3
When he opened his eyes, the boy found himself utterly lost.
He stood on a green hill, the grass waving in a gentle breeze as the sun shone. Beneath him, a vast forest expanded outwards. A river's glimmering trail snaked its way through the green, but otherwise nothing resembling a road was visible. Not a single building was in sight; the place seemed completely wild.
Wherever this was, it sure as heck wasn't near Shigeo's little farmhouse.
He looked around again, seeing nothing but trees surrounding him. Around his feet, a small cluster of stones was scattered, but they were featureless and flat. The entire scene was silent except for the sound of a slight breeze in the trees; nothing seemed to live here. As far as he could tell, he was alone.
Then he heard the footsteps.
Quickly, the boy scrambled behind a nearby bush and peeked out. The steps steadily got closer—he could see the person's shadow now, and hear the crunches of the dirt as they approached. He tensed, looking around frantically for something to defend himself with: a stick, something, even a twig. The footsteps got louder, louder, louder...and then passed without a hitch.
He let out a breath. The footsteps stopped.
The boy closed his eyes, cursing his stupidity. Any moment now, the bush hiding him would be brushed aside and he'd be discovered, possibly robbed or killed—
All he heard was silence.
Cautiously, the boy opened his eyes. The bush seemed intact; the mysterious figure's shadow had disappeared. He took a hesitant breath. No response came.
Was he alone, somehow?
A quick glance back showed nothing, no leering man in the bushes standing over him. Turning his head back, the boy slowly looked over the top of the bush, careful not to move its leaves.
For a moment, he just blinked.
Another boy stood a fair distance away, closer to the pile of stones. His back was to the bush; it seemed he hadn't noticed anything at all. His attention was on the stones themselves, as he knelt and set down two bouquets of flowers: one for each. Then he stayed at the stones, his head bent in what almost seemed like prayer.
The actions were familiar. Almost everything about this other boy was familiar. Out of nowhere a memory struck—something from the previous afternoon.
"Do you have any idea what you look like at all?" Shigeo's voice jeered a second time. "No, I guess you wouldn't...just take your hair, and oh, what the heck—your eyes. Brown and green!"
Brown hair. The person currently kneeling near the stones had brown hair.
As an impossible idea began to form in the boy's mind, he heard something. A second set of footsteps was approaching, more rapidly than the first. Given the way things had turned out so far, he half expected the owner to be yet another brown-haired boy.
Instead, he saw a girl approaching.
Even as the boy hurriedly moved to hide again, he noticed her amazingly red eyes. Something about them both intimidated him and fascinated him to the extent that he almost couldn't tear his own eyes away, but he managed to force himself down behind the bush as he passed by.
Once again, the same feeling of familiarity that had struck him at the sight of the strange boy swept over him as the girl passed. He felt as if he could stand up and call her name, if he could just remember…
Distantly, he heard two voices begin talking. Another glance over the top of the bush showed him that the girl had joined the boy in front of the stones and was now saying something to him. The other boy still hadn't turned around, but his head shifted slightly as he turned to look at the girl more directly. He made a gesture in the direction she had come, then said something. The girl nodded and looked back briefly, those red eyes flashing again. The boy beside her turned to follow her gaze, his own eyes—
Green.
Could it be…?
He didn't have time to think about it. The two were walking towards his hiding place now, and were close enough for their muffled words to become clear sentences.
"...jenda says...solo mission," the girl was saying. "She says you're ready."
"Wait, really?" That was the other boy's voice now, tinged slightly with panic.
Involuntarily, despite the fact that he was supposed to be hiding, the boy let out a gasp. He knew that voice; heck, he'd heard it enough times last afternoon. It was his own. And if that was true...
Somehow, he was looking at himself.
He let out another breath at this realization. The pair were almost in front of his hiding place now, but then again, it no longer seemed necessary to hide. After all, what was there to fear from himself? The girl next to this version of himself seemed friendly enough too; she was still talking avidly.
