her to action.
“Wait!”
“What now?”
Youko hesitated, unsure what to say. If she admitted Vayu was her type, she’d just drive her away. Different scenarios ran through her head on a loop, but the question that finally popped out surprised even her.
“Who’s ‘Sensei?’”
“...a Girl who helped me, once.”
Instantly, a nasty feeling filled Youko’s heart. Like she couldn’t bear Vayu being close to any other Girls. She knew this wasn’t fair and pushed it back down. “Where is she now?”
“She died.” The curtness in her reply belied a deep sorrow.
But Youko’s heart leapt. Rejoicing at the news of someone’s death was a horrible thing to do, but she couldn’t deny the relief she felt.
“That’s too bad...” she said carefully, hiding her emotions.
“I’d better be going.”
“Where to?”
She asked this reflexively, trying to draw out the conversation as long as possible. Vayu hesitated, unsure whether to answer. She was silent for several seconds, then spoke.
“I’m looking for the Girls gacha.”
“The Girls gacha?”
Come to think of it, all the gacha she’d found were outfit gacha. If this world was based on Evo Gals, it made sense that there was a Girls gacha somewhere.
“They say dead Girls come out of that gacha. I’m gonna bring Sensei back to life.”
She must really care about this Sensei. There was a fierce determination behind those words.
Youko wanted to help. She felt an urge to at least share her problems until they found the Girls gacha. It was like that urge had always been inside her. She couldn’t exactly call it a pure emotion. She definitely had some impure thoughts lurking deep inside. She wanted Vayu to rely on her. She felt like having Vayu rely on her would validate her. She had a need to force that twisted relationship.