I had a series of horrible nightmares that night.

Click here to read the nightmares. Warning: Nonexplicit descriptions of child rape and abuse.

---

I woke up from having a panic attack. I was clinging to something soft and smooth and warm. Someone was stroking my hair.

I was breathing hard, and it echoed because my face was pressed into her shoulder. I was sweating all over. I couldn't hear what Reiko was saying. I was starting to hyperventilate.

She squeezed me so tight the air left my chest. I squeezed back reflexively, not able to think, not able to have any but animal feelings right now. Danger. Danger. Unsafe ...

"Breathe, sis. Breathe."

She let go of me just slightly and I gasped for air, and my exhalation came out as a choking sob.

"You're safe."

Breathe in.

"You're safe."

Breathe out.

"It's okay."

Breathe in.

"It's okay."

Breathe out.

I couldn't tell if I was still dreaming or not. I still felt small. I still felt helpless.

But my heart rate was going back down. My breathing was evening out. My eyelids were starting to droop.

I fell asleep again, holding Reiko, as she stroked my hair and whispered comforting words.

The last thing I remember her saying?

"Whatever happened to you, sis, you didn't deserve it."

---

"I can't believe I fell asleep in class ... " I covered my face with my hands.

"Just sleep at lunchtime, like Moca-chan does ~ " She yawned and stretched, and then rested her head on her arms with her eyes closed.

"You had an extremely rough night, Riria-née. And then you tried to do homework before leaving for school, instead of eating breakfast."

Reiko reached across the table and picked up the tapered bun that was packed in Moca-chan's bento, and pushed it against her sleeping face. Moca-chan took a small bite out of it, and smiled with her eyes still closed.

It was so cute and gay that I completely forgot what I was doing, and blushed as I watched them.

"Mistress and I will help with your homework if needed, sis. You are important to us, and we love you."

"Moca-chan loves eeeeeveryo-" Reiko pushed the bun in her face again, and she sucked on it for a moment before nomming more of it.

I shook my head to clear the lesbian haze from my thoughts. "Uh, yeah, thanks ... um, where is Kaminari, anyway?"

"She had some reading to do in the library, sis. Please do not worry about it."

Was I supposed to be worried about it? I felt like she'd been acting kind of suspicious lately, what with my tablet disappearing and all. But I guessed that it couldn't be helped ... I knew there were things that my girlfriends were trying to shield me from.

Holy shit "Ran" was my girlfriend

"Is something funny, sis?" Reiko looked over at me.

"Nothing, nothing ... " I couldn't stop grinning as I started to pick at my food. And when I looked back up at her, she was smiling too.

Whoever my past self was, whatever they'd gone through, they'd really endeared theirself to Kaminari and Reiko somehow. I owed them for that ... I owed them so much.

So how could I help them deal with these fucking nightmares?!

Because I knew that that's what it was, now. This was stuff that had actually happened to me, that either the TS had made me forget or I'd somehow been able to block out.

It's just that ... I hadn't. Because if I'd really forgotten what happened, then it wouldn't keep surfacing in my dreams. Where I basically became my inner child, and had to be small and helpless and get hurt again.

Was that how my past self saw theirself? Had they ... had I regressed into that? Had something shocked me so badly that it made me relive all of that, and feel like I'd never escaped?

Because that's what it felt like. Not a distant memory, but something immediate. Dangerous. A literal Persona-style Dark Hour labyrinth of nightmares, that my inner child got trapped in every night and was helpless to solve.

Which meant, I decided, that I needed to solve it for them. Because whether it got me back my memories or not, they didn't deserve to go through this all over again.

"Is something wrong, sis?" Reiko looked over at me while still trying to feed Moca-chan.

I was squeezing my hands into fists, on the table.

"It's ... " I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting my hands both relax. "It's nothing. I mean, it's something, but it's something that I have to deal with. Okay?"

Reiko watched me for a long moment, before nodding subtly. "Okay."

I gave her an apologetic look. "Thanks for last night, sis."

She smiled. "Thank you for last night, Riria-née."

"No, I mean ... " I looked up at the ceiling for a second. "Just, thanks for helping me survive that."

"Anytime, sis."

