[FFML] [fanfic][dark][Yotsuba&!] Pretty Neighbor 2nd Visit, Chapter 17: Torako & Guilt

[Mythril Moth]

NOTE:

I'm sorry for the delay getting this out. I have been incredibly sick the 
last few days, even culminating in a trip to the ER last night/ I'm better 
now, and I won't explain what went down. Point is, I'm back, and I'm sorry 
for the delay, and here we go again.

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TORAKO & GUILT

by Mythril Moth

based on Yotsuba&! by Azuma Kiyohiko

subsequently based on the "Pretty Neighbor" Yotsuba& doujinshi series

no permission asked or given

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As Mr. Hayasaka and Miura were making arrangements to temporarily move Miura 
in with the Koiwai family, Torako slipped away, pulled out her phone, and 
with trembling hands, dialled a number she had stored in memory years ago 
but had never called.

//Please record a message at the tone. *BEEP*//

"Anesan? It's...it's me. I...I know we haven't spoken for many years, not 
since Mom and Dad kicked me out. Listen, I...I don't want anything from you. 
I just want to apologize for...for any grief I may have given you. I...it's 
taken me many years, but I've learned to appreciate how important sisters 
are, and...and how stupid it was of me to hate you just for being prettier 
and better and more popular than me. I...I'm sorry, Anesan. I...I'm sorry."

-----------------------------------

"Torako-san."

"Yes, Koiwai-san?"

"There are a few things in particular we'd like to ask you."

Torako sighed, lighting a cigarette. "I thought there might be."

Fuuka began, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. "Torako-san...are you...I 
mean...do you resent my being Yotsuba-chan's mommy?"

"Not at all, Fuuka-san," Torako said, letting out a shaky laugh. "You are 
the most ideal mother I could imagine for Yotsuba-chan. You love her and you 
are...you're exactly what she needs."

Fuuka sighed. "Thank you."

Koiwai sat forward. "Torako-san...when the threat of Asagi is ended..."

Torako shook her head. "No. I will not attempt to reclaim Yotsuba-chan. She 
is your daughter now." She sighed, taking a long drag from her cigarette. 
"Any right I had to her was taken from me, that day..."

"No, Yotsuba-chan HERSELF was taken from you," Fuuka said.

Torako eyed her calmly. "And I could have taken her back, if I had only done 
the one thing I am incapable of doing." She sighed. "If I had killed Asagi, 
that day, I would not have lost my child..."

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Thunder rumbled as the wind and rain swept through the underpass. She leaned 
against the wet concrete, the rain slicker she had put on over her 
blood-soaked hospital gown doing little to keep the lashing storm out of her 
hair. In her condition, she faltered every few steps, but still she 
staggered through the storm, lightning illuminating the rage on her face. A 
shard of glass, wrapped with electrical tape for a handle, shone with blood 
as she advanced on her prey.

The tall girl lay on the ground, face wet and plastered with blown leaves; 
blood mixed with water trickled from a nasty cut on her forehead. She smiled 
coldly up at the advancing girl; clutched tightly in a bundle of blankets, 
just barely secured from the wind and rain, was a small, wailing infant, 
tiny tufts of green hair peeking around her purple, screaming face.


"Can you do it, Kurosawa? To save this precious little brat of yours, can 
you really kill? Because if you do not kill me, then I will disappear with 
her. I WILL HAVE HER AND YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING!"

"A...sagi..." the green-haired girl growled, staggering; one arm was no 
longer usable. "Give...give me back..."

Asagi lay in the soaked dirt, motionless, a mocking smile on her lips. "Then 
take her. If you can."

One more step...two...the glass knife raised...

Trembled...

...fell to the ground.

"GET HER! HELP THE CAPTAIN!"


"Captain, are you okay?"

"Of course I am. Here, dispose of this thing somewhere. No, wait. I have a 
better idea."

The young mother crouched on the ground, having been tackled by another of 
Asagi's gang. She glared up at the cold girl, eyes blazing through dripping 
green bangs...

"Oh my, oh my. Eyes like a tiger. Hmm...from now on, I'll call you Torako. 
Yes? Good. Now, Torako...if you want your sweet little child to grow up at 
all, you will do every last thing I tell you. EVER."

The thunder could not mask Asagi's cruel laughter.

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"You see, when I was fourteen, well...I was a pretty troubled kid. I didn't 
mean to do stuff, it just kinda happened because I was so frustrated."

