The chest

A bizarre situation was taking place in the dormitory’s dining room. A handsome man was joyously jumping around as if a deposit of vifer had been discovered in his territory. On his back was a short girl who clung to him for dear life as each of the young man’s jumping steps threatened to send her body flying on a collision course with a wall, floor, or maybe even the ceiling if she let go at the right moment.

“I was only joking! Put me down already, pleeeeaaaseee.” Protested the gray-haired girl who had made the mistake of asking her new ‘papa’ to spoil her. Since I was only the observer, their behavior looked more stupid and embarrassing than fun, but they seemed to be having a blast.

“Maya! I never was much of a father to you, well you know I was only like two or three when you were born. But now I’m ready to take responsibility, I will shower you with lots and lots of love and attention!”

Despite his initial reluctance, Fifty definitely enjoyed playing his new role. He had first captured Maya in a bear-hug, then twirled her around multiple times, and now was giving her a wild piggyback ride around the room. The petite girl never stood a chance and could only beg for mercy in the rare intervals between her squeaks. Fifty had mentioned that next on his fatherly list of things to do was eating dinner together, telling her a goodnight story, and holding her hand till she fell asleep.

I watched their cringeworthy bonding session with a lukewarm smile. I had to say that Maya’s taste in names was rather poor. How could she have picked Fifty’s ‘Maya’ over my clearly superior ‘Eriell’ or ‘Rubiell’? Nevertheless, since this matter had been resolved, I wanted to put a closure to this day eventful day.

“See you guys tomorrow.” I stood up and moved to leave for the storeroom, bringing some food and a barrel of wine to my bedroom wouldn’t hurt. A pity there were no non-alcoholic beverages in the dormitory, but those tended to spoil too fast. Still, there had to be a well or something outside, so I should be able to get a servant to make me some tea tomorrow. I also wanted to check up on a certain little girl on the way back.

“Wait, don’t go! Help me first, brother!” Captured Maya turned to me for assistance. Apparently, I became a part of their family before I knew it… which immediately shattered my good mood. And it wasn’t just a simple case of a ruined mood, this sudden negative influx of emotions continued to develop into something much worse.

Fifty said something as well, but I wasn’t listening to them anymore. Maya’s request for help, or more like her specific choice of words caused colors to drain from the surrounding. It felt as if an endless bog appeared beneath me, a dark bog from which a stream of memories erupted.

‘Brother, help!’
‘Brother, it hurts.’
‘Ni’chan, help me…’
‘Brother, do it again!’
‘Ni’chan, tell me another story, please.’

Two identical voices kept ringing in my ears, dragged from the depths of my mind. Upon hearing them, my disgust for the still hurting brand grew stronger, but there was a slight sense of unity mixed within. Mine was tangible, theirs was not. My head hurt as if long, red-hot nails were being hammered behind each of my ears. Before I knew it, my hands were tightly clenched, shaking uncontrollably.

‘Brother, does father hate us?’
‘Brother, what is wrong with us?’
‘Ni’chan, why --- and I are like that?’
‘Ni’chan… you really want me to wear this?’
‘Brother, stop putting sour candies in the red candy box!’

Recalling some of those words was no less painful than it had been back then, others made no sense at all, and some were warmer than laying on a soft blanket during a sunny summer day. But that wasn’t all... that for sure wasn’t all there was to it! Mixed within those shards of memories was the knowledge that had been hidden from me, the knowledge that I had someone more important to me than my very life.

Now it had returned to its rightful place.

‘Brother, it’s pointless.’
‘Ni’chan… I HATE YOU!’
‘Ni’chan, get out of my bed.’
‘Brother... it hurts... it hurts... it hurts!’
‘Ni’chan, help me… or do you like --- more than me?’
‘Brother… stay with me for a little longer, just a little…’

I knew that the empire was rotten, but for them to dare to use a tainted despite everything they did to them in public? This had to be some kind of a sick joke. However, without recalling everything, it was hard to say why exactly I felt that way.

‘Brother… you promise?’
‘Ni’chan… you promise?’

And there was this promise I had made… or were there two of them? But no matter how much I tried to remember, the content of those promises remained sealed. I had been foolish enough to think that making new goals and dreams was the correct answer while following down this path would cause me to betray everything that made me the person I was! Thankfully, regaining those shards of the past changed everything, starting from my attitude towards the lost memories - I had to get them all back.

The inside of my head was filled with suffering as I tried to dig out more of the shards from the depths of my mind. A wave after wave of terrible pain interrupted my thoughts, and the smoldering fury within me was about to burst out. That something, which held it back till now, agreed with my desire for revenge on the empire. My palms became sweaty, breath ragged, and heart continued to beat like crazy. Quickly increasing anger kept looking for an easy way to manifest itself.

Someone’s hand touched my shoulder. Just what I needed.