The "sleeping" Moca-chan held up one hand. "Remembeeeer ~ safe, sane, and consensu-"

Reiko dommed Moca's face with the rest of the bread.

---

Kaminari helped me with homework that night, downstairs at the kotatsu. (Reiko was apparently "brainstorming" something with Moca-chan.)

"And that's how you solve for this variable," she said, scooting closer to me and tapping the paper. "See?"

I groaned. Everything she'd just said had gone over my head.

She stroked the back of my neck. "Maybe let's take a break for now. Okay?"

"I really was homeschooled, wasn't I?" I looked up at her.

"Ah, um, well, I mean ... " She pressed her fingers together.

"Reiko confirmed for me that I'm a TS daughter too. You don't have to hide it from me anymore."

Kaminari's face fell, ashamed. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay ... " I pulled her into a hug. "I know you were doing it to protect me."

She clung tight to my arms.

"But part of me is still dealing with what I'm hiding from. Every night, they face their most painful memories again. I'm the only one who can protect them from this ... I just wish I knew how."

Kaminari nodded, as I let go of her. "Reiko told me you had awful nightmares last night ... I think we need to make sure you always have someone to sleep with."

I blushed at the way she put that.

"And um, Reiko is planning something too ... "

"What is it?" I looked up at her.

"I-I can't tell you." She looked away. "It needs to be a surprise. But I promise that it's going to be a good one. Okay?"

"Does it involve turning me into a guy, and then TSing me back into a girl?"

Kaminari's face flushed beet red.

I took a very deep breath, and then held it, closing my eyes.

"S-sorry," my girlfriend whispered.

I let my breath out and started breathing normally, carefully. "No," I said, "it's okay. I just ... "

"We don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with, Riri. I'm sorry, I should have-"

" ... I think you should let me help plan this."

"Huh?!"

When I opened my eyes, she was staring at me in shock.

I grinned sheepishly. "See, I actually had an idea along those lines. Having an actual TS rock band to help me carry it out would make things easier."

"Or, you know, possible." Kaminari gave me a nervous smile.

"I'll have you know I have one confirmed TS."

"No ... " Kaminari scooted her cushion around the corner of the kotatsu, so she could snuggle up right next to me. "You have two."

---

After hashing it out with Kaminari beforehand, I emailed Reiko my idea for phase one of our plan. Phase two would take a little longer to complete, since the song still wasn't 100 percent finished, but Kami said they'd been planning to play it for this "Girls' Band Party" live that was going to be part of the Snow Festival. So that meant in the next few days.

Reiko got back to me in just a few minutes, saying she'd have a song picked out for me in time for bed. I thanked her, typing quickly on my smartphone, then put it away and leaned back in my legless chair. "Phew."

Kaminari looked up from her homework. "You've got everything taken care of, then?"

"I will ... " I stretched, and stared up at the ceiling, trying not to think of what I was about to do.

"Are you sure you'll be able to ... " Her voice trailed off.

"No." I shook my head. "But I'm not living one of those nightmares again without doing something about it."

"I wish someone had done something about it back when those things were happening to you."

I smiled at her. "Somehow, I feel like you did."

She shook her head. "Not soon enough."

"Maybe not ... but either way, I'm here and not there, now." I winced. "Most of the time."

---

I put in my earbuds, then handed my phone to Kaminari. The song Reiko had picked out was already queued up.

"I press this when you start shaking, right?" Kami asked.

I clenched my hands into fists. "Maybe give it a minute or three. There might be something that I need to resolve first."

"Okay ... " Kaminari saw the look on my face, and put her free hand over one of mine. "Will it wake you up if I hug you?"

"I don't know ... maybe just be there in case I start to hug you."

"Okay."

She squeezed my hand, then pulled me into a tight hug before kissing me on the lips. I returned it, then let go and tried to relax. "Good night, Kami-sama ... "

"Good night, Riri."

The last thing I heard before dozing off was her whispering prayers to Inari, the goddess whose ofuda had been at the head of our bed for as long as I could remember.

---

I've been able to do lucid dreaming before. Never on purpose ... more like as a gut reaction. Sometimes what I dream about is so bad that I safeword it, turning the dream into some kind of roleplay where I can veto what happens in it.

