Not the Carefulest of Girls
This is essentially "How She Will/How Will She" reworked -- it ended up being three times longer and three times creepier. Title taken from "Girl Anachronism" by The Dresden Dolls, because it really is Keiko's theme.

Independent action and its consequences. R [abuse, humiliation, themes of control, nonconsensual underage sex], 3,016.

Keiko can shift her head a few centimeters to the right if she moves slowly enough. If she does not go too fast, the restraint around her forehead will not draw taut but will instead loosen very gradually, enough so she can see Isame.

Isame no longer looks like Isame, but Keiko knows it is Isame nonetheless. She looks deep into the shifting swirl of colors and shapes—thousands of them, straight lines twisted together with curves doubling around and over and over again until her eyes hurt from trying to trace them—and sees Isame’s eyes peeking at her from beneath a clump of spiky shadows. There is more white in them than pupil, which means something. It signifies…

(“And this is a posture of submission,” Father explains gravely. “Note how the eyebrows are raised together and drawn, the tension in the hands, the angle at which the head is tilted upwards. This person is looking at their superior, and this person knows it.”

Keiko studies the man closely. Father’s observations are correct. His lips are parted slightly, but he does not speak. It is a strange puzzle, until she hears the odd rhythm of his breath and realizes that his open mouth allows him to take in more oxygen. From the ragged noise he makes every time he takes in air, she imagines that he needs the extra assistance.

“Your enemies will often assume this position. You never will. It is unacceptable.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Imitate that.” He points to the man.

Keiko drops to her knees and tries to make the funny breathing sound. It hurts her chest to do it for too long.

“I feel disoriented,” she says.

Father nods curtly. “It is a disorienting sensation, and that is why it is impractical for you to experience it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father.”

He clenches his hand into a fist, and the man kneeling beside her clutches his chest. “Oh god please…”

And then he says nothing else, because a thick stream of blood bubbles forth from between his lips and spills over his face and shirt. It is very messy.)

…defeat. Yes. That is what it signifies.

She has never thought of Isame as one to suffer defeat. She remembers Isame’s laugh, and how her aunt let it crack through the halls of the Mitsugi compound like a whip. Father always pressed his lips together very tightly when Isame laughed, perhaps because she did it so often in front of him. Isame is not laughing now. Isame is not saying anything at all, because Isame has no mouth with which to say it. No, that is not quite accurate, Keiko realizes. She has a mouth of sorts now, a gaping maw forming in the center of the quivering pile that is her aunt and is not her aunt. The mouth has nothing with which to shape words, though, so it just moves up and down and side to side. Keiko cannot understand the phrases formed by its nonexistent lips.

“I preferred you as you were, Isame-baasan,” she admits very quietly. The doctor is out of the room now, so she can say such things out loud.

There. She is sure that she saw Isame’s eyes rising from the collapsed hump of her chaotic body.

“It is me. Keiko-chan. I am your niece. Do you remember me?”

It is foolish to ask these questions, surely, she thinks. How will Isame answer? But perhaps she will find a mouth that can talk to Keiko properly, and Keiko would like that, should it happen.

Isame does not find the proper mouth. She forms herself into a dark pulsing ball, tucking in bits of shadow and color until they vanish into the sphere, and hurls herself against the side of the glass tube. The tube holds steady, so Isame lashes out at it again, this time sending thousands of shapeless limbs to beat at the glass.

“Do you want to leave?” Keiko asks.

She cannot respond in words, but Keiko hears the slap of her flesh against the tubes, beating out a frantically fast rhythm. The individual taps merge into one wave of sound; it sweeps up the hairs on the back of Keiko’s neck.

“I need to concentrate,” she tells her aunt. Isame’s thrashing becomes less frenzied, or so it appears to Keiko. She closes her eyes and looks deep within herself, seeking the glowing embers of her power. The light they emit now is floppy and weak, dulled by the drugs the doctor has administered. She bites the inside of her cheek and gets to work—breathing in makes the embers glow hotter and spark, breathing out removes the impurities of the chemicals. When Keiko has three sparks clinging to life and light, she twines them together slowly into one searing needlepoint and rakes her breath over it until it catches flame. With this pattern to her thoughts, she forges her power into a fire. It is sharp and bright and flickers behind her eyes when she looks again at the glass.

A weak point. Father has told her often of the importance of seeking weak points.

(“One need only apply the lightest of touches to see the target shatter…”)

She sweeps the fingers of her mind over the glass; a shadow tendril of Isame’s traces her journey.

There. It is a small flaw, but perhaps it will be enough. Keiko folds the flame of her power in on itself again and again until it is little more than a quivering line. Her teeth begin to hurt as the line vibrates faster and faster in her head. She squints and throws the energy at the glass with her thoughts, bears down on the cracks and forces them to widen.

