As she entered the bar, she ordered her drink, and approached one of the side tables.
"Care for a company?"
The man already sitting there had short cropped blond hair and green eyes-a gaijin like feature on his unshaven otherwise Japanese face.
"I'm not much for a company these days, sorry." Was his rough response, after a glance at her and return to his drink.
His voice somewhat tired and rough, fitting his scarred tough looking appearance.
"Most men would be glad to have a pretty woman take interest in them."
And she was right, with her long, slim figure, pretty heart shaped faced, full lips, long black hair and an appreciable bust, she was quite the beauty, even in her leather pants and jacket.
"Let me buy you a drink. It's the least I could do after disturbing you rudely."
He just sighed and waved his hand in dismissal, before taking another drink.
"You know, I'd rather not spend the night drinking alone. Nor return to the solitude of my home… care to accompany me"
"Sorry, not looking for that company either." He didn't even look at her this time.
He felt the bittersweet relief as she left. Giving him his demons back.
And then it evaporated as she got back, a bottle in hand.
They sat and drank, and talked about the weather and other meaningless thing, about how old places change and stay the same after an absence. Of local politics and stars in sky.
He knew not for how long they sat there, drinking and talking to fill the silence.
He didn't much care.
"So who was she?"
"What?" her question came out of the blue and left him surprised, particularly due to the dissonance with their last subject.
"Who was she, the woman who took your heart with her? There is only one reason for that particular look in men."
He did not talk at first, choosing to take the bottle directly, and emptying it.
After drinking it all, he took a big breathe, as if preparing for an unpleasant task.
"Someone who was always cheerful and optimistic, brave and kind. She… she is gone now. Gone forever. She wanted to fight for our sake. She lost-and I lost everything."
In that moment, he looked decades older than his thirties would suggest.
"Have you been away for long?"
"That obvious?"
She just shrugged.
"After she was gone, it hurt too much to stay, so I left… went abroad. Recently business forced me to return to japan. "
"You must've missed it…Ashikabi-san."
At the term, he twitched, a hand stealthily reaching into a coat, despite the show of confusion playing on his face.
"My instinct was right, then. You missed much abroad, Ashikabi-san, sometime After the Sekirei plan reached its conclusion, Those Sekirei whose termination did not reach stage five, who lost without dying, were reactivated- even though our bonds and memories were lost. Your wagtail could yet return to you. Don't you want her back?"
The hand withdrew from the coat, empty, and his shoulders drooped. For a moment he imagined her hair brown and wild, tied into a long tail at the back, a red top replacing her black leather jacket. And then the illusion was gone, smoke among the alcohol fumes.
"No. without her memories and personality, without our bond, she would be someone else, a stranger, wearing the skin of the one I loved. A pale imitation that would bring into my mind's eye the ghost of the one who is lost to me. We lost our battle to keep our love. Besides, I've changed quite a bit from the person I was back there, and even were she to try again, m not who I was back then, and not for the batter.
If it really is fated, she will find me again, we will meet again. Otherwise I would rather spare the both of us the pain."
With those words, he rose, and paid the tab, bumping into her as she did as well.
"Good evening and goodbye." With those words of farewell he left.
The woman set and remained there for some time, pulling a key with a name on it. One she did not have before.
"We shall see, mister Oosumi, we shall see."
With those words, she sat and pondered the still grieving man, and her own failed attempts to recall anything, any little piece of memory about her own Ashikabi, lost to her, never to be regained after her reactivation.
As played with the key in her hand, she thought about the merits of using the item and paying a visit the the Ashikabi whose lonely soul called loud enough for her to sense. The pros of taking a new wing and starting over, vs trying to bring back the past.
This is a small oneshot that i was inspired to write while checking some Sekirei crossovers.
It is chronologically years after a potential end to the Sekirei game, one that was kept secret from the public, just like the events of the game itself. In this future, those Sekirei who were Terminated, but not killed (meaning those who didn't fight Karasuba, or maybe one of the other Disciplinary squad members) were revived, unwinged and without their memories.
How would those who did not win Minaka's game fare in its aftermath? this is my take on it.