Not that that'd helped, the last few nights. But I was hoping, and praying, that if I was focused enough on this I'd be able to do it.

I've heard of a few methods of inducing lucid dreaming, before, but I didn't use any of them (partly because of the side effects). Instead, I focused as hard as I could on my identity, as I fell asleep.

I was not a helpless child.

I was the protagonist of a real-life TS novel.

I was a Japanese schoolgirl.

And I was hoping that knowledge would be enough to let me take that form in my dream, and defend my inner child.

When I saw who I'd ended up as instead, I swore.

---

I was in the basement, at the foot of the stairs. It was piled high with boxes, and a narrow pathway between them. Dad was sitting next to my video game consoles, and glaring at me as I sobbed.

I read in his books that you have to tell an adult priesthood leader you've sinned. And when he told me why I was growing hair down there, he also told me that what I'd been doing this whole time was sin.

I'd stopped doing things that made me feel good down there. That part was easy. But I still had to confess in order to repent. I put it off as long as I could, but today I'd turned twelve, and that meant I would be interviewed to hold the priesthood. I couldn't do that if I was unworthy! All the other boys would know what I'd been doing!

Which is why I told dad.

And now I knew I was awful.

"This can all be summed up in one word," he said, holding up his index finger and growling.

"Please don't say it!" I begged him. "I'll die if you do!"

It was so awful. So filthy. It was a sex word.

For the first time in my life, I hated myself.

"M-"

Something cracked, upstairs, and I heard someone shout the F word. "**** me," she yelled, "Not another Lapis dream!"

"What the ****?!" my dad said, and got up from his seat.

The door to the upstairs burst open, and a blue lady in an immodest dress held out her hand towards me. "Come with me if you want to live!"

I stared up at her.

Then I ran.

There were so many boxes to hide behind. Mom and dad had so much stuff that they'd bought when I was little.

The lady at the top of the stairs said the F word again, and I heard her run down to the basement. Dad swore again, but then I heard a loud crack and he didn't say anything more after that.

"Riria?" It was the blue lady again, calling out to someone. To me? Why did she want me to come with her if she didn't even know my name?

People who try to get kids to come with them are dangerous. They'll take you away from your parents and kill you. After making you have sex with them.

I was not coming with her.

"Look," she said, "I don't know your name but you're part of me. Try to remember!"

Her voice was moving. She was circling around the boxes towards me. There was a place I could try to hide, maybe, but if I was extremely quiet I could keep going around the other way and then run up the stairs. So that's what I did, pretending that I was a panther and I could move without making noise.

"Please remember ... "

I got as far as I could being quiet, and then I dashed to the stairs and ran up them. I didn't even look at the crater, or what happened to dad.

As soon as she heard my footsteps pounding on the stairs, the blue lady swore. "Motherfucker!"

I stopped, with my hand on the open door to upstairs.

Because as soon as she said that word, I remembered.

I ...

I remembered why I was underneath mom.

---

As soon as I yelled that, they froze.

And then I remembered at the same time as they did.

I was going to be so sick.

Could Gems throw up? I was pretty sure I was about to find out.

But then the footsteps thumped down the stairs again, fast, and my inner child ran up and started pounding on me with their fists. "Die!" they screamed. "I hate you!"

I pushed them away with one of my translucent, watery wings, and crouched behind it as they pounded on it. "I'm sorry!" I said, putting my hands on the barrier between us. "I didn't mean it!"

They were screaming and pounding my wing as hard as they could, slamming into it and kicking and headbutting it. Spreading ripples across its surface. Then they tried to climb over, so I just released the surface tension and caught them inside it, turning my wing into a fist.

They started screaming and crying, as kids are wont to do. I was so glad I wasn't a little kid anymore, and was in high school now.

Covering my ears, I made my way back up the stairs and out to the hallway. A woman screamed when she saw me-

SMACK

And then she wasn't a problem anymore.

My inner child went silent.

I stood there heaving for breath, both of my wings clenched into fists, looking at what I had done. Then I heaved something else, and it hurt like I was vomiting up my guts but all it tasted like was salt water.

My inner child was frozen in shock.

