Dissociation.

  A term introduced by Pierre Janet, a French philosopher and psychologist in the late 19th century. Interest in the idea spread throughout America, with the public's awareness of post traumatic stress disorder and interest in dissociative identity disorder.

  The concept itself is the idea of disconnecting people's thoughts, feelings and memories of themselves. Your brain would fundamentally disconnect you from yourself, and disconnect you from the world around you. Once thought to be a cognitive deficit by Janet, the concept became known as a defensive measure against trauma and stress, where the human brain will cope through a wide spectrum of dissociation.

  The word itself is commonly mixed in its neighboring word, disassociation, which means to no longer... associate with someone or something. You would sever your ties to a person or an organization, cut off all connection and refrain from contacting them ever again. This can very well apply to thoughts, ideas, feelings, and so on.

  Discussion about the idea often leads one to either case. The words regularly collide and mix due to mere proximity with one another. The main, documented difference between the two is that dissociating is often an involuntary, instinctive process the brain undergoes out of the person's control, while disassociating is more attributed to the person's inherent choice to separate themself from overwhelming or distressing experiences.

  Chouko is, and has been doing both at the same time.

  Chouko vacantly stares, lost in thought for some time. Chouko just stopped thinking about the mercenaries. She stopped worrying about the Executioner- Charon, and this mysterious Dot that keeps calling the phone... all of them go away from her mind for just a few moments.

  The world grinds to a halt, slowing down before the girl's eyes. Those words echoing in her head to fill a dead silence.

  Left only with a mirror held up in front of her... forced to stare at a crying reflection.

  Shortcake could not help but cry in front of Chouko as the two stand in front of this gas station. Her mechanically designed mind feels a massive amount of distress and fear, having no shortage of reasons for why. Being forcibly taken out of her box and kicked against the ground by mercenaries, being forcibly kidnapped and taken to their office for a fate unknown- yeah. Those will bring stress to anyone.

  And the reasons that stem from Chouko just add to it. Shortcake has walked through an office building of dead bodies, having seen Chouko slaughter one right before her eyes- and... and, conceptually, had to kill one of her own in self defense. Following this, Chouko dragged her along with nowhere to go, and... and Shortcake has been screamed at and shouted at, twice.

  Shortcake has all the reason to cry, and- and it's likely that she cries the more the phone rings. She probably experiences distress each time the Executioner's phone rings. Every time it rings, Shortcake likely goes back to how Chouko shouted and screamed at her the first time, replaying those conceived emotions every subsequent ring.

  Every time the phone is called, every call they try to ignore... it only brings to attention another possibility of "messing up", of Shortcake potentially getting the two of them killed... and... and Chouko feels speechless.

  There are no words that Chouko could say to Shortcake to comfort her. For years upon years, Chouko has... only been by herself. Charon stands on the opposite side of a professional boundary, and everyone else she's seen in these last nine years have been mere filler. Not a single person in mind.

  This... has been the first time in years that Chouko could see someone, the first time she's stopped to dwell on another living- "person". An android designed to be a person, an... an android that... brings up memories.

  As the - currently - bald, pink eyed Shortcake sobs and panics in distress about the phone, Chouko just... couldn't muster the words to say anything worthwhile. Blankly staring into the helpless android, just... forced to finally confront the elephant in the room.

  The elephant... being that...

  ...

  ... Franz Kafka. A 20th century author, writer of The Metamorphosis.

  The story follows a man, a hard-working salesman named Gregor Samsa. For one reason or another, left purely to reader interpretation on how, Gregor ends up turning into a cockroach. A large, putrid, hideous man-sized cockroach.

  A cockroach is a bug identified for its filthiness and repulsiveness, as many will think of fear that they will spread their bacteria and disease, or possibly rage that leads to a desire to kill and exterminate the pests. After all, a cockroach being spotted in one's home indicates a complete lack of hygiene, and subsequently- infestation.

