Disclaimer: I am not Koge-Donbo.

Warnings: Rika spoilers, I suppose.

A/N: Me making up a whole load of things, being vaguely happy about it, and then prancing off for a while and pretending it doesn't really matter if it's accurate or not. (Just as food for thought – the way Rika treats Kirika could really have something to do with Kirika in the future, which is why they don't get along really well in the series. Yeah, it came to me while typing, so… you never know.)

Locked in a Cage
23
(Eating Me Away)

She was not whole.

Even if they couldn't see it, she knew and felt it; in every waking moment of her life (even when she dreamed, it was there), a haunted fact of reality that surrounded her. There were those who loved and cared for her, then the rest who were scared of her – maybe even despised her.

But it wasn't like she did it for herself: she never would, as some part seemed to restrain her from such thoughts. It was for someone else: someone close to her, whom she loved and admired more than anyone else in the world.

It was what he wanted – the reason why she had taken herself back through time itself – and if it was his wish, she would do it.

And when she ran into Kirio-nii-sama, she felt something bloom within – a warmth she thought she had lost as a child, after a dreaded battle years ago, that practically tore them apart.

Kirika had been a part of it, and they had all been dragged down – seeing her there (in her past) was strange, while she tried to influence fate itself (like the little Kujyou boy who had arrived first).

But then she caught sight of her past self, then her other half. Questions arose, but she knew that what her father wished, she would do, in the end. There had to be an end, even if she had to be the one to direct it.

Even so, it would not truly be the end of all of them – if she was certain of how humans thought and worked – and she would have to keep fighting herself, and the knowledge that shadowed her.