"C-come on," I told them, wiping my mouth as I got back to my feet. "Let's get you out of here."

---

They weren't any more talkative once we were out in the countryside, though. And since one of my wings was a fist right now, I couldn't just fly us away.

Where was I trying to take us? The moon? Japan? Homeworld? I was starting to get things mixed up with the Western anime Lapis was from. I just knew that we had to escape.

... also I could feel the reservoir up ahead. Don't ask me to describe what that feels like. I was just aware of it, the way that you're conscious of where you put your wallet and phone. I could reach out and grab it if I wanted, although it'd help if I could see it-

"You killed them," my inner child whispered.

I groaned. "They're not real."

"Yes, they are."

I didn't slow down, as I made my way towards the reservoir. "Me-chan, this is a dream. That's why I'm blue and have wings."

"You should have killed me instead."

I stopped, and turned to look at them.

"W-why should I have killed you?" I asked.

"Because you're real, and our parents are real, and I'm not."

"I, um-"

"Just get rid of me already!" they yelled. "I don't want to exist! I don't deserve to exist! All I do is make mom cry and dad get angry with me!"

I could feel them crying, the same way that I felt the reservoir, before I saw their tears glisten in the moonlight.

"You're my inner schoolgirl," they sobbed. "You're living your dreams with your girlfriends in Japan. You deserve to live your dreams, and forget about me. Please just forget about me."

I approached them carefully, and wiped the tears from their eyes without touching their face. "What should I call you?" I asked.

"I dunno. Not Riria. I don't deserve to be called that."

"Is it because you make your mom cry?"

"YES!" they screamed.

I jumped backwards, tripped over a bush and landed on my butt. Then I backed up across the ground, but I was pulling my wing with me so they were still there, right above and in front of me.

I squeezed my hands into fists, and tried to regain my composure. "Um, me-chan?"

"I DON'T DESERVE TO BE A GIRL!"

"Me-san! Me-kun! Whatever!" I held up my hands defensively. "Look, your mom ... our mom and dad are terrible people, okay? Their opinion of you doesn't matter! They-"

"Yes it does, when I'm STUCK HERE!"

I squeezed my eyes shut. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Then again, I thought, maybe I should give in to my panic, so Kaminari will know to press play.

"I can't escape from them! People like them control my life, because they vote and have power and I don't! I thought I could get away from them and their church by moving to Japan, but I COULDN'T! BECAUSE FUCK ME!"

... my inner child sniffles a lot, when they cry. Also they're so loud that it hurts and makes me feel shaky, when they scream at the top of their lungs.

"I know it's stupid, okay?! I'm so weak that they can make me feel like I'm a kid again and I never left, just by acting like I didn't! I'm supposed to have left this behind years ago, so I can be a good boyfriend, right? WELL, I DIDN'T! SOME BOYFRIEND I AM!"

"We're their girl-"

"BE QUIET! I HATE YOU!"

Okay ... that panic attack was going to start about now. Also were the mountains on fire? Yes, the mountains were on fire now. Good, good. That wasn't going to spread, or anything.

Fortunately, my inner child started hyperventilating at the same time as I did. Unfortunately, they didn't let that stop them.

"I ... hate myself. I hate ... that you get ... to live MY dreams! When I'm stuck here! And I hate ... that you don't ... hate me!"

"I love you!" is what I wanted to say. Those were the magic words, right? But I couldn't. I couldn't say anything.

The air was starting to fill with smoke.

"And I hate ... that my parents ... stole my TS from me!" They couldn't stop crying, now. I couldn't, either.

There was burning brush where our parents' house used to be. We were about to get set on fire.

"Fuck them," I whispered.

"Stop swearing!"

"FUCK THEM!"

I got up into a crouch, pulling my wings (and my inner child) behind me, and swept my arms in a wide arc. Half the reservoir poured out onto the burning plains, and filled the air with a hissing cloud of dense smoke and dancing embers.

We both coughed. I fanned the air with my free wing, but it was too much. My eyes were burning. I could barely see.

"Get on my back!" I told my inner child, and let them out of my wing.