"You'll be fine, Tatsumi. Everyone has to do it at some point. Besides—"
A hand slapped itself against his cheek.
The boy gave a yell of surprise and leaped straight out of the bushes, rolling to land in front of them. He looked around wildly for the slap's source, catching a glimpse of the same mountains, shadowed tree trunks, the empty green hill—
Empty green hill?
Climbing shakily to his feet, the boy looked around. The pair had disappeared; the grass waved gently where they had been walking a moment before. There was no sign that anyone had ever been there.
The hand slapped itself against his cheek again. This time he heard speech accompany the slap, some sort of mumbled command. The boy blinked. This time, he opened his eyes to see a very familiar figure in a very familiar place.
Shigeo was bending over him with a raised eyebrow and an annoyed face. "Time to wake up," he said. "Heaven knows you've been lounging in my barn for long enough."
The boy gave a groan and rolled over. "Just a little more time," he mumbled, his thoughts already going back to the faraway green hill. "It's okay if I miss breakfast."
"You want to miss lunch too?"
He burst upright and stared at Shigeo. "Lunch?"
"That's right. Didn't think you'd been sleeping that long, did you?" The old man straightened up and headed for the stairs. "Get up while it's hot," he called back into the room, and then he was gone, the steps creaking under his weight as he went downstairs. Undoubtedly he expected the boy to follow after him soon.
Instead, the boy sat up slowly and looked around the room for a mirror.
He found a dusty one in the corner of the room, half-hidden behind an old wooden cabinet. The mirror seemed even older; a large crack weaved along its bottom left edge and patches of grime as big as his hand were scattered across it. Not particularly pleasant or easy to see in, but still the boy looked.
His face—identical to that of the other, nameless boy in his dream—looked back. There was no mistaking it.
With a slow breath, the boy fell back on his hands, his head spinning with the ramifications of his discovery.
Since he had woken up on the road the past afternoon, the boy had never gotten a chance to look at his face. He was tired, hungry, and completely lost; a simple detail like his reflection seemed to be irrelevant. With the hole in his memories, he wouldn't have recognized his own face anyway. Now, having woken up from the dream, it seemed some part of him did. Could it be that the dream hadn't been just a dream—that somehow, he had dredged up a memory while he slept?
You'll be fine, Tatsumi, the girl had said, instants before Shigeo had shaken him awake. If he could really accept the dream's events as fact, then logically, by extension, he could also say that his name was Tatsumi.
Tatsumi.
He looked back to the mirror, mentally testing out the name. Hey there, Tatsumi. How's it going, Tatsumi? The face that looked back at him only seemed confused and slightly embarrassed.
The name didn't sound too strange, he supposed. He could go with it for now. If it was wrong and he was never found—well, he could always just adopt the name.
Tatsumi.
He shook his head and stood up, heading towards the door. Right on cue (or maybe just because he'd heard the creak of the floorboards upstairs) Shigeo shouted from downstairs: something about getting up faster and eating. The boy hollered a quick "Coming!" in response, and quickened his pace. Just as he reached the door frame, a thought came to him that stopped him in his tracks.
If he'd somehow remembered a scene from his past, then who was the girl?
After the seventh hour of waiting, even Akame was getting impatient.
Akame had hidden along the road around noon, fully expecting a passing cart to sneak aboard in less than two hours. The road was freshly scored with tracks that had evidently been left in the morning, and seemingly from more than one cart. Yet here she was hours later—bored, cramped, and sleepy—with no sign of any drivers approaching.
She cast another glance down the road: no luck. It was as empty and untravelled as ever.
Akame shifted her position again, making sure that she wouldn't be visible from the road. Soon, she wouldn't even have to worry about that; it was getting darker and darker. At this time of day, it was unlikely that any new travellers would risk going through the forest. It was looking increasingly likely that she would have to scrape together a shelter from the twigs and leaves around her and then bed down for the night.
Joy.