------------------------------------

"Oh GOD, what has she done THIS time?"

"It's nothing serious, but please attempt to be more responsible in handling 
this girl."

"Of course, Officer. Thank you."

As soon as the police officer was gone, Mom began screeching.

"WHAT THE *HELL*?! Being brought home by the POLICE? For GOD KNOWS WHAT? 
...you know, just get the fuck out of my sight. I cannot even stand to look 
at your stupid face."

------------------------------------

"That kind of thing. And...I have this sister. She's, well...perfect. She's 
beautiful, has an even better body than Fuuka-san..."

Fuuka blushed.

"Everyone always adored her. My parents, she was the favorite. I was treated 
like dog shit. So I acted like dog shit..."

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"...we'd better get outta here. If the cops have to drag me home again, I'm 
dead."

"Yeah."

Two teenage girls ran through the neon-lit streets, away from the 
spectcularly damning scene of a patissiere engulfed in flames.

"Hey, Kurosawa, why do you do this kind of shit anyway?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just...striking back against my folks."

"Ah, they're real dicks, huh?"

"To me anyway..."

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"And then something happened that wasn't my fault."

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"Whoa, will you check out the BUSH on this bitch!"

"What the...holy shit, bush is LITERAL here, what the fuck?"

"Please...get off me..."

"Oh, we're gonna 'get off' alright, leafy. Seriously, why the hell you go 
and dye your pubes green like that?"

"I don't think it's the pubes that are dyed," one of the four boys that had 
cornered her in an alley said. "Check out the roots."

"Hoooo-ly SHIT."

"I don't know so much I wanna fuck this bitch now, that's some freaky shit, 
yo. What if we get some kind of mutant vegetable disease or something?"

"...are you a fuckin' retard?"

"Let me go...please...and yes you'll get a disease if you rape me, a 
horrible one...your dick will turn green and fall off...so just don't..."

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"Pregnant."

The green-haired girl--truly green now, with black ends, because she had not 
bothered to dye it again since the day she was raped--bowed her head. "It's 
not my fault."

"OF COURSE IT'S YOUR FAULT, YOU GODLESS LITTLE WHORE!"

"No...I was raped...I swear I'm not lying!"

"Get out. We will not have you and your bastard child under our roof. It's 
shameful."

"But..."

"Out!"

"Mom...Dad..."

"OUT!!"

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"And so I was homeless, and hopeless, and pregnant. And then I fell in with 
a gang of sukeban. They had their own condo; one of the senior members was 
doing enjokosai with a rich old man who paid her to live in one of his 
condos. Since he only came around once a week or so to fuck her, we all just 
kinda hung out there, and made ourselves scarce on his nights to call. He 
knew we were there, of course, but he didn't care."

----------------------------------

"Hey, Kurosawa, you need anything?"

"Eh, I dunno. Yeah. Just get whatever, you know I'll eat it."

"Okay."

"By the way, when am I gonna meet the Captain?"

"Probably never," one of the other girls said, picking lint off her long 
skirt. "She almost never comes here, it's beneath her to be seen with us."

"And you're friends with someone like that?"

"Friends? Get your head out of your big pig ass, Kurosawa. She's our 
CAPTAIN. Do you really think the daimyo just hung out with the samurai 
whenever he felt like it? That generals go shit in the same latrine as 
privates?"

"...sorry. I didn't really understand how it works here."

"Eh, you will soon enough. Once you've got that thing out of you, the 
Captain can probably use you."

"I'll...do whatever I can, since you've all taken such good care of me."

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"And then the day before I had Yotsuba, I met Asagi for the very first 
time."

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"Wow, I thought you were kidding. REAL green hair?" The long-haired, 
beautiful girl tittered. "Oh my, oh my! How strange!" She leaned down and 
inspected the newest provisional member of her gang. "Please tell me your 
name isn't Midori. Because if your parents were actually ridiculous 
enough..."

"My name is not Midori."

"Good, because I'd have killed you for that just on general principles." The 
tall girl plucked at a lock of emerald green hair, then smirked, blowing in 
Kurosawa's face. "You WILL dye that freaky hair again once you've had the 
kid, right?"

"I will cut it and dye it, yes. I keep it very short and completely dyed."

"Good." The Captain sighed. "I'm Ayase Asagi. I run this little band of 
assorted riff-raff."

"Eat me, Captain, I make twice as much blowing an 80-year-old guy once a 
month than your dad makes in that salaryman job," one of the girls, who had 
been drinking, retorted.