“Hey, are you al-” Maya’s words were brought to halt after I raised my face and showed her the furious expression painted on it. Fifty saw it as well, because he quickly swapped places with the girl, hiding her behind his back.

“Faust? You look terrible, what’s wrong?” Though he tried to maintain his smile, it was evident that he was wary of me.

How I wished Fifty would give me the final push needed to overpower the remains of logic that screamed not to attack this guy without a weapon. On the other hand, I didn’t want to act like an idiot without a good reason. Damn, if only Rex were here.

“I’m just sick of your goddamn face and your stupid family play.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad, is it? We have to relax when we can, or I don’t think we will last long in this place.”

“Papa’s right! Oh wait, are you jealous? Sorry~, but as long as I’m Maya, Fifty will remain my father. But cheer up! I wanted to make you a younger brother, but if you really want to, I will let you be the older one.” The grey-haired girl’s voice was as cheerful as ever, she wanted to come closer and pat my back, but Fifty stopped her.

This double-faced bastard treated me like some kind of a wild animal. “So that’s how it is? As soon as a girl with a pretty face gets all chummy with you, you don’t care about anyone else? Want to keep her all for yourself, huh? Wannabe hero indeed, already building his harem, just remember to feed her regularly. Heh, at least Rex showed us up front what he’s like and what he wants in return. And you...” I pointed at Maya. “... don’t you fucking dare to call me brother. It’s already disgusting enough to hear you call this guy ‘papa’.”

“Seriously, what’s your problem? One minute you’re acting perfectly normal, the next you’re looking for a fight? Are you really jealous? That’s disappointing, I thought you’re a better man than that. The sad part is that you’ve brought Rex as an example, but you’re completely blind to yourself.” Fifty’s opinion of me continued to plummet without even the need to answer his questions anymore. He moved a step away from me, dragging Maya along, and gestured towards the exit with his chin. “I think you should rest, you can apologize to us later. And if you really have some problem, then maybe tomorrow I cou-”

“Apologize? For what? Stating the truth?” I interrupted before he started patronizing me.

Fifty shook his head and continued to shoo me away. As the realization that he was confident it wasn’t possible for me to win against him hit me, I began searching for something sharp. A knife or a fork would do just fine. But before I grasped something suitable, Maya freed herself from Fifty’s grasp with a sudden quick movement and distanced herself. “I think all of us should rest. It’s been a hard day, and it took its toll. I’m going first. And forget about this whole family stuff, it was just my stupid joke that turned out worse than I expected, so let’s go back to being normal acquaintances tomorrow, ok?” She showed us a glimpse of a genuine expression of guilt and sadness before she swiftly turned away and left the room.

Not sparing me a second glance or another word, Fifty followed right after her and I was left alone in the dining room. Their misunderstanding of the whole situation irked me somewhat, and I knew that they did nothing wrong, but other than that I didn't really care. Overall, it was already a big success that only a small portion of my anger managed to seep outside and that I stopped myself from doing something really stupid, not that I was proud of being unable to control my emotions. Worse, there was still the risk that given a proper reason, I would explode with a self-destructing fit of rage.

I remained on the ground floor for a few more minutes to cool down, surprisingly no items were destroyed in the process. Partly because the dining room's chairs proved to be sturdier than expected and throwing them around was tiring, partly since I was unable to bring myself to shatter any of the more fragile targets like those expensive, decorated vases. I would sooner resort to stealing them than mindlessly breaking. After regaining a bit of composure, I took some supplies from the storeroom and went back to my room. To my relief, the white-haired girl wasn’t standing on the corridor anymore. One more thing occupied my thoughts on the way back, I realized that even though most of us seemed to be nobles, we were far from behaving as such. Culture, etiquette, manners, behavior, and so on, all of us were much closer to children displaying their bare emotions than proper nobility. Was this the result of possessing only the knowledge, but forgetting the circumstances in which we had obtained it? If yes, then I sincerely hoped it was only temporary.

My last thought before I fell asleep was to check tomorrow if the food I brought wasn’t rotten, something stank.

*****

“He surely took his time.” Complained Teacher while dressing himself. There was a mountain of things he had to do, but taking control while Rexar was awake could end badly. Not only his pupil would end with strange holes in his memory, but there was no guarantee that the takeover would be smooth. For example, there was the risk of falling down the stairs since Teacher could only initiate the process but wasn’t able to predict when exactly it would be complete, and such emergency takeovers could easily be broken.

“Four? Nah… three. Three hours.” It was the time limit Teacher set for himself for today's night. The body they shared still required at least the minimum amount of sleep. They had learned this the hard way, during hellish four days when they both stubbornly refused to let their body rest and became no different from an irritable, hallucinating wreck of a human.