For a while, Akame tried distracting herself for a bit—making sure her traveling supplies were adequate, that she had enough rations. Then she stared at the ground again, listening intently for any sound at all. Still, all she heard was a faint rustling as the wind picked up its pace.
With nothing else to focus on, her mind flashed back (again) to the conversation that she'd had earlier with Najenda. Their last conversation.
For something so significant, it had started out rather uneventfully. Both of them knew that whatever they said would be the final things that they would remember of each other. Neither had been particularly eager to speak first, so they'd just sat and eaten their breakfast in silence. Even Emiko had been quiet, barely saying more than the occasional request for more breakfast.
Of course, eventually they'd gotten to talking. Akame hadn't even asked where she would be going before Najenda had slapped a collection of maps and papers in front of her and began talking. With that, the briefing for Night Raid's last mission began.
Apparently the group that had destroyed Emiko's village didn't have a single base, instead choosing regions to focus on. Sightings of the group's members would then be reported in towns across the region, suggesting that the group first sent out one-person parties to "scout" a town and its defenses, then regrouped at a given point and decided on a specific town to target together.
Most recently, several of the group's members had been sighted in a region near the western end of the Empire. Out of the towns where sightings had been reported, the closest to Akame's forest was a town called Umeura. This was where Akame was going. "The town's been called Godo-cho for a pretty long time—according to the registry, they only changed their name last year," Najenda had told her, "so make sure to ask for both names."
Still, getting anywhere near Umeura would take a long time.
"Closest" was only a relative term. The town was far away, very far. Considering that it had been the mysterious 'general-class boy' who had been sighted in the town, Akame couldn't afford to waste her strength going to Umeura on foot. She would have to find some transportation, most likely a horse-drawn cart.
Because she had assumed responsibility for nearly all of the Revolutionary Army's crimes, she couldn't openly obtain one; she would have to rent her own in disguise. However, any town she rented from would have to be fairly large, as a mysterious person walking in and renting a cart would attract unwanted attention unless she was one of many renters. Of course, the nearest such town was also over a day's walk from the forest. It would be more efficient to hitch a ride on one of the carts that travelled along a road that led to the town.
All fairly regular information.
The mission briefings during Night Raid's prime had usually been in even more detail, but knowledge about this group was minimal. "At the moment that was all they were known as: "the group." No other label existed. Even so, nothing there had been unusual; some groups simply didn't care for things as trivial as a name. It was what had come after that kept Akame's mind stuck there, even miles away from the place and after hours of waiting.
At the end of it all, they'd simply wished each other good luck. Then the pair had turned away, Akame alone, Najenda with Emiko. It hadn't been very eloquent or heartwarming, but that wasn't what either of them had wanted. As far as goodbyes went, theirs had been perfectly satisfactory.
Then Najenda had turned, and said one last thing.
"Oh, by the way, Akame...if it somehow is Tatsumi—"
What Akame had expected was a grim reminder that he would have to face justice regardless, or a warning to be careful, or really anything else—anything but what actually came out of Najenda's mouth.
"—I'm rooting for you two."
Najenda had walked away then, quietly saying something to Emiko as she led her away, but Akame had remained frozen in her tracks.
She was still frozen there mentally, even now. At every idle moment (and there had been a lot of those during her seven hour wait), her mind would slip back to the comment. Her monotonous surroundings weren't helping things much, but something told her that she would've been distracted no matter what happened.
By itself, the remark was nothing special. Most likely it was just an encouraging remark, an attempt at being upbeat or optimistic. But even if it was implying what Akame thought it was, it still wasn't anything special. Najenda had possessed a hidden love for teasing everyone in Night Raid. Lubbock would always get an earful when it came to his headphones, "Princess" Mine had been mocked for her choice in clothes, and even Bulat had gotten the occasional crack about his "egg roll" hair. It had never happened often, but somehow no one was surprised when it did. Next to all that, this was nothing.