  Now, by turning into a cockroach, Samsa fundamentally becomes a complete and total outcast. Everyone outside of the home makes deliberate efforts to stay away from him out of fear, disgust and shame... and the only solace he still has left in his life is his family. A family that, after his transformation, neglects and shames him too. Stripping him of what makes him human, hurting his body with apples and such, even isolating him completely from the rest of the house out of necessity.

  In the end, Gregor resorts to die of starvation, no longer feeling... wanted. Upon hearing the news of his death (none of his family even discovers the body themselves), his family is happy and elated. Free of the burden of caring for Gregor, they all collectively quit their jobs and move to the countryside for an easier life. No longer will they suffer the burden of caring for him, of being forced to put up with him. His death puts an end to their hardships, and they move on with their lives for a hopeful future.

  Most of Kafka's works follow this surrealism, to the point where his name becomes a term for a bizarre, illogical, nightmarish genre of work. Scary and disorienting to read.

  "... interesting... and yet, you still read them, Chouko...?"

  ...

  Yes...

  They are profound works... that tell tales of how Kafka lived.

  Metamorphosis stands as the most recognizable work of Kafka's, a profound piece that - given enough time and contemplation of life itself - reflects the way we live.

  What causes Metamorphosis to be unsettling is not the imagery of a cockroach, not the idea of someone spontaneously turning into a grotesque bug... it's how Kafka captures the human spirit and weaves a tale of the illogical to portray the darker parts of humanity.

  Kafka puts so much of himself into his writing. His free time was primarily spent writing, and... and yet, his career was never fulfilled when he was alive. Kafka was noted to burn 90% of all his works due to self-doubt, with the rest either lost or unpublished. The works that were published? Little attention. In the very end, Kafka instructs his unfinished works to be destroyed. Even so, he believed literature to be his life's calling, his only calling.

  Much could be said about how Kafka lived, how he juggled his work with his writing to his utter dismay... how he felt a strong lust for erotic desire - from both women and men - and his works were laced with his own mental state, with Metamorphosis hypothesized to contain traits of schizoid personality disorder while being a vivid depiction of borderline personality disorder.

  In essence, a work that is a mix of having little to no interest/ability to form relationships with other people, unable to express a full range of emotions... and at the same time, having unstable and extreme emotions, with intense relationships with others.

  Kafka is one of the many authors whose personal lives are as compelling as the works they write. An author plagued with anxiety and depression, with many brought to examine his own mental history. Gregor Samsa being one of the many- reflections of himself.

  And in this moment, Chouko puts herself in the shoes of another literary character. Rather than the vengeful Edmond Dantès... she is reduced to a Samsa, a rotting pest fated only to suffer hardship. She is a Kafka, a man whose own passions f

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  And above all else, Chouko is a shadow of her former self, a woman who has consigned herself to a life of torment and struggle she's accepted long ago. A life where she abandons her former self for the sake of- vengeance, to reclaim what she's lost. A soul thrown into this most Kafkaesque of situations, where the only way out is to further deprave herself.

  And now, in doing so, she drags with her an... an innocent, pure android designed to care and be cared for, a miserable android that suffers from misery and fear.

  A little girl that simply wanted to... to...

  ... to make her family proud.

  The only family she's ever had, a family she- never got to know. Thrown and discarded into an unforgiving world with only a single hand to guide her, one person to lead her through a world of monsters, plagued with the unknown, and...

  ... and it was that moment, as those thoughts cross her mind, that Chouko needed to accept a simple truth. She had no words to say, no words to comfort Shortcake, for one reason she denies.

  Because Chouko never knew the right words to comfort herself.

  The android cries like the little girl Chouko once was. The android worries about making mistakes, like Chouko does. And the android is designed and introduced with a purpose in mind, being designed to act- as human as she can... a human that should hold great potential, that should accept all the love her heart could manage.

  Shortcake is... a blatant reflection of Chouko, and every time Chouko sees this android being- frightened, miserable, all the such ways- it's just her.

  Contextually, the two of them are different- and Chouko hoped that they were different enough to not evoke any emotion from this. But their differences have been excuses for Chouko to- to run from the fact that she sees herself in Shortcake. They are different, and yet they are one and the same.

  And that hurts Chouko.

