Knock, knock.
"Marisa? Are you home?"
The female figure paused in front of the wooden door, waiting. 1 second. 5 seconds. 10 seconds. No sounds let alone an answer were heard. She sighed.
"I guess she's out, then. Oh well, better take the opportunity."
The unknown visitor pushed the door open and stepped inside with no hesitation; even though she's a thief, the owner of this house had never bothered to even lock her own door when she's away. Perhaps she didn't mind losing anything since most were not hers in the first place? A valid argument, the visitor thought as she was met with mountain of junks and stolen goods.
"Filthy as ever, I see. Now where did she dump my grimoires..."
She let her trusted 'children' did the search, secretly tidying the place in the meantime; she's a proper city-sect magician who loved to put everything in order, as opposed to the naturally disheveled rural magician that is the owner of this place.
"Geez, they're full of cobwebs! Does she even use these stuffs at all? Hm?"
A book tied neatly with orange ribbon, sitting among a bunch of unknown metals.
The book was dumped together with piles of other junks, but seeing how good its condition was compared to the other materials, it was easy to conclude that it was purposely hidden for a reason.
A book that's not a grimoire; a book that held supposedly no value for magicians, for what reason was it concealed? The visitor hummed.
"Interesting..."
The curious figure sat on the nearby pile, setting the book on her lap. An almost incomprehensibly tiny scribble was on its cover, and she squint her eyes to read it.
"Seven-colored memories of you. Hmmm..."
With a little tug of the ribbon, she unlocked the mysterious book.
xxxxx
Red...
My first memory of you is that of a red red scenery.
A magnificent doll play dyed in crimson, brilliantly dancing, like a rose sprouting under the pitch black woods. Yes. I could recall it clearly in my mind even now. Those deep red threads flowing from your fingertips softly captured my soul, and the me that had died that night returned to this world.
Since then, I knew, I could never escape you no more.
Orange...
Tea with a hint of orange marmalade.
I remembered the curiously sweet breakfast I spent at your place, the first among the many to come. You keep grumbling as you served my share, eyes locked on the broken window hanging before me. But as I said my thanks to your homemade delicacy,
I thought I saw a smile forming on your eyes.
Yellow...
The color I hated the most; the color of my hair.
It was the color that isolated me from the other villagers, the color of the outsiders.
The color of the monsters.
Even as I finally left the village and mingled with the monsters, I couldn't bring myself to like that color. So I thought, as I twirled my source of hatred with my finger, absentmindedly staring at your skilful hands working by the window. Your light blonde hair shining under the morning sun.
Capturing that scene in my deepest memory, I guess I started to like the color much more.
Green...
If you ask me to choose among the many precious jewels, I would undoubtedly choose the mystical green stone of Emerald.
The seeker of love and the revealer of truth; its tremendous magical properties gave it the name 'The Stone of Successful Love'.
It is a powerful stone I embedded to my trusted weapon, the fuel of my strongest spell card. It was my most beloved possession;
The perfect replica of your beautiful eyes.
Blue...
People called it the color of the ocean and the color of the sky.
But for me the color always brought me back to that snowy day, where I saw your cerulean dress calmly swaying in the everlasting winter, standing before my path. The freezing air struck my skin sharply, reminding of the abnormal season that was yet to turn. But seeing your almost familiar figure among the pure white scenery,
I thought that spring might have already come after all.
Indigo...
The undying full moon painting the starry sky in the color of Indigo.
I wonder if you remember those nights as much as I do; the one we spent together searching, fighting, joking around at times. But little that you knew, as dawn silently crept on the horizon to signal our victorious end,
I secretly hoped for the eternal night to continue forevermore.
Violet...
The cape you gave me was the mysterious color of violet.
A simple piece of clothing matched with the one you always wore, the one you knitted by your own fingers. You gave it as a price for the errand you said, before sending me down to the deep deep world of the dead. The extreme heat of hell and the chilling cold of winter; those subterranean anomalies mercilessly blew against me as I made my way toward the blazing purgatory, and I hugged your handmade cape close. Protected by its soothing touch,
I felt that death was not even scary anymore.
Red... Orange... Yellow... Green... Blue... Indigo... Violet...
Those are the seven colors that formed my precious memories of you.
May those colors of the rainbow shine brightly within my heart,
filling my black and white soul with your radiant color until the end of my life.
My beloved A—
xxxxx
The writing stopped abruptly, blotches of ink decorating the unfinished words in a chaotic mess. The reader blinked, tracing her finger over the broken paragraph. She sighed.
"Well, well, whaddya know? I thought I was the only thief 'round here."
The front door cracked open to reveal the owner of the voice, a little witch with a big pointy hat.
"Welcome back, Marisa."
"Not even a bit guilty are we, eh Alice? Breaking in and all."
"I wouldn't be if it's your house. Furthermore, you didn't lock the door."
"Touche."
The witch tossed away her hat to the nearby pile and approached her guest.
"So? Anything in my treasure cove interest you—AAAAHH!"
In a flash the book was gone from the previous reader's grasp, cleanly snatched away by the infamous panicking thief.
"Y-YOU! YOU DIDN'T—"
"Yes I did. And it was a wonderful book."
The witch slammed her face to the nearby pile, earning a confused look from her visitor.
"You know Marisa, I don't care if you have a secret hobby of reading melodramatic stuff, but to steal such book from its owner is unforgivable."
"...steal?"
The black-white retracted her head from the mountain of junks.
"It is clear that the book is a very precious memento, but you paid no care and went as far as spilling ink on it. I can't believe you."
"S-stea—yeah! I-I 'borrow' it from someone. Yep. And what I do with it is none of your problem ms. doll-freak."
"...fine. Look, I will let you borrow my grimoires for a bit longer but I want you to return that book to the rightful hand—"
"Sure, sure. Bye."
"Wait, Marisa—"
SLAM!
The monochrome witch sighed, sliding down to the cold floor with her back against the door. She hugged the book close, hiding her face behind her long messy bangs.
"Stupid Alice. So you didn't realize?"
Whispering under her breath, she opened the book and flipped it to the last page.
Inscribed on it was a small and almost unreadable name of the author.
...
...
...
Kirisame Marisa.
And the witch softly smiled.
"It was already in the rightful hand."
DENSE. Dense, dense, dense, magic-obsessed and dense to the core. There's no better way to explain Alice, yeah. *nods* Oh, well.
Hello and nice to see you again. It's been a while. How have you all been? Me, well, I'm slowly adapting to my new environment. But enough about me, let's resume the talk about the story shall we?
As the title said, this story is part of Scarlet Archive. There's a hint from the main story in the 'Red' segment, which told about the first meeting between Alice and Marisa...well, literally they've met in Makai before but Marisa considered her nothing more than a shooting target back then so the impact didn't count as much. Yes, Marisa could be very inconsiderate to her foe when resolving incident. *sigh* Anyways, for those who's interested about it you can check my other fanfic called "Scarlet Archive: The Maid and The Little Girls of Gensokyo". I'll be really happy if you enjoy it. *laughs*
And about Marisa, I always wonder for long...why does she name her strongest spell card as 'Love Sign'? That's why I think, despite her rough and rowdy look, she might actually have a romantically girlish side hidden. It's strange. I know. It felt really wrong that my fingers twitched a lot after writing this comment. *twitch twitch*
In the end, I hope you can enjoy this story. I slowly slowly start practicing my writing again and it will take some time to revive my sense, but I hope you can warmly wait until then.
Review if you may and see you again~
