Chapter 14. An old friend

"There are four envelopes upstairs. I just need to get upstairs, fetch them, then go out. You do so and your daughter is fine."

"Right..."

Now this is a problem. A huge problem. The envelopes are in my pocket. If she goes upstairs and finds nothing, we're finished.

Then again, if I don't let her go upstairs, God knows what will happen to us.

"Girls, go back to your rooms. This issue is between mommy and her."

"But-"

"To your rooms"

Both Sayuri carries Uzuki to her room and lock her. Then she goes to her room and locks herself up.

"I... will let you in. Just... give me my daughter back."

"Of course."

Hikari goes upstairs.

I've got to come up with something before it's too late.

I know Uzuki is holding her set of dice right now.

I know Sayuri started streaming Makima to stop her.

Then it hits me.

I take the brush as fast as I can and I transform into Katsuya, then go upstairs as fast as I can.

"Hikari!"

She looks at me surprised.

"What are you doing here, Nozomi?!"

"I got the signal, where is the item?!"

She fumbles through the room and gets four envelopes.

Exactly the same as before.

I wanted to check my pocket, but I know it'll look very suspicious, so I get near her.

"Envelopes?"

"Yes, each one has an item. We will need to secure them as soon as possible."

"Gotcha, I can help with-"

"But"

She looks at me.

"You're not Nozomi"

Oh no.

"W-what are you saying, prez? Of course I am me!"

"I doubt it"

She prepares her camera.

"No one sent a signal. That means it must be you, Hibana. You're here to interfere with the society."

"Hikari. I'm getting scared, why do you-"

From downstairs, the door creaks.

This is my chance.

"WH-WHAT WAS THAT?!"

"What was what?"

"That thing that sounded!"

The door closes itself; I guess because of the wind.

"G-gaaaah!"

I hide behind Hikari.

"Tell me it's not one of those! Go freeze them or whatever but go!"

Hikari smiles.

"It was the door, Nozomi. It probably was the wind."

She pockets the items

"Never mind what I said, I'm sorry. Let's go back to the library. You got space on your bike, right?"

Oh no.

The bike.

"Y-yeah, there is some space"

"Is something the matter, Nozomi?"

"No! I'm...still nervous from the sound"

She smiles.

"Of course. Let's go"

We go downstairs, and of course, there's no bike outside.

"Nozomi, where is you-"

"Those idiots!"

I act angry and look around

"Somebody just stole my bike!"

I start running towards the library, screaming.

"They're so fried!"

I stop at the park again, noticing she isn't following me. I hide and change back to myself. Then head back to the house.

But heading out, I notice on the exact same bench.

Holding the exact same book.

That girl.

"You!"

I run towards her, she shields with her book.

"Ai-I mean, who are-"

"Don't play dumb with me!"

I take her book and throw it.

"What did you do?!"

"What do you mean?!"

"Don't play dumb! I bet you don't even know your name!"

"What kind of question is that?! I'm... Sanae...Yoshinoya!"

"Agh!"

I drop onto the floor.

"They are after the items. They're after them and I saw you die. I saw you bloom. What are we going to do?!"

"Oh... so it happened, huh?"

I look at her.

"Well, it's time to stop pretending, I guess..."

She stands up.

"My name... is Kasumi. Yukimura Kasumi. If you want to use your father's last name, I'm Hibana Kasumi.

"MOM?!"

"Hi sweetheart"

I hug her. I hug her with all my might.

"What, what happened?!"

"Oh... you didn't figure it out"

She sits right next to me.

"Kind of a long story, but I’ll spare you the details. I belong to a society that gather-"

"The Crimson Moon Society?!"

"Wait, how did you know?"

"I'm in it but- but what about what you did to me?!"

"Did I- oh..."

She presses her fingers together, trembling.

"The boss wanted us to experiment with an item, copy paper. I duplicated flowers, common items, all that. Then it came time to test with a real human. And as all of my friends were too valuable for me, I copied myself."

I don't say anything. I'm angry, but I get it.

"I made four copies of me, and I used the brush to make them different. One would be a mother; one would be a younger, cooler version of me; the other would be me as a child. I managed to do each, one by one, but the last one came wrong. The last one copied only the bad things about me. I used the brush and transformed it into a plush thinking it will never be able to move, but it did."

"Cuddly."

She starts crying

"The copy was also extremely powerful, and as you know, whatever that thing was stole a powerful forbidden item, the brush. Back in school when you told me about it, I tried to stop it. Of course, copy paper doesn't have a great application for fighting and it won. It transformed me into an eternal high schooler and well, I posed as Sayoko the entire time. With three other versions of myself as family. No way back."

"But why didn't you save me?!"

"I... didn’t save you because I didn't want you to get involved in all of this. I knew you would be strong and manage to do something about it. But...I also knew that I couldn't stop it with just...paper. Possibly it could have ended even worse."

"Great... just great..."

I can't believe it. My mother had been posing as a high schooler and left me with a clone of herself which, by the way, was evil. Not only is the situation ridiculous, but the fact that she had been there, able to save me for so long and not do anything is just...

"You know what? Just... leave it like this. I don't want to know anything about you anymore."

"Ai, I-"

"No, you don't get to apologize or anything. You weren't there. You were supposed to be there, but you weren't. I had to spend my entire childhood as a freak, with an abusive aberration as a mother and you didn't do anything. What did you do? Went to high school for the second time? Made friends? Good, I didn't have any friends. I had no one. And now I have them and it's definitely not because of you."

"I see..."

"I see?! That's everything you have to say?!"

"Okay Ai, let's get serious. You don't get to rewrite this into something comfortable for you. You don't get to turn me into a coward because it's easier than accepting what I had to do."

She gets close to me. Seriously close. Super mad.

"I didn't go to high school to have fun. I had to do it because I had no other choice, and mind you, I was looking for a forbidden item to save you all this time, so I had to run an item network where I pay for them."

"Wait, that wa-"

"Don't interrupt me while I'm talking to you!"

I shut up.

"I erased my name, my age, my identity! I built a stupid persona of a girl I didn't even care for and I had to learn how to live with not one but three different versions of myself! They don't even remember who they are anymore! Do you have any idea how hard that is?! That your entire life is a lie?! That you spend so much time living as a fake person you even forget who you are?!"

She starts crying out of anger.

"You had friends, yes, but it was because they liked you! Not a cheap image of a random stranger you didn't know, not one of your masks, they liked you! I couldn't be a person! I couldn't be a mother! I couldn't even be seen!"

She drops on the floor and cries, I am about to lift her, but she looks at me.

"Yes, you were alone and that's on me, but don't pretend I was living a second childhood while you suffered!"

"Mom..."

"I stayed away because every time I got close, the items reacted. Every. Single. Time. I tried to step in and the whole thing started to collapse on me. I chose to stay away because otherwise you'd be dead right now!"

We stay in silence. She starts going back up and sits again on the bench.

"You can hate me. I deserve it. You should hate me. But don't insult the life I sacrificed by calling it a vacation!"

I stand and I sit with her.

Then I hug her in complete silence.

I kiss her forehead.

"I'm sorry, mom. I'm really sorry. I... now I get it."

She arranges her hair and looks at me.

"...apology accepted."