They glared at me and clenched their hands into fists, for a second. Then they coughed again, and I just picked them up in both arms and took off into the air, so fast that my ears popped in a couple of seconds-

THUNK

Then I spiraled back down and crashed into a tree, because this dream apparently had a fucking ceiling. No wonder there was so much smoke.

Remember how I said I could sometimes just safeword my dreams? I was pretty sure that wouldn't work, if my inner child didn't listen to safewords. And I didn't want to even imagine what it'd feel like to burn to death.

I was sprawled across a wide branch, and my inner child was hanging from a thinner one across from me. So I dropped to the ground, using my wings to slow my descent, and then held out my arms for them. "I'll catch you!" I called out.

"Let me die!"

"How does that even work?!" I called back to them.

"I don't know, but I'm trying!"

Code switching. I remembered that phrase out of nowhere. It was what I'd done at the live house to be able to communicate with Tama-san ... just in a very literal sense.

If my inner child was the code to speak English and make sense of Canadian (?) culture, then they were also the only way I could make sense of these memories, or anything our parents said if they tried to contact us. So if my inner child died, none of it could affect me anymore. Right?

Except that they'd already tried to kill theirself.

Somehow I knew, maybe because they were thinking about it right now. Whatever had happened had hurt them so bad they'd instinctively tried to just die, to forget everything and feel nothing. They ...

I had tried to destroy the part of myself that could get hurt by this. Since we were both the same person.

They were coughing a lot, and losing their grip on the branch. The smoke was much thicker up there.

"It's not going to work," I realized.

Cough, cough. "What?" they managed to choke out.

I cupped my hands to my face. "I said it's not going to work! You can't kill yourself without killing me too! All you can do is repress yourself, and that makes things even worse!"

"I don't care!" I couldn't tell if they were crying from hopelessness, or from the smoke in their eyes getting to them.

They squirmed to get both their arms up over the branch. "I just don't want to exist anymore, okay?! It hurts!"

"I know it hurts! That's why I'm here to protect you. Because I love you!" And as soon as I said it, I knew that I meant it.

"I hate myself!"

"I don't care! If I deserve to live my life in Japan, with my girlfriends, in a body that I can feel good about, then so do you!"

"I don't wanna!"

"Yes, you do! And you know it! You're trying to hide from it because it means confronting the part of yourself that your parents hated. That you hated too because you thought it made them hurt you. But guess what? I'm right here!"

I jerked a thumb at myself.

"I didn't make your parents hurt you. TS didn't make your parents hurt you. Nothing you or I did made them and their church hurt us. They're just assholes! And you deserve to exist!"

I heard the strings of violins start playing an uplifting, orchestral tune. Good girl, Kaminari. Good girl.

"Now let go, already!"

---

I didn't let go because she loved me.

I didn't let go because I loved me.

And I didn't let go because I felt I deserved to exist.

I let go because I couldn't hold on anymore. Because I'd already tried, and failed, to get rid of the part of me that could be hurt by all this. To let my inner schoolgirl just live her life and fulfill her dreams without me.

If she couldn't, or wouldn't, go on without me, then what I was doing was pointless.

So even though I knew what she had planned, and how embarrassing it was going to be ...

I let go, as an electric guitar and drums kicked in and a woman's voice started singing into our ears in the waking world.

彼方へ
君の手を取り
心だけが
知ってる場所へ

Kanata he
Kimi no te wo tori
Kokoro dake ga
Shitteru basho he

My inner schoolgirl caught me in both of her glittering arms. "Got you," she said, and grinned down at me.

... goddess, this "realistic Lapis" thing she had going was hot. I blushed, and tried to squirm away from her chest, which of course made me rub up against it more. "Let's just get out of here, okay?"

"But where?"

"I dunno, you're the one who has wings!"

Why did I sound like a kid every time I opened my mouth?!

Misterioso 舞い上がるよ
この星が見た
夢のように
輝く空

Misterioso maiagaru yo
Kono hoshi ga mita
yume no you ni
kagayaku sora

The music was making me dizzy and nervous. I knew what it was doing to us in the waking world, and I didn't want to think about that at all. Or why they were doing it to me.

Instead I just held tight to my inner schoolgirl, as she took off into the air more slowly this time. There were sparkling things flying ahead of us, and I realized they were blobs of water from the reservoir, that she was sending to check where the ceiling was.