No, Najenda hadn't meant anything by the comment. Akame knew that she was overanalyzing this. She knew exactly why, too, even if she refused to think about it. Ever since the possibility had arisen—as slight as it was—that Tatsumi was alive, her thoughts had started rushing in one direction. Najenda's remark had really only highlighted just how big the problem was, because of course it was a problem.
She couldn't approach a dangerous killer with this kind of mindset. It wouldn't be good to have delusions about him being a long-dead friend, or to think of the idea with—well—other feelings. It was distracting her, and not in a good way. But still, some corner of her mind whispered, if—
At that moment, Akame realized that she was no longer alone.
A series of squeaking and groaning had slowly been getting louder, belonging, she realized, to the wheels of a cart. The sounds only got closer. She hadn't even heard them until now, when they were only a couple dozen feet away. You're slipping, she told herself furiously, and then she flattened herself into the thicket, made sure her traveling pack was nearby, and focused on the approaching cart.
The thing had lanterns attached to both ends, with a haphazard mess of metal wire and string. They were hardly enough to highlight her presence, but the long shadows cast by their dim orange glow would make it obvious to the driver that an intruder was moving near the cart. While this probably wouldn't be a bad thing—there was only one person driving—she wanted to avoid killing anyone, at least for today.
This would be the last cart. There would only be one shot at this.
With another set of squeaks and groans, the cart was in front of her. A few seconds later it had creaked past. As soon as she was certain that the driver wouldn't be able to see anything, Akame hurried out of the leaves. The cart approached a hole in the road; it jarred violently as it passed over. At the same instant Akame leapt and landed on the back of the cart. No cries of surprise sounded; the cart righted itself and rolled on without stopping.
Akame perched herself on the back of the cart, and then waited for the cart to reach its destination.
She was one step closer to Umeura.
A steaming bowl of rice and vegetables was waiting for Tatsumi when he finally got downstairs. Neither Shigeo or his wife were in sight, though they were probably outside. The door of the house was hanging open, letting in sunlight and a faint breeze.
Tatsumi sat down at the table anyways, and began to eat. As he spooned the first clump of food into his mouth, he began to consider what to tell Shigeo when he saw him again.
Would it be a good idea to tell him about his new name? Most likely the man would dismiss the idea of a dream "memory" as complete nonsense. Still, even if he was a bit hesitant about taking the dream as reality, the name would be a great alternative to "buddy" or "kid". There wasn't any reason why Shigeo would react negatively as long as Tatsumi didn't mention a mysterious dream.
Tatsumi. It would take him a while to get used to the name, especially since there was no guarantee that it really belonged to him.
A pair of footsteps sounded near the door. "You done with your lunch yet?" Shigeo's voice asked.
Tatsumi shovelled the rest of the bowl's contents into his mouth, then stood up. "Yerp," he said, chewing quickly.
Shigeo eyed him for a moment. "A 'no' would've been fine too," he said, then shook his head. "Anyways, since you're done, get over here. You're going into town with me today."
"I thought you said no one would recognize me there."
"Well, it's better than wasting time lolling around in my bedroom, isn't it? Besides, there's something that I've thought of." Shigeo jerked a thumb towards the door. "Now come on. You're gonna help me attach the cart to the horses."
A short while later the cart was rattling down the road away from Shigeo's farm. Looking back, Tatsumi could distantly see a figure waving goodbye: probably Shigeo's wife. He gave a short wave in response, then turned back to face the road.
Someone had known him like that too; Tatsumi was sure of it. He stared at the ground, watching the stones beneath pass by. Where were they now? Could they be looking for him? Or had they been the person who had left him on a country road in the middle of nowhere?
"Hey." Shigeo gave him a little nudge. "Don't look so glum—who knows? I'll bet someone out there's looking for you too."
Tatsumi sighed. "Maybe."
Still, the old guy was right. Moping and longing for some faceless past wouldn't bring him any closer to rediscovering it. Besides, there was still some hope. He wasn't completely blank; some fragments of memory still existed, like that mysterious stone building, and—
He jolted upright in his seat. "My name," he whispered to himself.