And they do. The glass hangs in the air for two seconds because it does not know that it has been liberated from its former shape, and then it falls to the ground. The clatter it makes is very loud. The alarm starts to screech; she tries to cover her ears, but her hands are strapped above her head. Keiko hears shouts coming from another wing of the laboratories. Isame does not have much time. She still remains curled in on herself; her world is still cylindrical and small.

“Go,” Keiko tells her quietly. “It is better if you leave quickly.”

Isame reaches out with a shadowy tendril beyond the former boundaries of her tube and keeps stretching until she is a flowing ribbon of flashing colors streaming towards the crack under the door.

Keiko sinks back into the restraints. The ceiling spins around in circles above her head. She has extended herself too far. Father will not be pleased to hear of this. She will need to regain his trust.

The alarm stops, although the ringing in her ears continues. The doctor’s voice cuts through the new silence. “What happened?”

A high-pitched female voice answers. “A breach in one of the isolation chambers, Doctor. It’s near where the Mitsugi girl is—”

“Out of my way,” he snaps. She hears the glass grinding under his feet, and then he is staring down at her. His lips and eyes are thin, and the knuckles of his left hand have turned white. A few strands of black hair hang in front of his eyes.

“You little bitch,” he says slowly. His voice is flat. “You let Isame out.”

He leaves her field of vision. “Leave the wing,” he says—to his staff, Keiko assumes, for she is unable to leave until he chooses to release her. “Search the compound for Tennozu-san.” The doctor places special emphasis on Isame’s former surname.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you questioning me?” The doctor’s voice is low. Keiko has to strain to hear him.

“N-no, sir.”

“Good. She can’t have gotten far. It is imperative that you find her. God only knows what she’s capable of now that she’s loose.”

Keiko stares up at the ceiling again and listens to the sound of footsteps. She tries to pick out individual feet from the cluster of noise—that is the cadence of a larger man, heavy and slow. That is the cadence of a slender woman with a light step. It seems she is wearing high heels.

The echo of the footsteps fades, and the doctor leans over her once more.

“You stupid girl,” he says. A muscle in his jaw twitches. The doctor seizes her hair and yanks up on it. She bites her lip. He does not like it when she screams.

“As lenient as your father is with you,” he hisses in her ear, giving her hair another hard twist, “I should expect he taught you not to interfere with the work of others.” Sharp points rake across the back of her head. She keeps biting her lip. He will let her go soon. She has been here for a long time today, and he has to let her go soon. That is how it works.

“But it seems he has been kind enough to leave that lesson to me,” the doctor continues. “So how am I to teach you your place?”

Keiko says nothing. The doctor’s fingers press into the side of her jaw and force it open—she tries to keep her mouth closed, but it will not remain so. His grip is too strong. “Well?” he asks. His face is close now. It is difficult for her to look away. “Do you have anything to say?”

“I—”

“Silence.” She squeezes her eyes shut when she sees his hand reach back, but the slap still rings out, and her cheek still stings. The sharpness fades to a dull throb soon; she prods the inside of her cheek with her tongue to test the swelling. Then Keiko tries to close her jaw again because a little sound forms in the back of her throat without her meaning to make one. And he told her to be silent and he is already cross with her so if she is not silent he will grow even more cross and then there will be consequences.

“I said silence.” The doctor knows where her veins are by now. Keiko does not notice the needle going in until she feels a bitter wave rolling over the sparks of her power and putting them out. Breathe in breathe out, but she cannot remember what breathing in is supposed to do or what she is supposed to breathe out, so it does not work. It does not work.

“Promise not to do it again,” he murmurs.

Mutely, she shakes her head. No.

“Speak, Mitsugi-donochan. I haven’t cut out your tongue.”

“But—” she begins.

He squeezes her throat until purple stars explode behind her eyes. His thumb presses into the hollow above where her collarbones meet; she tries to breathe in, but she can only cough and scrabble around in her head for her power. The bitter wave hides it well. She cannot find anything, only blackness where the glow usually is. “That doesn’t sound like a promise. You’re still being naughty.”

“I promise,” Keiko gasps. “I promise I will not…”

He releases her throat. It takes several seconds before she realizes she can breathe. “I don’t believe you,” he says calmly. “You need to be punished.”

The doctor looks down at her again. His smile is as sharp as a knife. “And I know how.”

Breathe in breathe out. Breathe. Breathe.

“You’re disgusting,” he whispers as he lashes her feet to the stirrups at the end of the table. The straps bite into her skin and pinch it hard. She cannot feel her toes. “A doll that never does what it’s supposed to. No wonder your father begged me to fix you…he couldn’t abide you, either.”

She feels the ridges of his teeth scrape against the inside of her calf. “Such a waste of my time. And your father’s. And your fiance’s. Nothing but a disappointment.” he continues, his nails leaving deep stinging furrows in her thighs. “You can never be better than this.”

