The Needle Of Oblation
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“Miyo?”
Tomitake could only make out faint shapes and colors as they bloomed into more solid forms. He recognized her, the color of her beautiful hair like fields of wheat—something he had always associated with her—something that he could only see her in. His question received no answer, even as it was obvious Takano was busy at work with something—paying close attention to him.
Tomitake was beyond disoriented. Although he couldn’t be sure, this environment was the type of familiar that elicited a sense of calm in him. He tried to rationalize his confusion away.
Oh , he thought, it’s just the hospital. I must have gotten tired after rushing to meet her here.
He couldn’t consider how odd it was that he would choose to rest in a gurney instead of in one of the nice, comfortable chairs of the break room; nor could his foamy awareness recognize the telltale sensation of the thick cords that snapped shut around his broad shoulders, the proof of his strength declared with his body domesticated, his physique a proud proclamation of his career as a military asset was now laid to waste under the bright hospital lights.
Takano was wearing her ‘work’ clothes, her tight nurse's uniform that clung to her womanly figure in all the right places, the very one that drove Tomitake wild. He watched her blankly, absorbed into the way her body curved and how the buttons across the chest of her uniform buckled the fabric just slightly as it strained to cover her voluptuous breasts, her milky flesh just barely visible whenever it glinted underneath. Her golden hair pooled across her shoulders, long strands filtering across where she worked at a thin metal table, arranging a series of tools. Tomitake thought, unwisely underestimating her once again, that she looked rather cute when she focused on something so hard, so seriously, as though it were one of the most important things in the world. How badly he wanted her to look at him like that.
Tomitake never remembered his place. He always got lost in the security of his manhood, the illusion of superior strength he felt he intrinsically held over Takano despite his lower station. He was distracted by her beauty, lost in it and in her calculated gentleness. Although he should have known better—had Takano been a man, he would have certainly known better—her charms were not lost on him. Tomitake had found himself believing that her false persona was something very real—that Takano was somehow perfectly normal, an ordinary nurse working dutifully at the Irie Institute.
Takano looked down at where Tomitake rested, totally disoriented and obvious with the signals of his deep affection. She examined him with disgust. Her smooth skin wrinkled slightly in the severity of the expression before she reminded herself to calm her muscles—it wouldn’t be very much longer now. The final stages of her plan were fast on their heels, approaching as quickly as the festival of Watanagashi had. In the heralds of its approach, the excited clamor that came with the preparations, Takano had found peace. Now, it was time, at long last, to dispose of the worthless baggage that she had grown tired of dragging behind her.
She snapped white latex gloves against her wrists, flexing her fingers until they creaked against the material, getting herself more comfortable. On the paper towel across the metal table of tools, she reached for the first, a large, already-prepared syringe filled with a bubbling fluorescent pink fluid. She flicked her finger against the glass vial, routine calling her to release the air bubbles. She laughed at herself. It wouldn’t matter if she injured his veins. He’d do a lot worse on his own once she was through with him.
Tomitake slurred his words together, incomprehensible attempts at sentences spuming from his lips as Takano approached him. He whined like a needy child, desperate for her attention, hypnotized by the overflowing stream of desires he’d felt for Takano, all the ways he could realize he needed her once his regular inhibitions had been excised from him.
Takano bit her tongue, her hands finding the part of his arm she had already strapped down. The thick, meaty part of his forearm was decorated in strong, healthy veins, ready for their violation. She pressed her gloved hands into his damp skin, so wet with sweat that she realized that she’d definitely given him too much of her favorite sedative.
It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter.
She twirled the syringe in her fingertips, getting it lined into position. Tomitake stayed still, patiently, soothed by the feeling of her gentle touch on his body. His eyes fluttered shut, his breath long and deep, rolling from his chest as though he were sound asleep.