"Eh?"
"My name," Tatsumi said again. He turned to face Shigeo. "I think I've remembered my name."
"Really?" A wrinkled smile appeared on Shigeo's face. "There you go! Only one day, and you're already remembering. Well, don't keep this old man waiting. What is it? Haruto? Ryo? Oba—"
"Tatsumi."
He had expected some more expressions of joy from the old farmer, or some teasing about the quality of the name. What he hadn't expected was for Shigeo's face to turn blank with astonishment, followed by a set of narrowed eyes.
"Really." Shigeo's voice was flat.
"What's wrong?" Tatsumi was sure that his complete confusion was present on his face. It was a good thing that he'd remembered his name, wasn't it? The man's expression had said so a moment before—though now it seemed to give a very different message.
Shigeo blinked. The smile reappeared, though something about his face still seemed...off. "It's nothing," he said. "Just..." He blinked again and shook his head. "No, that's great. Anything else you've remembered?"
Tatsumi opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Would it be a good idea to tell him about anything else? Just telling Shigeo his name had already seemed to disturb the man greatly. Tatsumi had been hesitant to tell him about the dream and the red-eyed girl in it, but now it seemed downright unwise to mention either.
"No," he said. "Nothing."
Shigeo looked at him for a few moments before finally muttering an "Alright" and shaking his head again, then turning his head back to the road.
For a while they just sat in silence, aside from Shigeo's occasional commands to the horses. Conversation with Shigeo wasn't a very attractive option to Tatsumi at the moment, so he looked at the landscape that they were passing instead.
Mostly, they passed by small groves of trees or thickets. Every so often the cart would pass near a fellow farmer's field, and Tatsumi would see small figures bent over in the fields. Still, the cart rattled on, and after what felt like an endless cycle of the same sights, Tatsumi's mind began to wander towards other things.
That girl, for instance.
If Shigeo had known that she'd been in his dream—or memory, whatever the heck it was—Tatsumi had no doubt that some crack about "young guys and their hormones" would have followed. As it was, he had trouble believing that his mind hadn't just made her up. Everything about the girl seemed unreal. Sure, her choice of dress was odd (Tatsumi was pretty sure that most people didn't wear sleeveless minidresses and ties), but it had been the girl herself, not her clothes.
Even from the little he had seen of her, he had already sensed a fearless ease that was present in her step and her speech. She'd seemed incredibly aware of her surroundings, down to the smallest details. That she'd passed by his hiding spot seemed more a choice on her part than really any matter of skill on his.
And, of course—even if Tatsumi really didn't want to admit it to himself—she'd been unbelievably pretty, with eyes that almost seemed to glow. Really, she was beginning to sound more like a character from a folktale that parents told their children to get them in bed. In fact...
"We're almost there."
Shigeo was pointing at something in the distance. Tatsumi followed his finger to see a distant clump of houses and buildings.
"That's the town you're taking me to?"
"Yep." The man had a slight smile on his face. "That right there's Godo-cho—hey! What're you smirking about?" he said, glaring at Tatsumi.
"Godo-cho?" Tatsumi felt the smirk on his face widen even more, but he didn't bother to hide it. "What kind of a name is that?"
Shigeo gave an indignant sniff. "Well, here I was thinking you had good taste. You even complimented Matome's soup last night—"
"That was food!"
"Godo-cho's a perfectly good name," Shigeo said. "You'll see that everyone in town agrees with me. Just a bit further now…"
At this distance, Tatsumi could see individual signs and houses. AUTHENTIC DANGER BEAST MEAT, one sign proclaimed. HIBIKI AND SONS: GODO-CHO'S FAVORITE SWORDSMITHS, said another. The town certainly seemed lively enough; as the cart drew even closer, Tatsumi could see what looked like a crowd of people gathered around a small stand near the town's main gate. He could even smell something roasting nearby—presumably the "authentic Danger Beast meat".
"Nice, isn't it?"
