Chapter One: A Disconcerting Choice
It was a bright spring morning that morning, with birds chirping, plants growing, and cute furry baby animals running all over the place. Inside an old house ensconced deep in the mountains, an old man was dying. Gradually, of course—his people were given to long lives and even longer memories, a fact that he constantly lamented—but still, dying. He could sense it; he would probably not live to see the first leaves turn orange, and spring had almost run its course. However death would bring a welcome release for him, a release that he had wished for and yearned for many, many years before people would have even seen a single gray hair in his coal-black locks or a single wrinkle upon his brow.
A few days ago his left shinbone had exploded in pain quite suddenly, so suddenly that he had fallen over in shock. He yanked up his robes to see what was the matter with it, only to be reminded that he had lost his left leg just below the knee thirty years previously, and the decay that had claimed it still lay sleeping in the marrow of his bones. The old man knew all about phantom pain, and he knew that something had happened in the far south of his country, the part that had burned and blackened from nuclear fallout thirty years ago. A military invasion perhaps (although what any military from any country would want with a piece of dead, diseased land was beyond him), or perhaps something more sinister. The man felt himself consumed with curiosity, but he owned no modern conveniences such as a television or radio, and no newspapers were delivered here (the man doubted very much that the postal office knew of the existence of his little abode, as no mail came to him at all, which was both a relief and a cause for some small sadness—he had nor heard from his brothers in years, and hoped they might write him someday) and he had abhorred the long trip to the nearest village fifty years ago, and that was when his aged body had been considerably stronger and he had still possessed two legs. So he resigned himself to not knowing what the catastrophe was—for it was surely a catastrophe, having caused him that much pain—perhaps not even until after he died and he could look down upon his homeland from a much kinder realm than the one he lived in now.
It was as he was thinking these thoughts and reflecting on whether a nice cup of ban-chai tea would be worth the trouble of getting up and making it when he heard someone outside his house, speaking considerably louder than necessary. The man may have been old, but he was still keen of both vision and hearing, and possessed a mental sharpness the envy of men centuries his senior, more trouble for him as he became increasingly frustrated by the limitations of his decrepit body. Nevertheless, the presence of a visitor, overly loud or not, was enough to make the old man grasp the edge of a nearby counter and haul himself to his feet, grunting with the effort.
The man tottered outside, leaning heavily on an old wooden crutch that he himself had whittled soon after he had lost his leg. From the timbre and pitch of the voice, his visitor was quite youthful, and the man could and would implement his crutch as a means of driving off any unwanted guests.
When he reached the outside of his home (which was built in the traditional style of his homeland, a style that had long since been forgotten by the modern world until it was just his brothers and himself who remembered, and perhaps a few historians who chose to dig that deep into the past) he was shocked to find that his visitor was a young girl, a young girl most unwonted in her appearance and garb. If questioned, the old man could not even begin to describe what the girl was wearing, except that it appeared incredibly light and filmy, and it was almost as if the material shimmered with its own light. Her looks he could more easily grasp—she had long hair that reached to her waist, dark as a raven's wing, bangs a horizontal slash across her forehead. Her skin was as white as the finest porcelain, yet no veins, arteries, or any other inner workings of her body showed through. Her cheeks held a faint hint of a light shade of rose, and her lips were startlingly red, almost the exact same shade as blood (the old man had seen enough blood in his inestimably lengthy lifetime to know the exact shade of blood, a fact that he regretted deeply, as it always seemed to find a way into his nightmares). The girl's eyes were like shattered stones, a light gray-blue in colour, and they glinted with a bright intelligence that stirred a long-dormant emotion in the old man. He was almost certain it was fear.
"Hello, Kiku Honda." Her voice was cool and soothing, yet somehow oddly disquieting. The old man almost physically recoiled as she spoke his name, but centuries of classes on honour and politeness held his body straight.
How does she know my name? Why is she here? What is going on? Thoughts flew around the old man's skull like excited midge-flies. One of these thoughts collided with his brain to provide a startling revelation.
"You're the new me, aren't you. I die, you are born."
The girl smiled sweetly at him, sending shivers of fear down the old man's spine. "No. I am here simply to offer you a choice."
"A choice? What do you mean? What kind of choice?"
"A choice to do your life over again. To do it differently. All of the memories you have now at this very moment will be retained, but your body will become young again. You have much to benefit from this."
The old man stared. It was impossible for such a thing to happen! But—and this was no trivial but, it was one of those huge buts that seemed to show up every century or so and leave either world-devastating or world-healing effects in its wake—what if it was possible to do that? What if he could live his life all over again, making all the right choices this time? What if? What if? The effects on history would be huge. Perhaps if he did this, on the very same date as today, he would still be young and strong and have far less regrets in his life than he did now. What could be lost? Nothing—he was dying already, that much was obvious, and if this killed him it would only be a blessed release. But if it worked… If it worked…
"I accept your offer."
The girl smiled at him, chillingly so. "That was faster than I was told you would make up your mind, Kiku Honda."
"Who told you how long it takes me to make decisions and how well do they know me?"
The girl threw back her head and laughed. A tinkling, musical sound; it should have been extremely pleasant to the listener, but instead brought forth mental images of nails screeching down chalkboard and the horrific screams of men in vast amounts of pain.
"So be it, Kiku Honda. So be it."
From the folds of her strange garment, the gir withdrew two daggers, each slightly longer than a man's handspan. One was pure white, and appeared to be giving off a faint glow. The other was dark as night, and appeared to be sucking in a little of the light that surrounded it. Instantly the old man knew that these weapons were not meant to be so close together. Why was the girl raising them over her head like that, it was if she was going to bring them clashing together—no, no, no! do not do that! —the knives came flashing down—the old man must have cried out—laughter from the girl—so he was going to die, after all—
The daggers came together, spitting sparks and a single pure tone, a beautiful tone, unlike the laughter of the girl, truly beautiful. The old man felt himself washed over with the sound until he was surrounded by a globe of beautiful golden light, light that faded away his aged body until it looked as it was almost a thousand years previously. The light roared and snapped around him, travelling at a fast speed, he was going to make it, the man realised. Then it all began to break down.
The orb of golden light appeared to slam into something. It shuddered violently as tongues of blackness flickered through it, seemingly wanting to rip the ball apart. A cool female voice echoed.
Status report: failure. Shields at defence, dropping to sixty. Life support capabilities stable. Attack ratio: fifty to three-sixty. Repeat: Status report: project has been a failure. Safe transport of subject has failed. Shields in defence aspect, dropping to fifty-eight.
The ball shuddered and continued to fall apart. The man knew that he was truly going to die now; it had been a wonderful hope, but a futile one.
The ball of light split, shreds of golden light flying everywhere. That same cool female voice echoed, completely impersonal like the voices from automated telephone services, but somehow harried.
Life support systems at zero. Shields at three per cent. Subject survival at ten per cent. Initiating defensive measures.
Initiating the Three Brothers Effect.