They splashed into it about five hundred metres up.

She huffed. "Just great," she said, as the singer took on a more wistful tone.

遠くで呼んでる
憧れの残した木霊（エコー）
哀しみ棚引かせて
道の無い未来へ急ぐよ

Tooku de yonderu
Akogare no nokoshita ekoo
Kanashimi tanabikasete
Michi no nai mirai he isogu yo

I had to speak up so she'd hear me over the flutes. "What even is this?!" I yelled, and pointed up at the ceiling. "Is it my stubbornness? Because you're not getting through that anytime soon!"

新しい頁開き
世界は君を待ってる

Atarashii peeji wo hiraki
Sekai wa kimi wo matteru

My inner schoolgirl just grinned down at me again, as though she knew something I didn't. "It's the world," she said. "And it's out there waiting for you."

明るい心で
全ての時を行けるなら

Akarui kokoro de
Subete no toki wo yukeru nara

The singers switched from Japanese to something that sounded like Latin, but I wasn't paying attention. Instead I was staring, open-mouthed, at the rest of the reservoir. Because it'd taken the shape of a kaiju-sized fist.

My inner schoolgirl pumped her own fist into the air, and the reservoir soared.

何処かへ続いてると
信じて

Dokoka he tsuzuiteru to
Shinjite

I clung to her as the sky cracked like glass, a spiderweb fracture streaking across it as the singers picked up tempo again.

空は蒼く高く
幼い風が光る
小さな鈴のように
まだ見ぬ不思議の唄

Sora wa aoku takaku
Osanai kaze ga hikaru
Chiisa na suzu no you ni
Mada minu fushigi no uta

She drove her fist upward again, and the glass ceiling shattered, smoke parting to reveal a clear blue sky. Which she then flew towards, with me clinging to her tightly.

長過ぎた夜の果てに
夜明けを呼び覚ます Chorus
どんあに儚くても
始まりの時を告げて

Nagasugita yoru no hate ni
Yoake wo yobisamasu chorus
Donna ni hakanakute mo
Hajimari no toki wo tsugete

The nightmare world vanished behind me, as we passed through what had once been a barrier ...

世界はまだ君のため
歓びを隠しているから
Misterioso 舞い上がるよ
追いすがる
涙の向こうへ
眩しい
明日へ

Sekai wa mada kimi no tame
Yorokobi wo kakushiteiru kara
Misterioso maiagaru yo
Oisugaru
Namida no mukou he
Mabushii
Ashita he

... and ended up on an endless sunset beach, someplace that I didn't recognize.

I hopped out of Lapis' arms. "I see we aren't awake yet."

"I was worried we might have to do this ... "

"Do what?"

She gave me a sheepish grin. "How do you feel about fusion, me-san?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "I know how Lapis feels about it, in the series."

"I'm not Lapis!"

Somehow, I gave her an even more skeptical look.

"Okay, maybe I am. A little."

"No, I'm a little." I indicated this cursed child body of mine. "You're Lapis."

She facepalmed. "Fine. I'm Lapis. Now fuse with me, okay? Because if we want to survive all this, we need to do it together."

"Do I have to dance?" I scrunched up my face at the thought.

"Just ... think about everything you want for me. Okay? How you want me to be happy, and live my dreams with my girlfriends. And know that I want the same for you."

I sighed, and lowered my head. I couldn't deny how she felt about me. "Okay."

"Got it?"

I nodded, slightly overcome.

"Now come at me." She held out her arms.

I took a deep breath, and ran at her.

Instead of her catching me, our bodies lost all of their surface tension and just dissolved into each other. The love that I'd felt from her became my whole existence, and blended with what I now knew was my love for her, until it was like I was made of it.

I woke up as a little girl in a little body, one that was assigned male. Crying into my arm and my girlfriend's sleeve. Unable to stop or catch my breath.

For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to love myself.

 

Click here to see what it's like for Kaminari to love Riria like this, mostly from Kaminari's POV. You agree that you are over 18 and have an Archive of our Own account, and that the characters are all over 18 as well, creative liberties notwithstanding. You also agree that it is legal in your territory to read this. Do let me know if the link stops working, alright?