Takano guided the needle into his skin. It soared into his strong veins effortlessly, smooth as butter. She hovered her thumb against the plunger, hesitating just for a moment—just long enough for her motivations to force it down, to deliver her retribution. The barrel of the syringe cleared almost instantly, brutally flooding into Tomitake’s waiting bloodstream. It was done. The plunger was pressed as far as it could go, not a drop left in the barrel. All the ingredients for Level 5 Hinamizawa Syndrome were flushed into their new host.
Takano eased the needle out of his arm, stroking him with her free hand with reassuring pats, the way a butcher would stroke his doomed cattle. She set the used needle on the tray so she could dispose of it later. Tomitake only started to groan in pain once she’d turned, once she’d left his side. He finally felt the shooting, white hot and fiery pain as it howled through his blood.
Takano kept her back to him, pretending she was busy as she reorganized her collection of scalpels and knives. She looked at the last drops of his clean blood as they dropped slowly, falling like rain onto the snow white paper towel she’d set.
The clock was at the exact time she’d prepared—right on schedule. Takano smiled to herself, feeling one step closer to her goals. Her hard work had every chance of success.
The hands of the clock clicked, echoing out against the sterile walls as they marched forward, as Tomitake’s body began to change. The dosage was incredible, shocking his entire system. The invisible assault was destroying him, a series of hidden injuries rippling under the shell of his skin. He thrashed against his bondage, stammering Takano’s name. The wheels of the metal gurney spun, throwing him side to side as he struggled. Takano was glad she had the foresight to strap him in as securely as she had—what had seemed like overkill was now serving its purpose. As always, Takano was prepared for all outcomes.
Tomitake’s labored breath grew ragged. His eyes were wide, terrified as the typical hallucinations began to take their natural course, as the concoction infiltrated his brain. Takano came for him when his body had finished throwing its tantrum. She took one of his large, weathered hands into hers.
“Jirou-san.” She spoke his name and he locked in on her, his face softening. “You’re very sick, so I’ve been helping take care of you.”
Tomitake had forgotten his real name, the name behind the role ‘Tomitake’. Between the rush of all the different pharmaceuticals that roamed his body, he was absorbed into his character, into the illusion that he and Takano had participated in—something beyond friendship, but not yet committed lovers. The nature of their false relationship and its pretenses were still that of a cat and a mouse. The character of Tomitake was happily doomed to forever be used as Takano's plaything. She preferred it that way. And really, he couldn’t complain.
“Thank you.” He whispered. His hair clung to his forehead where it was wet with his sweat. He smiled weakly at her.
Takano couldn’t help but clench Tomitake’s hand in revulsion.
She reached for a towel, dabbing against the pools that had formed across his brow, his chest. He seemed to find tranquility in the gesture, calming enough that Takano felt confident to take his braces off. She had to help him out of the hospital. She had to scrub every trace of him before anyone could notice he was missing.
Tomitake had been dressed in one of the outfits he’d worn for his disguises, in his role as a friendly visiting photographer. Takano helped guide him to sit up, running gentle strokes down his back whenever he cried out from the pain that assaulted his body, coaching him to move further, faster. She paid more attention to the rhythm of the clock's tick-tick-ticking than she did to Tomitake’s suffering.
“Come, my dear.” Takano honeyed her words to bribe him to stand, to goad him into using a quicker pace.
He wordlessly obeyed, trusting her, following her as she ushered him to the back exit of the hospital. They walked into the brisk night air, the cicadas' shrill cries quieted in the darkness. Takano rustled through the shallow pocket on the side of her bridal white uniform, finding her keys. They jingled between her fingers. She unlocked the passenger side door, opening it wide for Tomitake’s strapping figure, pushing him down and into the velvety seat. She buckled him in, patting him on the head, a reward for his good behavior. It quieted him, just for a moment, before she slammed the door shut. He went back to braying like a wounded animal.
