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Touka left Nemu’s room in high dudgeon and slammed the door behind her. Ui, crouched in the shadows across the hall, froze, but Touka didn't look in her direction at all. Instead, she flipped her hair over one shoulder and marched off down the hallway.
Ui waited a few minutes to be sure she was gone. She hadn't heard the argument, but she could imagine it only too well. She thought about what she might say to fix it, if she could still speak.
Then she ran across the hallway as quickly and quietly as she could.
When Nemu had brought the hotel to life with just her mind and her magic, she had hidden it from everyone except the Feathers. She'd used the same technique to hide little dog doors in the walls from everyone but Ui. Passing through them felt the same way it felt to read her new novels; everything laid out for you if you had the eyes to see it.
Nemu was so clever. Ui loved her dearly.
She padded further into the room. Nemu was asleep, likely exhausted from the argument. She was running fluids, a few vials of medicine and a package of hypodermic syringes on her nightstand. Ui watched her breathe, the shallow rise and fall of her chest, her parted mouth, the fluids drip-dripping into her veins.
If it were Touka, Ui would curl up on her chest. In the hospital sometimes they would sneak into each other's beds at night, although they only did this when Nemu wasn't there, if she’d been transferred to a different ward for a bit. They didn't want her to feel left out. They'd whisper all night and get in trouble for not sleeping in the morning.
Touka would try to kill her if Ui hopped on her bed, and Nemu’s chest muscles were already so weak. They slept in separate rooms now.
Light as she was, Ui didn't want to risk hurting Nemu if she slept on her legs. She jumped up on the seat of Nemu’s wheelchair instead, and turned three circles before settling down to wait.
She didn't like to sleep. When she slept, she returned to that pocket universe Nemu had created for her soul, all alone in her unchanging bedroom, Iroha’s half of the room eerily empty. Ui had moved most of her belongings to the hospital, so her part of the room was impersonal and empty, too. She had spent some time during her naps exploring the mostly familiar room, had read all the books and tried on all the clothes that her parents had bought her and she'd never been well enough to wear. It was good to get out of her nightgown sometimes. She wished her sister was there to tell her how grown-up she looked.
It was nice sometimes to remember how it felt to be in a human body. Still, there was never anything new there, and when Ui pinched herself she felt no pain. So she didn't sleep much.
She cuddled her tail and waited.
Nemu's breathing stuttered, stopped, and started up again. Ui perked up. She watched Nemu wake, turn her head to the side, and lift her arms above her head. A few stretches, a few exercises, to reacquaint herself with her muscles after sleeping, and then she pressed the button on the side of the bed to sit herself up.
When she turned to Ui, Ui was already jumping over to see her.
“It's been a while,” Nemu said, letting Ui wind her way over her shoulders and nuzzle her cheek with her muzzle. “Have you been well?”
Ui nodded. Nemu was prone to winding, philosophical questions, but they could communicate alright if they stuck to yes-and-no. It was frustrating, sometimes, to no longer be able to speak. You could say that Touka and Nemu spoke enough for all of them, but Ui didn't agree. The more they spoke the more she wished she could rephrase what they'd said, soften it, change it. They were only growing more distant from her.
“Did you see Touka leave? She's been so infuriating, lately, Ui, you didn't hear her. On and on about how I'm not trying hard enough.”
Nemu scoffed and tossed her head.
“Empathy without practicality will always fail. Doesn't she know that? She thinks we're not helping fast enough but the more she dallies around with smaller goals the more likely it is that Eve’s Awakening will fail.”
Around the bed, Nemu’s sheaves of paper were rustling like leaves in the wind. Ui bumped Nemu’s chin with her head to stop the spiral.
It worked. Nemu took a shaky breath as deep as she could take one, then exhaled. It was picture-perfect technique, as if through a spirometer.
“Have you been to see onee-san?”
Ui chirped and nodded.
“I've been looking for her,” Nemu said. “I've had a Feather sent out to find her. I hear she's changed…”
Iroha had – they all had – but Ui thought that her sister had changed the least out of all of them. She'd forgotten Ui, yes, and forgotten her purpose, but it seemed as if Ui, sick and needing saving, was much like Ui, vanished from the world and needing saving.
It seemed as if all of their lives had changed irrevocably, but while Nemu and Touka were becoming strangers, Iroha seemed odder in the way she kept forging ahead.
She kneaded her feet on Nemu’s lap consideringly. Nemu scratched her under her chin.
Nemu said, thinking aloud, “She won't like what we're doing with Eve. I have to keep her away from Eve.”
Ui twitched her tail in disagreement. She wanted Iroha to see Eve, to shut her down. She didn't know if Nemu knew her thoughts on Eve, but she thought that Nemu might have a guess – this whole complicated mess, kicked off by Ui’s failure, all the people they were sacrificing for their own goals. It was an odd thing to know your own witch was on life support in the basement, and a worse thing to know that people were dying to keep it strong.
“It's only a little while longer,” Nemu told her, soothing. She smoothed a hand down Ui's tail to keep it still.
“Only a bit more energy, and then it will be Walpurgisnacht and we can rest. All of us. Won't that be wonderful?”
It was like she was talking herself into it. Nemu and Touka had always been of the opinion that even if they weren't going to live long, they might as well do something spectacular with what time they had.
Ui had never been spectacular. She was ashamed, now, to admit that she'd wanted to be – no horrible jealousy, of course she’d been so proud of both of her brilliant friends, but there was longing. She'd never wanted more than what she'd had, never wanted anything but her sisters. But she’d hungered for more freedom and time to spend it in with a fervor that scared her. She wanted to step out into the sunlight with Touka and Nemu, try different flavors of ice cream, ride a rollercoaster. She wanted Iroha to keep cooking for them. How could anyone be alright with dying young?
Still, she wasn't willing to harm others. There were lines that couldn't be crossed, and Ui’s friends had stepped and rolled over them long ago. Iroha had cured her illness, and watching her friends destroy themselves in search of something bigger had cured her of any aspiration to greatness.
Still, hadn't it been a wonderful dream? To think they could have saved anyone? There were hundreds of girls out there, right now, who were alive because of Ui.
Maybe the indecision made her weak. Maybe if she'd been more dedicated she wouldn't have let the despair overwhelm her.
While she had been thinking, Nemu had gathered her up. She held Ui close and kissed the top of her furry head.
She whispered, “I am glad you are not dead. I apologize, Ui, I'm sorry. I'm glad you're not dead.”
She'd said Ui’s name. Ui bumped her head against Nemu’s chin. Down underneath them in the chapel the trains funneled food into her body's hungry mouth.