His uniform back on, teacher sighed heavily and moved to open the sturdy metal chest that stood in the corner of the room. Though a small silver key was inserted into it, the chest wasn’t locked. As he lifted the heavy lid, a worrisome sight entered his view. Curled up on a big pillow inside was a little girl whose blank green eyes reflected the moonlight and followed his every movement - the same white-haired girl that had stubbornly refused to enter her own room.

After she had turned down Teacher’s request to become her master, he tried quite a few different ways of reasoning with her, worried that someone would have no qualms about taking advantage of the girl, but nothing worked until he gave up on persuasion and issued a strict order. Surprisingly, the girl obediently listened to him, but despite his best efforts, she failed to comprehend what it meant to be the master of her own life and only did the things that were told to her in the form of orders. Though she sometimes seemed to twist the meaning behind them in her own peculiar way. In the end, he took her into his room and ordered to rest. The result was entirely different from what he expected as the white-haired girl took a single look around the room and without hesitation went into the chest as if it was the most suitable place for her to sleep. Since Rexar was close to regaining control, Teacher only stuffed one of the pillows underneath her and had to leave.

Which led to the current situation.

“Slept well?”

“...”

The girl remained silent, unwilling to talk with someone who had kidnapped her. She might have felt obliged to follow orders, but that didn’t mean she was devoid of emotions. And right now, Forty-one was quite pissed at the man who had been ordering her around without her consent. Her default soulless expression turned into a frown, and she even puffed out her cheeks in a silent show of resistance.

“Fine, we will do it the hard way. This is an order, eat and drink until you're no longer hungry and thirsty.” Ordered Teacher while pointing at the food brought by Rexar. He had just finished inserting a small wooden tap into the wine barrel. The name ‘wine’ was misleading, as the alcohol content of this watered grape juice was kept to a minimum required to prolong its shelf life. It was nearly impossible to get drunk on this stuff as Teacher had learned long ago.

Forty-one shot him a glance full of murder, that made her look as terrifying as a small hissing kitten, and moved to comply with her order. Inwardly she swore that if someone ever ordered her to bring harm to this man, she would carry out that task with some extra zeal. In the meantime, while chewing on a piece of dried meat, Teacher sat down at the desk and began writing a letter to his pupil. His goal was to establish a communication with the current Rexar called Faust.

Initially, he thought about using a vifer core taken from one of the lamps, but their quality was too low and even after fully saturating with radiance the most they could do was to produce some light. He would need a military grade core or better if he wanted to construct a second necklace, and until finding such a thing, his options were limited to using other people and writing. The former were unreliable and risky, making the latter his only viable option. There were many things he wanted to explain, but no guarantee that Faust would take him seriously if it sounded too far fetched, that was why Teacher only hinted about the existence of some matters while focusing on the topics that were going to be hard for Faust to ignore.

The letter turned out a bit long, but after rereading it, Teacher decided that it should be fine.

When he saw that the white-haired girl, who sat on the floor, was trying to drink directly from the wooden tap, he grabbed an empty mug from one of the cabinets and wanted to pass it to her. “Here, use this.”

“...”

“Yeah, it’s an order. An order to make your life easier.”

She reluctantly took it.

“You know what? I’m rather good at telling stories.” He said and sat down opposite to the girl, for a moment they ate in silence. The food wasn’t bad for something that was made with long shelf-life in mind. “High up on the steep shore was a small dark forest. In it stood a very old oak tree. It was four hundred and forty-one years old, but all that long time was to the tree almost like the same number of days might be to us. You and I wake up and go to sleep every day, but it was different for the tree, it had to stay awake for three seasons of the year, and only when the winter came it could finally rest. On a warm summer day, a little fly landed on the tree, tired by its nonstop flight. The fly’s life was short, merely a day, but it was content with it and enjoyed its every minute. But the tree would always say: ‘Poor little creature! Only a single day of life, how very short. It must be quite melancholy.’...”

In the beginning, Forty-one listened only because she had no other choice, wondering at the same time what was wrong with this man. She wasn’t going to speak unless ordered, but couldn’t ignore his words in case he would mix an order within. At least for now, the commands she had received were still camouflaged as kindness, but she knew this state wouldn’t last long. And so, she unwillingly continued listening to the rather simple story, yet there was something charming in it, something that with each minute made her focus more and more on the story itself instead of the order to fill her belly.

She listened as the tree and the fly talked about the different ways they perceived time. How the fly was happily using each of its countless little moments of life, while the tree was convinced that its own life was much more fortunate since it would last longer than the fly could imagine. Then the fly's time to live ran out, and it died, but the tree continued to exist, repeating the same conversation with countless flies every summer. Each time the winter came, the tree fell asleep, lulled by storms that crackled its branches. And many years came and passed.