Takano smoothed the back of her dress before she slid into the driver's seat, being careful to make sure she sat modestly, knowing her skirt was hiking up the swells of her legs. She permitted Tomitake’s hungry stare, the way he couldn’t help but be drawn into where her thighs spilled out from her stockings, how perfectly pale they looked under the glow of the yellow-orange interior lighting above the rearview mirror.
She played the radio to keep him quiet, finding his incessant cries irritating. Takano hoped it would distract him enough, hoping that maybe it would keep him hypnotized into feeling a false sense of normal about his frighteningly abnormal predicament. She focused herself and her attention into the narrow point on the horizon, the point where all the long stripes of yellow dotted lines met. The road was bumpy on the way out from the hospital, her tires crunching against gravel and dirt, sending Tomitake groaning as he was jostled from side to side. Takano could hear his sweat and his thick saliva as it pounded against the dashboard and the passenger window.
They pulled past a bus stop, venturing out and along one of the outer roads. She found her target position, near one of the village's only telephone booths. She turned off her high beams, flicking her turning signal on out of habit. It ticked as she guided the car to a crawl against the shoulder of the road. Tomitake was incapable of understanding anything any longer—he had already begun to tear at his neck, digging his punishing nails in as hard as he could.
Takano checked behind her, staring in the rearview mirror to look for any incoming traffic. She carefully watched the lines of the trees for any motion, for any miniscule chance of a passerby this late at night. She didn’t find it. She wondered why she’d even bothered to check.
Takano reached over Tomitake—he lashed at her with shocking violence, but Takano was prepared for it, preferring it to his demonstrations of affection. She released the handle of his door, sending it flying open, exhibiting Tomitake into the bank of the ditch that skirted the highway. She unbuckled Tomitake and he collapsed forwards, head drooping over the dashboard. He gripped her wrist firmly, crushing her. The blood from his fingertips stained her skin.
Takano expertly wriggled herself free from his grip, pressing her other palm into his chest, forcing him backwards. He had poor control over his body. Even though he made an attempt to hold onto the sides of the car, Takano kept pushing. He clung to the seat, the headrest, and then the metal of the outside of the passenger door. Takano thrust all of her body weight into him, hurling her rage, pounding into Tomitake until his arms began to buckle and give way. Pain twisted his face, copper blood starting to fizzle out of the streaks of rusty gashes from his neck in spurts.
“It’s time to go, First Lieutenant.” Takano hid none of her resentment from her voice.
Takano let her feet come free from her pretty high heels, leaving them behind near the pedals. She brought her feet up and towards herself, her legs bowed. Takano flipped her legs around, a smooth arc hovering across the gear stick, sliding herself towards Tomitake until her legs were bent, facing the place where he hung so close to the outside of the car. She thrust her legs towards him with all her might, all of the force she could manage, kicking her feet into his stomach to forcibly throw him out.
She wouldn’t be able to get heavy blood stains out of her car if they fell—she wouldn’t be able to explain them away no matter how hard she tried. With determination and desperation, her strength was unmatched. Tomitake looked at her in shock—a look that immediately seared itself into her mind, the last look they would ever share—as he was sent careening down into the belly of the ditch, his cry deafening. Takano trembled, overcome with nerves at being so close to the destruction of her plans. Thankfully, the only blood that remained was crusted around her gloves and her wrist. She thanked her grandfather for watching over her, offering a prayer to him, her success in this phase of her mission a sign she took as a blessing for her to press onward, unforgivingly.
She crawled across the center console and firmly shut the passenger door. She rolled down the window, cranking its handle as fast as she could, straining to hear if anything was happening from where Tomitake had landed—but she heard nothing but the wind filtering through the leaves of trees. She slowly drove away, turning her headlights back on. As her car made it back onto the road, crawling to a normal speed, she watched the ditch carefully, wondering if Tomitake even had the strength to crawl out of it.
He didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Staring into the face of the future, reflecting only on the potential outcomes of the rest of her plans, she drove away in silence.