  It deeply hurts her... to feel this way about Shortcake. Chouko doesn't want to treat it like she would herself, because she doesn't- know- how to care for herself. Quite like the Samsa family, by accompanying Chouko, this... this android will be dragged through the depths of her hell, the same hell that Chouko's descended down.

  Nothing stops Chouko from thinking this, from feeling another soul - even an artificial one - going down the same path she does... if Shortcake is like Chouko, then Chouko suffers from a budding guilt of empathy. The curse of knowing the misery of the path she goes down. Either Chouko will have to deal with the burden of carting for a little her, or Shortcake's life will forever be burdened by turmoil and strife.

  So the elephant in the room cries out rampantly, trumpeting through to call for the cockroach, demanding it be aware of this fact, to which the roach must... must...

  ...

  ... no, not yet.

  Chouko doesn't want to, yet. Some part of her aches at the thought, aches as badly as her wounded arm... and she definitely needs to patch it up, in this most dire of situations. But Chouko is too exhausted to do so. Her legs are tired, and her eyes still sting from using the butterfly for as long as she did.

  Chouko desperately needed one moment of rest, as her eyes flutter and she ignores this metaphorical elephant. So she just walks back to the car. Walking away from the gas station, walking away from this burden on her mind, and just- walking her way back to the car.

  As Chouko walks, the crying, panicked Shortcake- nervously stares for a bit, looking between Chouko and the gas station window in mild confusion. Walking right after Chouko, still helplessly distressed. "C-Chouko, w-what about the first-aid kit?! Shouldn't we get it and then drive-? W-We could- s-somehow patch you up and-"

  "It's fine... I need a moment to rest," Chouko tells the android, opening the right passenger-side backside door and climbing into the car. With how the seats are adjusted, there's- a fair amount of space for her legs, and she just- lies back, sighing, relaxing, sinking into the cushions for just a moment. It isn't the softest, but it's almost heavenly for the back that holds too much.

  As she sits and hears the phone continuing to ring, she... tosses it into the car's cupholder. Showing no care for it whatsoever as the phone simply lands in the holder, continuing to incessantly ring over and over again.

  Shortcake continues to- shake and fidget. "B-But- w-what if- what if someone comes up to us, and we- we need to leave and- and-?"

  "Shortcake," Chouko calmly interrupts as she scoots over into the middle seat. "We have only recently departed from Indianapolis, no one knows about us yet... and the phone is unanswered. So if the plan is to get the first aid kit anyway, we... have time to sit. Let's- both just rest for a moment, okay? We parked right next to a gas pump, so... we're just a car getting some gas."

  "..." Shortcake... pauses for a while, before, uhm... standing next to the car, looking up and down between Chouko and the now empty right-side seat. "O-Okay... i-if you're sure..."

  "I am," Chouko speaks up with a smile, an inviting one as she pats the seat next to her. An inviting look on her face. "Please, take a seat," she insists, before looking forward and... having a grim, forlorn expression on her face. "We can take cover for now, and- relax, for once."

  ...

  So- Shortcake climbs into the car, taking a moment to just- lean over, putting the knapsack over on the other side of Chouko. Her arms still shivering and shaking as she does so, before she sits down.

  With that, the two of them sit in the confines of the car.

  The sun has yet to rise, despite the hour near approaching morning. The cold night air mixes with the warmth of the previously running car, giving this sort of... nice and canny early-morning atmosphere.

  The two still wear each other's clothes, with... Chouko looking visibly bloodied in Shortcake's standard black and pink frilly doll dress, while Shortcake wears a slightly drenched leather jacket over a white button-shirt and a black skirt. Slightly drenched, being from putting on her recently cleaned and washed hair.

  Chouko just... leans her back into the car, resting her head against the back of the car seat. A faint groan sounding out, her arms going limp at her sides... and she blankly... blankly stares off, staring out the window at the gas pump, just turning her head- away from Shortcake. The idleness bringing to attention the... the dried blood on her, having no opportunity yet to clean herself off.