The story lasted for a few more minutes, telling more of the tree's experiences and thoughts. By that time, Forty-one only mechanically moved her mouth to chew while her eyes and ears followed each gesture and listened to every word that came from Teacher’s side.

“... and then, during a very stormy winter, the tree dreamt what was about to become its last dream. As it slept, the furious wind broke its branches, tore its roots and finally managed to overturn the tree. The rest isn’t important since it’s too religious for my taste. The end.”

“Huh? That’s-” The girl exclaimed surprised by the sudden ending, but quickly realized what she had done and fell silent in the middle of her sentence.

Teacher watched with pleasure as the white-haired girl quickly turned red from the anger of being tricked. She didn’t seem to like it when he touched her, so he restrained himself from poking her puffed cheek with a finger, but the mocking smile on his face had to be among the widest he had ever made.

“Ok, I see you’re done eating. Time to do something about this… distinct smell of yours. This is an order, go to the bathroom on the ground floor and wash yourself thoroughly, there are basins with water over there and soap, use them. This is also an order, if you meet someone other than me, turn back immediately, or hide until that person is gone, then come back to this room.” I added the last part since it wasn’t hard to predict what this little girl was planning to do in case she spotted someone. “Just remember, if you don't scrub yourself properly, I will personally give you a second bath.”

“...” The girl silently stood up and left the room. Anxiety and fear were building up inside her, the only way of discouraging others from getting close to her was about to be removed. More than ever before she wanted to have her memories back, for sure they contained the information who was her true master, and maybe if she had them then it would be easier to reconcile with her fate.

She also resolved herself never again to let that man fool her with a fancy story.

Teacher waited precisely thirty seconds before following the white-haired girl, but his final destination was different. After making sure that there was no one on the way from his room to the lavatories, and that the girl went inside without any problems, he turned back to the first floor and without a second though opened the door on which was the number XLI. The room’s furniture and most of the items within weren’t any different from his own. The only exception was at the same time his goal. Teacher began rummaging through the room’s content in search of a new set of clothes for the small girl. For a moment he thought about ordering her to do it by herself but decided against due to the same reason why he made her stay in his own room.

He simply liked the idea of taking care of that girl and wanted to see her happy. The only problem was convincing Faust to do the same, but he had already stated this as one of his demands in the letter.

Armed with the smallest uniform and undergarments he managed to find, Teacher went back to his room where he waited for the girl’s return. But after half an hour of killing time, he realized that he had only ordered her to wash but never said anything about coming back unless she met someone. Taking into consideration the girl’s antipathy towards him, it wouldn’t be strange if she remained there for hours.

“Heh, damn she got me.” He sighed and went to retrieve Forty-one.

But as soon as he placed his foot on the corridor of the second floor, he heard some steps that sounded too heavy to belong to a little girl. Some other candidate was climbing the stairs. Teacher strained his ears while walking in the direction of the stairway. Whoever it was, he or she stopped on the first floor and then went inside one of the rooms. Excluding Forty-one, out of the four remaining candidates from that floor, two were the guys who had been angered by Rex, and two were unknown.

However, there was no need to go and search for the white-haired girl, as she had returned by herself a moment later. Apparently, she had seen someone and was forced to follow through with her orders. Her movements were reluctant, and for some reason, she was totally naked. Water dripped from her wet hair and body, each of her steps left behind a small damp footprint. She looked devastated, and her mood was rock bottom but there no sign of the previous layer of dirt and that unpleasant smell. The girl's clean state of being revealed her potential to be incredibly cute and huggable... as well as many long thin scars concentrated around her hips and chest that were probably left by a whip.

“Look at you! It’s almost as if you’re a water phoenix reborn.” Teacher tried to reassure her by not acting awkward in her naked presence and show her that to his eyes she was no different from a normal kid, but it had little effect.

The rest of Teacher’s remaining time after they returned to the room number XLVIII was spent on ordering the little girl to dress up and comb her hair properly. At first, he wanted to help her with it but quickly changed his mind as she was almost like a different person after coming back from the lavatories. The girl’s body tensed up each time Teacher came close to her, in addition to remaining silent, she also tried to keep her eyes shut and avoid any unnecessary movements. Watching her shake in terror pained Teacher's heart, but his goal remained unchanged. He wished to convince the white-haired girl that no harm would befall her from his hand and planned to slowly reduce the distance between them until it became evident that all he wanted was to pat her head and see her sincere smile.

However, for today that was enough.

As soon as he had told her that it was time to sleep, she practically escaped inside the chest without waiting for him to finish saying the rest of the order, which only consisted of ‘good night’.

Convincing her that he really had no ill intentions was going to take a lot of time, but it was possible… as long as Faust agreed to cooperate. There was also the problem of managing Faust’s negative emotions that were no different from a ticking bomb, but Teacher decided to postpone dealing with it for tomorrow’s night.