Nerusona

Chapter 14

“But I’m…Teddy…” muttered the true Teddy, opening his eyes again.

“I’m Teddy.” The boy glanced at the other male next to him.

“No, I’m Teddy…”

“No, I’m Teddy.”

“Shut up, I’m tired of you… You’re full of lies.”

“Then you shouldn’t lie to yourself.” The child smirked again.

The fake Idola returned to the real Idola again, getting uncomfortably close to her. “Isn’t Teddy so annoying? No wonder Mom and Dad don’t like him.”

“Please, let us go,” repeated Idola, struggling to free herself from the strings trapping her. “I don’t know what we did to deserve this.”

The real Teddy flailed around as he dangled from the ceiling. If he managed to untie the string around his ankle, he would end up collapsing to the floor; there was no way out of this situation as far as he knew.

“Nobody loves us,” the Teddy lookalike stated to the original Teddy. “Not Mom, not Dad, not nee-chan, not nii-san.”

“Teddy, don’t listen to him!” shouted Raku, standing up from her hiding spot. “You know your family loves you!”

Both the fake Teddy and fake Idola snapped their heads in Raku’s direction. Their golden-yellow eyes stared at her for several moments until the Idola impostor smirked.

“So this is the ugly bitch you hang out with.”

“She’s more of a sister to me than you are,” the fake Teddy told the Idola doppelganger.

Raku stood between the two bickering fakes, staring up at them both and watching as they engaged in a heated argument. “Teddy, Idola, you need to accept everything they’re saying! Accept your true emotions before they get worse!”

Yamaguchi turned towards Tanaka, her face written with worry. “Why haven’t you taken any action?”

Her brother only remained nonchalant.

“These aren’t my true emotions,” Idola said to Raku. “That person isn’t me—they’re nothing like me—”

“And he’s nothing like me!” Teddy yelled, squirming around.

“Please listen to what I have to say!” Raku trembled in her spot, aware that the tension was quickly escalating. “As crazy as this sounds, those things are you! They’re like personifications of all the emotions you’ve hidden and rejected!”

“Raku-nee’s been possessed,” mumbled the fake Teddy. “This isn’t the Raku-nee we know…”

“Yeah, go back to dying.” The Idola lookalike smiled brightly. “It’ll do everyone a favor. Right, Teddy?”

“Shut up!! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” While hanging upside down, Teddy covered his ears. “You’re all so annoying! These things—”

“These things aren’t us…” Idola’s face expressed her perplexity. “This is…!”

Raku screamed at the top of her lungs. “No! Stop!”

Unfortunately, it was already too late. Both of the fakes altered their shapes and morphed into large monsters, letting out various types of hisses and shrieks. An ominous haze made it obscure and difficult to watch the transformations, but by the time they were complete two enormous creatures stood juxtapose to each other.