Before Tatsumi could answer a shout came from the crowd, and soon a whole array of faces was looking in their direction. One man came running over with something in his hand—a sheet of paper, Tatsumi realized—and stopped next to Shigeo.
"Hey," the man said, thrusting the sheet of paper at Shigeo's face. "You want to sign this?"
In answer, Shigeo swatted the piece of paper out of the man's hand. "Get that out of my face," he growled. "I've got serious business today and you already know how I feel about your little petition!"
"But—"
"No buts!" Shigeo cracked his whip at the horses. "Godo-cho's staying Godo-cho as long as I've got something to say about it!" he yelled over his shoulder, as the cart rattled away from the staring man. "Jeez." He turned back in his seat and shot a dour look at Tatsumi. "Not a single person with any taste, I swear…"
"What was that, anyways?" Tatsumi took a quick glance back; the crowd of people seemed to have clustered around the stand again. A few faces were still looking in the direction of the cart.
Shigeo muttered something under his breath.
"What?"
"...I said, some folks want to change Godo-cho's name to—Oomoora or something, who knows—"
"Just some, huh." Privately, Tatsumi thought that it seemed that the entire town was clustered around the little wooden stand, though he wasn't about to risk mentioning it. Besides, the name change and the town weren't his problem. He was here to find out more about his past. Speaking of which…
"Where exactly are you taking me?" Tatsumi asked.
"—I mean, honestly...what kind of a name is—oh. Right." Shigeo paused, then pointed down the street in the direction of a small wooden building. Something was written on a set of boards posted above it, but so much dirt and grime was caked over it that the makeshift sign was unreadable. "We're going there," he said. "The guy in there used to be the tax collector here for the Capital, but after the Revolution...well." He cast a sideways look at Tatsumi. "He's been a bit down on his luck."
After the Revolution…
Something about the word pulled at Tatsumi mentally, but he shook it off. "And you think this man can help me?" he asked aloud. Questions about this "Revolution" could come later, after he had found out more about himself.
"I don't know if he can help you, exactly," Shigeo said, "but he's your best shot around here. He used to have a whole book of records on everyone within ten miles of this place, so I'm hoping we'll find something. Besides"—Shigeo gave a small smile—"we won't know unless we try, eh?"
The midnight hours in Jikamori were always the slowest.
With a short sigh, the clerk leaned back in his chair and dug at his fingernails, staring absently at the doorway. Of course, there was nothing to see outside. There never was.
Besides, who would want to rent a cart at this hour? Almost the entire town was dark by now. The only light in the town wafted from a nearby bar, along with faint sounds of laughter and jeering. Most likely nobody would even notice if he went for a quick drink and chat at the place.
Still, the clerk remained in his worn old chair. He wasn't about to lose this job now, not when he'd worked so hard to get hired. There was still a chance that someone would notice, or that one of the bar's other members would chat about his unauthorized visit to the wrong people.
But God, this was so boring!
A faint sound came to his ears, something that resembled a faint clattering. Maybe one of the patrons in the bar had done something stupid, getting applause from the others. Maybe someone had dropped a bottle somewhere. Maybe. It didn't matter; he was stuck here.
The clattering got louder. It was several seconds before he realized that the sound was, in fact, the clattering of cart wheels on the cobblestones. The clerk looked up just in time to see an odd-looking thing with lanterns attached to both its front and back totter past the doorway.
When it had fully passed, there was a cloaked figure standing in what had only been an empty doorway moments before. For a moment its hood shifted up slightly, and the clerk caught the glint of red, red eyes.
He swallowed loudly and put on a wobbly smile.
"Iwa..Iwataka Cart Rental Services. How may I help you?"
Sorry for the wait, as usual...
I've tried to keep the production time for each chapter down to about one month per release, but I'm afraid that that time will have to go up to two or even three months since courses have started for me.
As always, thank you all for the wonderful favorites, follows, and reviews. They motivate me to sit down at the end of a long day and get these chapters out!
(Plot's about to start, I swear.)