Asagi twitched. "I will ignore that," she said frostily, "because you are 
drunk. But NEVER make such comments to me again, Takako, is that 
understood?"

"Yeah yeah."

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"You see, she's like that old witch in that Miyazaki movie. Once you're her 
bitch, she makes up a name for you and you never hear your real name out of 
her mouth again," Torako explained. "Back then, there was Takako, Ushiko, 
Usako, Shikako, Unako, Umako..." She shook her head. "As creative as she is 
with everything else she does, she sucks at naming her minions.

"And then, I had my child..."

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"Oh my, oh my. It has the same disgusting hair as the mother. What kind of 
decent human being would I be if I didn't dispose of this thing 
immediately?"

"Captain..." Ushiko said, face pale, "Captain...I mean no disrespect, 
but...don't you think that's taking things too far?"

Asagi raised an eyebrow at Ushiko. "Are you questioning my judgement, after 
I helped make sure the police would never know you castrated those five 
chikan?"

"Of course not, Captain..."

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"But Ushiko at least still had a soul, unlike most of Asagi's cunt 
brigade..."

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"Kurosawa? Hey, Kurosawa, wake up!" Ushiko hissed insistently.

"Mmm? What...what is it?"


"Asagi...she stole your baby."

"...WHAT?!"

"She...I don't know what she's planning, but..."

"No. No, she can't! SHE CAN'T!"

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"I smashed the water pitcher by the bed and used some tape Ushiko had with 
her to make a knife. Then I went after Asagi and my baby."

Torako sighed. "And then I couldn't do the one most simple thing to save my 
daughter. And that mistake...has haunted me ever since." She sniffled.

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"Oh my, oh my...Ushiko, it seems like you decided to betray me after all."

Ushiko looked off to the side, head bowed.

Asagi reached down and picked up the glass knife Torako had dropped in the 
mud. "I'm sorry, Ushiko, but you asked for this."

Asagi spent the next thirty minutes slowly killing Ushiko with the weapon 
that was intended for her. Torako watched in horror, unable to even move.

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"Torako-san..."

"I'm going to help Miura-dono prepare herself to kill Asagi. Once Asagi is 
dead, your family can be at peace. I cannot kill her myself, but I can make 
sure Miura-dono has all the skills she needs."

Koiwai stared flatly at her. "Oi oi. '-dono' now?"

Torako blew a few rings of smoke. "Koiwai-san, think about the ridiculous 
situation we're in. We have a twenty year old woman on the loose who is evil 
incarnate and can and will have any number of completely innocent people 
harmed or worse. I have had to spend every month of the last five years 
crying over photographs I get in the mail once a month of the daughter I 
never even got to hold in my own arms. I have completely failed as a mother 
and as a human being. And all because I am too much like Asagi at my very 
core. All because I was so stupidly and pointlessly jealous of my sister 
that I turned into an out of control little bitch. And now a ten year old 
girl has to fight my battles for me.

"If I'm putting some weird samurai movie twist on all this, it's only so I 
can stay sane enough to see it through to the end."

The married couple eyed her for a long time.

"She really fucked you over, didn't she?" Koiwai asked.

"No, Koiwai-san, I fucked *myself* over. And now the only thing I can do is 
help un-fuck everyone once and for all."

"And we appreciate it," Fuuka said. She tilted her head. "By the way, 
Torako-san...if that's just a name Asagi made up for you, what's your REAL 
name?"

Torako smiled. "Well, that's..."

------------------------------------

A beautiful, dark-haired gym teacher idly hit the play button on her 
answering machine as she sorted through her mail after a long day.

//You have. One. New Message.//

//*BEEP* Anesan? It's...it's me. I...I know we haven't spoken for many 
years, not since Mom and Dad kicked me out. Listen, I...I don't want 
anything from you. I just want to apologize for...for any grief I may have 
given you. I...it's taken me many years, but I've learned to appreciate how 
important sisters are, and...and how stupid it was of me to hate you just 
for being prettier and better and more popular than me. I...I'm sorry, 
Anesan. I...I'm sorry.//

She paused, staring in absolute shock at the answering machine.

"Nanami..." she breathed, eyes wide, face pale.

A moment later, she picked up the phone and called her parents. "Mom? It's 
Minamo. You'll never guess who I got a message from today..."



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Yes, that's Nyamo.
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Mythril Moth
www.mythrilmoth.net