Of Alters and Egos

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Aoi Miyake startled awake, then her heart took off faster than a bullet from a gun as she realized that she could not move. She was strapped to a chair, ropes around her wrists and ankles, and even her neck and torso.

"H-huh?! What the—?!" She cried out, thrashing uselessly against her restraints.

"KyahahahahaHAAAA!" A violent cackle bounced around the shadows just beyond Aoi's line of sight, and the figure that came lunging out of them was a sight to behold. It looked like a girl even younger and smaller than Aoi, perhaps a first-year high schooler. She had a wide, sneering visage; a long, twisted tongue; dark red eyes that seemed massive behind giant, circular lenses; and long, dark, jagged, wild hair.

"Oooohhhh!" she made a noise halfway between a squeal and a moan as she clutched her face. "Such an adorable little boy!"

"B-boy?!" Aoi recoiled with a strangled gasp. "I- I- I'm sorry, but I'm not—!" The figure whipped something out of the folds of her dress. They flashed under the harsh light of the basement in which Aoi was held prisoner. She gasped again when she realized what they were. Scissors.

ooo

"Pull yourself together, man!" Genocide Jack slapped the side of her head in disbelief, her other hand on her hip. She'd barely even started cutting through her victim's clothes and he was already passing out on her. "I thought you were supposed to be cooler than that!"

Although Aoi didn't know Jack, Jack had been watching for months. Ever since she happened to hear some of the music coming from the club near Hope's Peak—named ALTER-EGO—while stalking another victim, she fell in love with the lead performer, the handsome young man with long, lithe limbs and short, dark hair and bright, brown eyes. His DJing was just as pretty as he was, and Jack went to every RONDO concert ever since.

Then finally, opportunity struck, and so too did Jack. She was at last able to free her handsome DJ prince from his imprisonment with the three, unworthy hags that acted as the rest of his RONDO unit-mates. Now, though...? Well, it was a little disappointing to be honest.

"Guess it's true what they say! Never meet your idols!" Jack cackled, but with an unconscious audience, it wasn't any fun. She pouted, huffed, crossed her arms, stomped her foot, and more. Once the last of her temper tantrum was out, however, she heaved an impatient sigh and began swatting her victim's face. "Hey! Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!" she demanded.

At last, her CPR ("Cracking Palm Resuscitation", so named because she cracked people across the face and the sound it made resembled the word) worked and the handsome RONDO DJ finally opened his beautiful brown eyes again and—

"Woah, what the hell?! Who the fuck are you?!"

Jack reared back at the same time, equally stunned and outraged. "Woah, what the hell?! Why the fuck are you like that?!"

ooo

Aoi's eyes were open, but someone else was watching from behind them. What the hell?! Who the hell is this? How the hell did we get here? AOI?! AOI! Silence. She wasn't responding. Damn it! Whatever this freakazoid, creep-o, ass-wipe did to her, it got her pretty good...

Aoi's eyes narrowed. Her alter was the one who narrowed them. The alter had no name, for no name was ever deemed necessary by either of them. They could communicate in thought and feeling, and Aoi's alter so seldom fronted, so why did they need a name? The closest they ever came was jokingly calling Aoi's alter "Shiyake", inspired by their surname, "Miyake". The latter meant "three houses" and the former meant "four". Shiyake was the "fourth house" of the Miyake family.

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