Twisted force/Moving gears
As a baby, Naoko had a limited range of motion and linguistic skill, therefore, she was effectively bed ridden for the first year or so of her life, not to mention isolated. It was unbearable, being completely motionless. Even if at first she liked the idea of having no responsibilities or even things to do, it got old quick. After a while, her body was practically itching to do something, anything.
It took her less time to start walking than the average baby, even though it was close. Her experiences with walking in her past life were irrelevant when applied to an infant body, everything was just too different, center of gravity, length of limbs and the such.
Though, as to make up for the lack of mobility, as soon as she turned one year old, she noticed something drastically different about her body. A presence. A dark and sinister presence hidden away in the pit of her stomach, as though cowering away from her.
It felt like an uneasy feeling at first, but as time went on, it got worse and worse. She noticed that whenever she didn't do breathing exercises, the sinking feeling would amplify twofold. The feeling itself would range from mildly unsettling to downright terrifying.
It was especially bad whenever she slept, as whenever she fell asleep, the feeling would kick in again and wake her up.
She sat awake at night mostly, staring at the ceiling of her room.
'Is this why babies wake up at night? Some sort of primordial baby instinct?' She thought.
One day, she had enough and decided to give in. She wouldn't fight the feeling anymore and would just face the music head on.
Comfortably in her crib, she stopped her breathing control and focused on the area in her stomach. Over time, the small quantity of whatever that was increased exponentially. Now, whenever she looked into it, it was like staring into a bottomless void.
The void of energy would tremble and shift around with the slightest change in emotion or state of mind. Stress, anger and fear were especially great triggers for this.
'How disgusting. A foreign force fueled by negative emotion. What a shitshow.' She thought while analyzing the power inside of her.
She thought of consciously controlling that energy, and as if heeding her commands, the ethereal substance swirled and twisted around inside of her. Just that feeling alone caused her insides to churn and all the contents inside to come flowing backwards.
Until that moment, Naoko thought that feeling was something natural, intrinsic to all humans, something that people got used to over time. And though that might have been part of the answer, it was evident that it was not the full story. This was proven as she noticed the 'thing' did not stop at the mental level, it could manifest and be seen through a physical lense.
Gradually, over the course of a few days, Naoko slowly yet tirelessly worked on willing this new feeling to move. And move it did. From her stomach, to her arms and all the way to her brain. Again, her body attempted to reject this disgusting power, but she steeled her resolve and circulated it nonetheless.
It was then that she noticed its power. Her formerly sluggish baby limbs felt lighter, her body felt protected in a way and her vision became sharper. They were slow, incremental changes, so small that she couldn't notice them.
'What is this? Superpowers? It feels more like a curse. Granting me power while making me feel like I have 10000 slugs moving around beneath my skin and hundreds of larvae hatching in my brain. How… appalling.' She thought while moving the energy to different parts of her body.
It became her newest and only hobby. Constantly manipulating the power inside her body into different things and observing its effects. It wasn't much, it felt like shit all the time, but it was something to do besides staying in her room and playing with toys.
Her mother had long left at that point, leaving Naoko all alone in her own room most of the time. The only social contact she had was through the various people coming in and out to teach her various things, like language and how to walk.
It was boring, but peaceful.
"Nako!" Two babyish voices said in unison.
'Peaceful my ass.'
A woman that came by nearly every day walked in with two other children by her side. She would regularly do this for reasons unknown to Naoko, perhaps in hopes of them becoming friends.
Naoko looked at the two babies wearing stupid baby expressions and playing with their boogers.
'The twins. My worst nightmare.'
"Maki, Mai, be good kids and don't cause any trouble." The woman coldly said before leaving the room.
Maki and Mai, the two worst people Naoko had ever met. Being six months older than her, they already knew how to walk and talk to some extent. The two hideous creatures would barge into her room every day and steal all her coloring pens and crayons, not to mention drawing on the wall.
"Hey, if you're gonna be in here, at least settle down." Naoko said, dropping the act of a brain dead kid she had to put up in front of adults.
She didn't particularly care about the stationery but she did care about the twins' lack of personal boundaries.
"Nako! Play wit us!" Maki said with a toothy grin.
"No. Go to sleep or something. You guys are babies."
Maki and Mai completely ignored her warning and pounced on her like two starving hyenas and began to wrestle. Mai was manageable, but Maki was monstrously strong, Naoko's physical strength did not hold a candle to hers. And so, they teamed up and easily pinned Naoko to the ground before promptly falling asleep on top of her.
'Whatever.' She sighed.
Closing her eyes, she focused on the mass of energy accumulating inside of her. It seemed to work telepathically, as in anything she thought of doing, the energy would do. So, she dug her arm from beneath the twins and extended her index finger. Then, she willed the energy inside of her to come forth in hopes of physically manifesting it. Unfortunately, as always, it refused to leave her body.
'Why, mysterious energy? Why?' She thought while trying again, with no change in results.