No. Stop. Stop everything, just stop…

Keiko sees his scalpel flash silver, and then her shift ceases to protect her from the cold. (Open. Like a book. And that is how he studies her.)

“This is all you can hope for,” the doctor says. His mouth presses down at the base of her neck.

She stops, but time refuses to do the same.

***

“It would be so easy to erase you, Mitsugi-donochan. There are so many ways to end a life. You know many of them. I know more.

“So easy…

“But I can’t. Do you know why?

“Of course you don’t. I’ll tell you.

“It’s because you’re a mistake, Mitsugi-donochan. You are a stain. Your design, all that is you—flawed. Deeply, deeply…yes.

“And such a mistake, no matter how small, must not go uncorrected. No imperfections must exist in my work. I will take you, and I will purge the erroneous thoughts from your mind. I will sweep away the detritus that you call your self and leave only cleanliness in the shell of you. I will break you down so I can assemble you the way you were meant to be.

“And then you will be mine, and I will do with you what I will.

“Do you understand?”

***

“That will be all,” the doctor says.

Keiko’s wrists and ankles tingle as he loosens the straps around them. They are free. She can leave now. She can walk away.

She is not sure she remembers how to walk.

One foot touches the ground, she tells herself as she dangles her left leg from the side of the table. Then the other follows it. Then the left foot is planted slightly ahead of the right. Then the right in front of the left.

It should be easy. Easier than this.

The doorknob slips from Keiko’s fingers the first time she tries to twist it. She looks back at the doctor to see if he has noticed, but his back is to her now, and he is holding a clear vial to the light. The second time she takes the knob in hand, she grips it until her fingers ache and then pulls. The hall reveals itself to her through the doorway. It is easy to leave. She sees nothing to prevent her from doing so.

She inches a toe through the opening. Nothing happens. The rest of her body follows all at once, too fast; her torso shoots ahead of her knees and dives downward. Her palms remember more quickly than the rest of her body does and smack the floor. A splinter embeds itself in her thumb.

Keiko cannot bring herself to stand. Instead, she draws in her limbs, tucks in her head. Isame performed a similar act earlier, she remembers. But her retreat cannot be as perfect as Isame’s was.

(Are they shoving Isame back inside her tube, forcing in flailing limb after flailing limb? Does she engulf them, rip them to shreds with rows of ravenous teeth? Does she plaster pieces of herself to their faces and deny them air? Surely she is fighting.

If she is not fighting, then she is not Isame, and Keiko does not know what she has done.)

It is thus prostrated that Yelena finds her.

“What are you doing?” her stepmother demands. “Haven’t you somewhere better to be?”

“…I will go there,” she says slowly, drawing her knees to her chest. From here, standing is a matter of straightening her legs and raising her head.

“Hm.” She catches a glimpse of Yelena’s blue eyes, pale and frosty, and looks down again. “I don’t suppose you’ve a reason for lying on the floor so uselessly.”

“…no,” Keiko says quietly.

“What was that?” Yelena asks, looking down her sharp nose at Keiko.

She raises her voice, though not her head. “No.”

“Then why aren’t you moving?”

“I had no reason.” She shakes her head slowly. “Because I was speaking to you.” But that is not the right answer, either. “It is not important.”

“Tell me what it is, and I will judge for myself.” Yelena drums her long fingers on her thigh, nails coated with an icy white.

“I may be injured.” Keiko can feel that she is bleeding, certainly. A dull throbbing pain and a slow trickle, but she is numb to it. Or largely so. Enough so. Perhaps.

“How?” Yelena’s fingers catch Keiko’s chin in their brittle grasp and force it upwards. “You have not been assigned any missions recently. You just left the medical wing, didn’t you?”

“I did,” she admits.

“Then how can you be injured? I feel as though I’m holding a conversation with a simpleton,” she adds in a mutter.

“He—”

“Who is ‘he’? Speak up, girl.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and nods. “The doctor, he…” The words vanish along with the moisture in her throat. She searches for both, but finds only the latter after swallowing repeatedly. The words have fled. “Something,” she finishes. “He did something.”

Yelena does not speak. The rims of her lips turn as pale as her nails. “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally says, her voice thin. “How can I possibly know what you mean?”

Keiko opens her mouth. Nothing escapes, not even air. She tries again. “He…it hurt. I wanted him to stop…” She trails off.

“Stop it,” Yelena hisses. Bright spots of red blossom high on her cheekbones. “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t,” she spits, raking her nails across the bruise forming on Keiko’s cheek. Keiko keeps her head down. The pain itches at the back of her head, but she presses her lips together and keeps silent.

“Get out of my sight. Just go,” Yelena snaps. “Now.”

Keiko walks alone down the long hallway, flanked by paper doors. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. She needs to move through life like that.

She cannot try to think about what the other words might be.