  Meanwhile, Shortcake politely sat with her hands folded on her lap, eyes- looking around more actively, her gaze alternating between each window to the sides and the front, with- the occasional look towards Chouko. The blood still comes to Shortcake's attention every so often, going so far as to... even notice some signs of dried blood on the leather jacket itself. Faint traces, dating back... a long time.

  It wasn't a complete silence, no. The annoying, persistent sound of the phone still rings in that car, as this... "Dot"... has been calling it several, several times. Over and over again. Not a single minute of silence.

  And yet, the two... took the time to sit and relax. Chouko left in a listless stare out of the car, on the verge of just- passing out, while Shortcake's crying comes to a hesitating slow, her "nerves" calming down in this idle solace.

  The radio remains off, the phone continues to ring, and they're given a brief pause of peace.

  "... so what is the plan to actually get-?"

  "Shortcake, can I ask you an honest-?"

  "...?"

  "...?"

  The two of them speak over each other in those moments, pausing once hearing the other person speak. Chouko continues to look away from Shortcake, staring into the reflection and seeing Shortcake looking at the back of her head.

  Chouko almost- intrusively blurted out the question, the one that weighs heavily on her mind. Unsure how to word it, how to really

  "You- first," Chouko suggests, a hand raised to gesture to Shortcake.

  "N-No, you- were going to a-ask something first...?" Shortcake politely responds. "Y-You seemed like you wanted to ask an honest question about something..."

  "It can wait," Chouko insists, letting the android speak. "I assume you're just asking about what our plan is to- get the first aid kit?"

  Shortcake... nods. "Yes- I... I was wondering what we would actually be doing, after the rest. The door's locked and... well..."

  Chouko hmms for a moment. "Truth be told, I... don't know. I've been enduring so far with a stiff shoulder, and am content with hoping my injury naturally manages on its own."

  "I- I don't think shoulders do that, we desperately need the first-aid kit to take care of it now..." Shortcake mumbles. "A-And I guess that means- we, uhm, we need to... take rash measures... i-if we can't go to a doctor..."

  "Right, but our... our ways to accessing the first aid kit are... limited," Chouko responds.

  "S... Sorry that I couldn't d... do anything to help..." Shortcake whimpers.

  ...

  The words grow heavy in her throat. It was that moment where the phone goes quiet, as the air in the car grows heavy. All sounds echoing out as Chouko further dissociates... and disassociates.

  Don't ask her... please, don't ask her. It will crush her poor heart.

  There's no other time we can do this. It's best to let it out now, let her down easy.

  I... I don't want to. What will happen if I ask her...? How will she take it?

  Follow up question... do you know what will happen if you don't?

  ... I don't know.

  Neither do I.

  Is this the only way? Can't we delay it a bit, keep her around...?

  No... no. I'm ripping the bandage off.

  "... s-so, uhm, w-what were you going to ask?" Shortcake asks, tilting her head. "What did you- want to ask me?"

  Chouko's left in an inner turmoil, and... and- stalls. She stalls for one more moment, stalls for one single moment. A saddened, discomforted look on her face as she prepares herself to address the... miserable simulacrum of her self.

  Debating it in her head, Chouko...

  ... no, she can't do this as Chouko.

  The woman stares at Shortcake for a moment, donning the face that she's used for years. It was only now that she even dare remove the mask, that she stripped herself of the title that's protected her.

  No, she... Kuroiwa, the Stalker of the Underworld, puts the mask back on. Kuroiwa comes out in this moment. Staring at the android, ridding herself of all uncertainty... deeming it best to remain solitary. To go on and die with only the sins of the wretched on her back, not with an innocent caught in her failure. To perish as the murderous, bloodthirsty monster she must be to enact her vengeance, not as a pathetic parasite leeching off of her own memory.

  Kuroiwa is resolute, and - as she's long since thought of, ever since seeing this android's misery in that office - needs to discard of Shortcake, for both of their sakes. No more of this pathetic sentimentality...

  So Kuroiwa gazes into Shortcake's eyes, actively watching the android's reactions as she asks the question, as she prepares... to...

  "... be honest. Do you even still want to stay with me?"