Then, she tried evenly spreading the energy throughout her body and then expelling it to the outside. This time, she felt something strange inside of her, but still no physical manifestation.
It felt like her basin of energy slightly shifted. Not the kind of shift she felt whenever she manipulated the energy, but a different kind, like a large gear had finally fallen into place and the whole contraption started slowly spinning.
She looked inwards again but only noticed the same bottomless dark void she always did. Nothing had changed.
She kept trying for what felt like hours with no results to show for it until the twins woke up. Once they did, they performed their usual routine of throwing pens at each other while running around.
Though eventually, their time was up and the woman came back to pick them up. Leaving Naoko all alone again.
She tried and tried and tried again and again for hours. Then for days, then for weeks and then for months. Nothing.
'Damn. I feel like my control over it is improving, just why won't it come out?' She thought, drenched in sweat from the workout of thinking. 'Only one thing I can do, let's try again.'
Another year or so passed,and Naoko turned 3 years old. Nothing much changed, only that Maki and Mai could not speak in coherent sentences. It did not make them any smarter. And the worst part was, they could walk to her room on their own now.
"Mai, hold my hand." Naoko said while holding out her hand.
Mai paused before wordlessly taking her hand into her own.
'Fascinating.' Naoko thought as she analyzed Mai's energy. 'So she has it too?'
She sent a mild surge of energy through her body and into Mai's.
'No reaction?' She noticed that Mai didn't react negatively to the energy. Naoko had mostly overcome her disgust towards it, and the effects did dull over time, but they were still there. So seeing Mai not react surprised her.
"Maki, hand." She said.
Maki obeyed while flashing a wide smile.
'And none here? What the hell? Mai has very little, but Maki has virtually none. Does this have anything to do with why they are shunned by the clan? Actually, now that I think about it, it can't be because they're women, since I also reside in that category. Then, is it their volume of energy that's holding them back?' She thought, already beginning to draw links between the twisted energy flowing through her and her clan. 'If so, this energy is really important around here.'
This revelation sparked her dying interest in the energy. Over the past year, she worked non stop to externalize it, yet it never worked. But now that she knew other people were actively using it, she had a reason to continue trying.
Though, she realized the twins weren't all bad. If it weren't for them, Naoko wouldn't be able to even talk to anyone. Not even her brother showed any interest in her.
"Let's play!" Maki smiled.
"Sure." Naoko replied with a smile of her own.
*
One month passed and Naoko felt closer and closer to her goal. She could feel the gears inside her soul rapidly turning, creating a harmony inside her void of energy.
She sat down on the tatami mats in her room and tried coating her entire body again, determined to make it work. However, nothing happened.
The gears spun even faster.
Again, and still nothing.
The gears picked up speed again.
One more time with the same result.
The gears were now spinning with a speed unthinkable for mechanical parts.
She tried again, no energy was released.
The heat caused by the friction of the rapidly spinning gears began turning their ends red.
No energy was released.
The ends started glowing yellow.
Failure.
All of the gears were turned bright red.
Failure.
The gears turned bright yellow.
Failure.
The temperatures reached into the thousands.
Failure.
The tens of thousands.
Failure.
The temperatures grew exponentially, reaching the millions in a matter of seconds.
Failure after failure.
Temperatures in the trillions of degrees.
Failure.
The temperatures were immeasurable by any sort of metric.
Failure.
From the heat alone, the dark void was dyed in a bright red.
Failure.
The once dark and desolate void inside her heart ignited as a crimson red fire spread from the epicenter of her soul to its very extremities, burning everything in its path.
Naoko tried moving her cursed energy out again, expecting another failure. Unfortunately that wasn't what she received.
An ethereal blue energy shot out of her, enveloping her whole body. However, not even a second later, that shroud set ablaze into a set of blazing flames.
It was excruciating. It felt like her flesh along with every inch of her body was melting away from the heat of the flames. If before the energy felt sinister and disgusting, now it felt spiteful and bloodthirsty.
Her lungs could barely take in air anymore as all the oxygen around her was used as fuel for the very flames that were tormenting her. Eventually, her lungs could only inhale carbon dioxide, slowly suffocating Naoko.
She was lying with her back on the floor, legs and hands desperately squirming around while she gasped for air.
Her hands moved to her throat as her nails began digging into it and drawing blood. She continued clawing away at her own neck, ignoring the warm blood sticking to her fingers.
She began screaming, but even her screams were muffled by the roaring of the flames enveloping her. It was hopeless. There was nothing she could do.
She stopped moving. Not because she had died. But because she thought she was going to. Her hands left her neck, her legs stopped kicking and she stopped gasping.
'This is how I die.' She thought. 'How lame.'
Contrary to her beliefs, as soon as she calmed down to accept her fate, the flames decreased in intensity bit by bit until they were completely stifled.
Though by that time, Naoko had already lost consciousness.