Red Memory

Mamoru once again found himself in the past looking down at Hikari’s body.

You really like to invade people’s privacy.

“I don’t want to hear that from you.”

He had opened her eyes within an old temple, bent over with palms pressed together. Past Hikari had just finished a prayer, but for what, Mamoru did not know. What he did know was that her eyes began to fill with water until overflowing as waterfalls.

Tch. Why this? Why now?

“Princess. Princess!” Some castle aid shouted from the distance. Past Hikari quickly wiped her face dry and turned. The man ran up, stopping a moment to gape at the sight of the princess. He watched his feet shuffle, then took a deep breath. “You’re father’s… you’re father’s troops have returned.”

Hikari nodded. “I’ll greet them.”

“You don’t have to.”

Past Hikari wiped her face again and shook her head. She put on a brave face and marched to the castle gate. A sole three men came through on horseback. They were bloody and worn, what little armor was left on was dented and scratched. The leader of the pack looked up a moment. He started to cry.

“I’m sorry princess. I’m sorry.” Past Hikari held out a hand for a moment, like she might reach to him, but stopped and withdrew it.

I still don’t know what I should have said.

“They were the only survivors?”

Yes, with the remainder of our enemy’s army on their tail. Months of fighting had gone horribly wrong, and the castle was the last safe place—until they got there.

“Hikari!” A woman’s voice shouted. The past version of the girl looked up where a white-haired woman looked stared down. Mamoru thought at first it must be her mother, but the girl was too young. A sister then?

It was answered in short order as the princess was directed away from the mournful troops with a wave of the newcomer’s hands. She marched through the castle to the throne room. Some guards slid the door shut leaving just the princess with the white-haired woman from before and a small entourage.

Up against the wall sat a young boy, probably no more than 6, with a maid who shook a toy to keep him entertained. Some men dressed in formal wear stood along the other wall, Mamoru guessed they were advisors of some sort. He couldn’t help but notice one with jet black hair and red eyes, who seemed to stare back at him—him and not the white-haired princess whose memory it belonged too.

The older white-haired woman sat in the center of the room. She rubbed a decorative dagger, likely a formal item of the emperor when he was still alive.

“Sister, you didn’t need to shout,” the past Hikari finally said after several minutes of silence. The older woman huffed and set the dagger on the floor in front of her.

“You torment the men who survived showing up like that.”

“I wanted to-”

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted!” The older woman sighed. She took a softer tone. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is how we get you and your brother out of the castle before the enemy comes.”

“You don’t mean for us to flee?”

“Would you rather stay and die?”

The past Hikari stared at the floor. Her sister sighed.

“The enemy will need several days before they storm this castle. Father did well to slow them, and our family’s reputation as power mages must be inviting caution. Before then, a cargo train will leave with civilians. You will not be on that; we expect them to intercept. Instead, you will sneak away by the cover of night the morning before and flee in the opposite direction.”

“No! I’ll stay here and die with honor!”

Hikari’s sister stood up and quickly closed the gap between the younger princess. The elder slapped her younger across the face.

The past Hikari held her hand to her cheek in shock. She glared at her elder sister but looked away when she saw the woman had tears in her eyes.

“That is all, only the people in this room know they plan. Discuss it with no one else. If no one in the civilian group knows anything, our enemy will show them mercy.”

“She seems rather optimistic that this would work,” Mamoru chimed in.

It might have.

“Might have?”

I suspect at this rate you will end up seeing just how horrible a woman I am.

“Do you have to be so vague?”

Hikari said nothing as the scene shifted from the throne room to the hallways. The black-haired advisor moved close to the past Hikari once they were alone. He wrapped his arm around her in a display that made the girl jump.

“Advisor Abe!” The past Hikari pushed the man off her.

“My apologies child, I don’t know how to comfort very well.”

“Yes, that was a rotten job.”

The man made a laugh that sounded like he was at least amused.

“My apologies.” The advisor shifted his arms and straightened his back to look more proper. “However, I wanted to speak with you princess, due to your discontent with your sister’s plan.”

“Did she ask you to say something?”

“She did not, this is my own doing, and it is a good thing too, because I want to offer another solution.”

“Another solution?” the past Hikari looked intrigued.

Don’t do it you idiot. The present Hikari added.

“Yes, in your father’s… private collection, there is a unique sword said to contain great power, but only if you are strong enough to wield it.”

“Powerful enough to stop an army?”

“You will slay everyone.”

The past Hikari looked intrigued.

“Show me.”

The man led the innocent girl into the depths of the castle, through a locked door with old seals stuck on top, into a dingy room where the sword sat on the pedestal. The same sword Mamoru had in the present day.

The past version of the princess didn’t notice how the advisor stayed back. She didn’t observe how the room was set up more like a prison than a weapon display. She didn’t think why her father would keep it locked away like that.

Some sort of force compelled her, Mamoru could feel it, it was like the current pull he felt to the sword—only amplified a thousand times, but more than that, the past Hikari was allured by a mix of vengeance and sticking it to her sister. The feelings inside the past girl were strong enough for both present persons to feel it.

Mamoru tried a fruitless shout that she should stop. The present Hikari started to whimper.

She picked up the sword at once everything went red. A single voice overwhelmed all else.

Kill.

It was powerful, strong. Every part of it seemed evil. The past Hikari was no longer in control of her body, it had become nothing but a conscious puppet, forced to watch the dance the puppeteer saw fit.

Things were distorted, but what occurred in the blur of red was still obvious. Men and women were cut down like nothing, in quick succession. Some screamed and tried to run, others used their last words to beg the princess for mercy.

The three survivors had looks of horror when they came onto the scene. They mournfully tried to stop her but were ended all the same.

Her sister flung spells, but the puppet’s body was more acrobatic, contorting the body in ways that should be impossible to dodge any attack, before she drove the blade through her sisters heart.

“Hikari, why?” the elder sister had managed to say in the end.

No! The present Hikari cried.

More were slain like nothing more than pests, then came when the puppet burst into the room of her younger brother and his maid. The woman was already fleeing down the steps with the boy in tow. The puppet chased. They reached where the river ran next to the castle, and the maid threw the crying boy into the river with nothing but a wooden board to cling too. Her head hit the ground before the boy hit the river. There was no way to tell if he made it, and the puppet didn’t stay around long enough, it rushed through the rest of the castle and finished the job.

In the end only the advisor was left alive in the red scene. He clapped and said something which had now become too distorted to make out.

Kill. The voice once again beckoned.

The puppet lifted its sword up; blade pointed at itself. Then it was Hikari once again. She was freed for just a moment, tears streaming down her face. She drove the blade into her chest.

The end didn’t come, instead Mamoru felt himself along with the past Hikari get pulled into the sword like a whirlpool sucking them deeper and deeper. Another ‘thing’ passed by them, he wasn’t sure what it was, nor could he see it, but he felt it approach and his blood turned cold at the mere proximity.

With a gasp he woke up. His body was soaking wet, and he shivered like it was negative fifty in the room. He struggled to find air and took several minutes to calm down. Once he did, he was able to take in the scene. It was the resistance’s secret base, the same treatment room he had seen before.

A ghost girl had her face buried in her knees in the corner of the room. Her long white hair acting like a blanket had been thrown over top. She sobbed quietly, like she didn’t want to make a sound, but also couldn’t stop.

Mamoru took a few more seconds to steady his breathing, once he was sure he could speak, he did.

“Hikari?”